Learning
How long does it take to learn guitar?
Learning guitar takes about 20 hours of practice to play your first chords, 100 to 150 hours to play simple songs from start to finish, and 1,000 hours or more to reach an intermediate level. At half an hour a day, that is about 6 weeks, 7 to 10 months, and 5.5 years or more. These are guitar teachers’ estimates, because guitar has no official figure.
Last updated
Reviewed by Mohammed Raqeeb
At your pace
How long does guitar take at 30 minutes or 1 hour a day?
Guitar takes about 7 to 10 months at 30 minutes a day before you can play simple songs from start to finish, by two guitar teachers’ estimates. At one hour a day it takes half as long. The table shows four stages and the hours of practice the teachers give for each one.
The sum is one you can check. Hours of practice, divided by the hours you play in a day, gives the days. 20 hours at half an hour a day is 40 days.
| Stage | Hours | At 30 minutes a day | At 1 hour a day |
|---|---|---|---|
| First chords | 20 | 40 days | 20 days |
| First songs | 100 to 150 | 7 to 10 months | 3 to 5 months |
| Steady rhythm | 625 | 3.4 years | 1.7 years |
| Intermediate | 1,000 to 1,250 | 5.5 to 6.8 years | 2.7 to 3.4 years |
Try it
When would you reach each stage?
Your own week is probably not half an hour every day. Set your own minutes and days. The planner shows the date you would reach each stage’s hours if you start today.
That is 3h 30m of guitar a week.
If you start today
How long after your first practice day you would reach each stage’s hours of practice.
First chords
20 hours: 40 practice days
after 39 days
First songs
100 to 150 hours: 200 to 300 practice days
after about 7 months to about 10 months
Steady rhythm
625 hours: 1,250 practice days
after about 3.4 years
Intermediate
1,000 to 1,250 hours: 2,000 to 2,500 practice days
after about 5.5 years to about 6.8 years
30m of guitar a day, 7 days a week.
These dates count hours of practice, from two teachers’ estimates. They do not promise how well you will play. Nothing you enter leaves this page.
The source
Where do the guitar estimates come from?
The guitar estimates on this page come from two guitar teachers who publish their own. We found no study that measured how long guitar takes, so a teacher’s experience is what there is to go on.
The first is Allen Mathews, who teaches classical guitar at Classical Guitar Shed. The second is a teacher in Boston who runs the lesson site Hub Guitar. Here is whose estimate each stage is, and what you can play by then.
First chords: about 20 hours.
Mathews gives this figure. Your fingers start to do what you tell them. You know a few notes or chords, and maybe a simple tune.
First songs: 100 to 150 hours.
Mathews says that by 100 hours you know more chords and can learn whole pieces. Hub Guitar puts simple songs and one whole piece at 150 hours or a little more, with the rhythm still uneven in places.
Steady rhythm: about 625 hours.
Hub Guitar gives this figure. You can play chords in time through whole songs, and you can keep learning without help.
Intermediate: 1,000 to 1,250 hours.
Mathews puts this level at 1,000 hours, and Hub Guitar at 1,250. You work on harder pieces. Many players start to make up their own parts, record at home or write music.
Both teachers say their numbers are rough. Hub Guitar calls its own levels arbitrary. Mathews writes that 1,000 hours is 2.7 years at an hour every day, but that most people take 5 years or more.
The hours count only when you work on something new. Mathews gives an example: a player who learns three chords, and then plays three-chord songs for the next 100 hours, has not moved far. The page on the 10,000-hour rule explains this kind of practice.
The myth
Can you learn guitar in three months?
Three months at half an hour a day is enough practice for first chords and a start on simple songs, by the teachers’ estimates, but not for much more. Three months of 30 minutes a day is about 46 hours. That is past the 20 hours for first chords, and about halfway to the 100 hours where whole songs begin.
More days add up to more hours than one long session. Half an hour on all seven days is 3.5 hours a week. Two hours every Saturday is two hours a week. The page on the power of consistency shows the same sum over a year.
Piano
How long does it take to learn piano?
Learning piano to an intermediate level takes about five years of regular practice. That is the estimate of the writer of one survey of people who play. Pianote, a company that sells piano lessons, asked 1,159 players how long they had played (Pianote’s survey of pianists, 2023). Intermediate meant playing well enough that other people see you as someone who knows what they are doing.
Of the players who put themselves at that level, 41% had played for one to three years, and 34% for four to ten years. The survey’s writer would allow about five years. Nearly half of those players practiced for 15 to 45 minutes a day.
The survey counted years and not hours, and each player judged their own level, so it is a rough guide too.
The test
How do you know you are getting better at guitar?
The test
You practiced on at least five days of the week, and you can play something you could not play a month ago
Checked for four weeks in a row.
Guitar practice is easy to overcount. A week with two good sessions can feel like a week of daily practice.
A good way to check is to count your practice minutes from what you write or say about your day. Then there is nothing to switch on before you pick up the guitar. Most journaling apps only ask how your day felt. They do not show how many hours of guitar you played this week.
One app built for this is Think in Numbers, a smart journaling app with time tracking built in.
You write or say your day in your own words, as it happens or all at once. The app reads what you wrote and counts the hours that went to each part of it: your guitar practice, work, sleep, your phone, and the time you never mentioned (shown as unaccounted). Then it shows those hours over days and weeks. So you can see how many hours of guitar you really played each week. Add guitar as a habit for five days a week, with a reminder. When your day shows you played, the app ticks it off and your streak goes on.
1. You write your day
2. It counts the hours
- Guitar0m
- Work0m
- Sleep0m
- Unaccounted24h
3. It shows your week
Guitar this week: 0m
On 6 of 7 days. The gap is the day without it.
An example day and week.
For iPhone and Android. Try it on your own day before you pay.
Sources
Where the numbers come from.
Every figure on this page that is not a plain sum comes from one of the three pages below. We read each one in full. None of them is a scientific study.
- Mathews, A. (2023). How Long Does it Take to Learn Guitar? And How to Go Further Faster. Classical Guitar Shed.
- Hub Guitar (hubguitar.com) (read ). How Long Does It Take To Learn Guitar?
- Li, C. (2023). How Long Does It Take to Learn Piano? We Asked 1000+ Pianists. Pianote (The Note), August 27.
Keep reading.
- LearnAnswers about sleep, habits, study, people and work, in hours.
- The 10,000-hour ruleWhat the rule says, whether it is true, and how many years 10,000 hours is at your pace.
- How long to learn a languageHours by language, and what they mean at your pace.
- The power of consistencyWhy thirty minutes a day for a year beats one long session, what it does in your brain, and how to stay consistent.
- Where did my week go? calculatorEnter a typical day and see your week accounted and unaccounted.
- Time journalingThe method: write or say your day in your own words, then see it as hours.
Questions
Questions people ask.
Is 30 minutes of guitar practice a day enough?
Thirty minutes a day is enough to keep moving forward. In 10 months it adds up to about 150 hours, which is what one guitar teacher gives for playing simple songs from start to finish.
How many hours does it take to get good at guitar?
An intermediate level takes about 1,000 to 1,250 hours of practice, going by two guitar teachers’ estimates. At one hour a day that is about 2.7 to 3.4 years.
How long does it take to learn piano?
Piano takes about five years of regular practice to reach an intermediate level. That is the estimate of the writer of one survey of 1,159 players. Of those who called themselves intermediate, 41% had played for one to three years and 34% for four to ten.
What app can I use to track my guitar practice?
A wall calendar does the job: write down the minutes you played on each day, and total them every Sunday. If you prefer an app, choose one that works out the time from what you write about your day anyway. One app built for this is Think in Numbers, a smart journaling app with time tracking built in. Think in Numbers reads what you write or say about your day and adds up your hours of guitar for each week. In the app, those practice days can be a habit, ticked off from what you write about your day.
Try it on my day.
Write today down in your own words, and see where the hours went.
For iPhone and Android. Try it on your own day before you pay.