Become a pro guitarist

So you want to become a professional guitarist?

From my experience and doing lots of research, over 75% of people could become a professional guitarist, with a bit of motivation.

The start
So what you want to do is, check out ebay or any other guitar shop online (tends to be cheaper than retail stores), then find yourself a nice little guitar for about $120, I recommend an acoustic guitar. Buy it obviously.

Depending on what type of music you're into, you'll want to play that certain style. I can only go from experience so, I am into punk and heavy metal so I learnt power chords when I first started playing. When you have picked up some chords, and know your way around the frets, and have learnt how to read tabular, simply go to a tab website and have a look around for songs you like, and try to learn them. Don't forget to learn everything you see on every guitar related website.

Once you're familar with a whole load of songs, maybe you can try writing your own music.

Practice makes perfect

Practice all the time! Every waking hour of the day, have that guitar in your hands. After a while your guitar will be so familar to you, it'll be apart of you. Practice everything. Practice songs over and over again. This way you hopefully won't mess up if your doing a live showcase or something like that. You should be practicing atleast a year before you even think about starting a band or playing a live show.

Make friends

You should be making friend with people who have the same goals as you. Go to local gigs, meet the band, have conversation with them, ask for tips. It's all about who you know. It helps if you know someone in the music industry, if they know you well, they might think your worth the risk of time and money. Know other local bands, they might know someone who is the music industry.

Myspace

I cannot stress how important this is. Make your myspace music page, upload some recordings, add loads of people. Get your music heard. Myspace is a godsend for countless independant artists. Use the most of the free features. You should then start to get a fan base, this will show people from the music industry that your music will sell. How do you think the Arctic Monkeys made it to the big time? They used myspace and made it work for them. A record company found there myspace page, seen there fan base, listened to there music and figured there music would sell. And oh boy did it sell, there no.1 hit I bet you look good on the dancefloor knocked the Sugababes from the no.1 spot in 2005.

Thank you to Thomas Dean