Anyone who's played the guitar for a short time will know that trying to learn guitar quickly is difficult. Learning the guitar requires a lot of effort, time, and patience, so don't be surprised if it takes you a while to grasp even the basics!

However, you can learn to play the guitar quickly if you avoid some of the mistake that many beginner guitarists make:

Realistic Expectations

Work hard and practice often, but don't expect to get it straight away, or after set amount of time. Some things take much longer to learn than others (I spent a good 2 months learning how to do bar chords properly!), so keep you expectations low to avoid early disappointment.

Practice daily

You'll probably find when you start to learn the guitar that your fingers just won't stretch far enough to play certain chords! So, what do you do?

Fortunately, this happens to all beginner guitarists (well... except those with freakishly long fingers), all you need to do is practice, practice, and practice a bit more, and it'll get much easier.

Also, practicing daily helps to build your motor skills... skills which you learn and use every day, and so soon you'll be playing certain techniques without thinking about it!

Find the best way for you to learn

First of all, you need to decide whether you're going to go for a personal guitar tutor, or your going to buy a DVD/book and learn on your own. Both have their advantages and disadvantages.

Hiring a guitar tutor is probably the best way to go if you want to learn the guitar properly and easily, although it isn't necessarily the quickest way, and it's considerably more expensive. On average, a guitar lesson costs around $40, so you could spend a small fortune learning to play.

Buying a DVD or a book is much cheaper, and usually they contain targeted guitar lessons too, but then it's not as effective for learning guitar quickly, and you need to be sure that what you're buying is good to learn from.

Lots of my friends have gone for a course online called Jamorama which they've downloaded, and have learnt the material in around a week or two, which would have taken them months with a tutor. Personally, I love the course and recommend you check it out on my site - electric guitar lessons for beginners.

Want more tips on how you can learn guitar quickly? Check out my site on electric guitar for beginners for my advice on how you can get started.