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Beginner Guitar Lesson – How to Turn Guitar Playing into a Career

By Mike Hayes | April 5, 2009

Guitar playing and music have been very good to me. And when you
do it right, it can be very good for you too.

I started out playing guitar for my own enjoyment playing
in bands at parties, weddings and dances … little did I know where
all this was taking me.

Thirty nine years latter I’m still playing guitar for my own
enjoyment (and enjoying it more than ever), playing and recording
at some of the best recording studios in the world.

Along the way I’m picked up some clues that made all the
difference to my professional guitar playing career.

Fortunately, I discovered a number of concepts about the guitar,
music and the music industry early in my guitar playing days,
these concepts will help you make massive shortcuts in
playing the guitar as a career.

Here they are …

To skyrocket your guitar playing and your career it’s essential
that you understand there’s three levels of guitar playing.

1. The non-professional guitarist
2. Semi-professional guitarist
3. Professional guitarist

Here’s a brief overview of each category:

The non-professional may play as well as the professional, it
simply means that a player in this category does not accept any
money for their performance.

In some ways the non-professional guitarist has a distinct
advantage over the professional and semi-professional players.
Because they do not play for money they are free to select where, when and for whom they will play.

Essentially, non-professional players are free to play whatever
that want and this helps keep their music making ventures fun and
fresh.

The semi-professional on the other hand does accept payment for
their playing however guitar playing would not be their primary
source of income.

Often guitarists in this category are involved in weekend gigs
i.e., weddings, socials and dances.

Semi-professional players usually have bookings they can rely on
such as New Year’s eve and birthday celebrations usually booked
twelve months in advance, however on average 70% or more of
their regular monthly income comes from outside of their music
performances.

The professional guitarist derives all of their income from
offering their musical skills.

As you can see the various labels have absolutely nothing to do
with the musical quality of the guitarist the categories simply
identify how the performer derives their income.

The neat thing about being aware of the three levels of guitar
playing is that you can (a) decide which category you are in now and (b)
determine which category you want to be in at a latter date.

And oh, by the way, there will be those that try to come up with
multiple reasons why this does not work and therefore you should
not do it. They are wrong.

Just give them permission to think that way. Your job is to keep
practicing and concentrating on your career goals by playing more
and more guitar.

I invite you to use these tips and tools when you play the
guitar.

And now I’d like to invite you to get free access to my “How To
Remember 1,000 Songs” eCourse. You can download the course for
free at: http://www.guitarcoaching.com

From Mike Hayes – The Guitar Coaching Guy & the Express Guitar
System

http://www.GuitarCoaching.com
http://AdvancingGuitaristProgram.com

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