Ever wonder if there’s a deeper reason why playing guitar is so much fun?
Playing guitar is a great hobby because it offers a ton of benefits, particularly for your mental health and social life.
In this article, we’ll explore the 7 killer benefits that make playing guitar such a good hobby. Some of them may surprise you… Let’s get started
1. Guitar Boosts Brain Power
Playing an instrument can improve your brain power, concentration, and attention to detail. Playing guitar requires immense concentration in order to constantly improve, get better, and learn new techniques. Doing all these things increases your mental fortitude over time.
Because guitar requires you to focus on and learn several different things at once, it’s an excellent workout for not only your fingers, but your brain.
2. Guitar Improves Confidence
By developing skill at your new hobby, you’ll gain confidence that will overflow into the other areas of your life. By learning something challenging, you’ll have newfound belief that you can head into other new challenges in your life and perform just as well. Guitar is a good hobby because it provides a sense of accomplishment and satisfaction.
3. Guitar Is Attractive to the Opposite Sex
We all know that everyone goes crazy for musicians, right? But beyond that, nearly everyone loves music, making guitar a great way to round yourself out as a person. Interesting people have interests, skills, and hobbies. By getting good at guitar, you’ll be making yourself a more well rounded and interesting individual to all those around you.
4. Guitar Improves memory
Can guitar improve your memory? If you’ve ever tried to memorize song lyrics, guitar solos, or chords to a favorite song, then you already know the answer. By training yourself to remember these things, you’ll be improving your short and long term memory. Even The Telegraph recently reported: ‘new research suggests that regularly learning to play an instrument changes the shape and power of the brain.’
5. Guitar Relieves stress
Having a creative outlet does wonders for relieving stress and anxiety. Not only can you relieve these factors in your life, but you’ll be doing so in a healthy way that also carries all the other benefits noted in this list. By simply practicing your instrument, you become immersed in it, focusing your mind solely on that one thing. Many guitarists can attest that practicing transports you away from any other nagging problems and annoyances. Try it yourself and see!
6. Guitar Broadens Your Taste in Music
Many of my favorite songs, styles, and genres of music to play and listen to now were things I didn’t even know existed before I started playing guitar. When I started to learn the acoustic guitar, I immediately found the music of Tony Rice, Norman Blake, Billy Strings, and other flatpicking masters. But if it hadn’t been for my instrument, I don’t know if I’d have ever discovered some of this amazing music.
7. Guitar Helps You Make Friends
In my opinion, the closest friends you can make are the ones you have some common hobby, interest, or activity in common with. Thus, many of my friends are either into fishing, hiking, or music. Having a common pursuit helps cement friendships together much faster.
Guitar also helps socialize you. Joining a band, bluegrass circle, or just finding a fellow picker is a great way to meet new people who share a common interest. Then you’ll all be sharing all of these benefits together!
Ready to start learning guitar?
The best way to learn the guitar is with an experienced teacher.
To find the best guitar courses, with experts walking you through each step of the learning process, check out my recommended lessons, courses & teachers.
If you’re still looking for free guitar lesson resources, I’d recommend subscribing to some of the awesome acoustic guitar YouTube channels out there. The only trouble is – it can be hard to find the right channels, and to know who’s really putting out good information.
That’s why I wrote up a whole guide post on my 8 favorite YouTube channels for learning acoustic guitar.
If you really want to take things to the next level, though, you’ll get a lot more out of a paid guitar course / lesson platform than you will out of YouTube. That’s because these platform and lesson programs put everything you need in one place, and tell you exactly what order to learn things in.
If you’re looking for the best guitar courses, with experts walking you through each step of the learning process, check out my recommended lessons, courses & teachers.