Get Out Your Guitar Day

What the day is

Get Out Your Guitar Day is observed on February 11. An enormous number of households contain a guitar that is not played, which is the situation the day addresses.

Origin and background

The origin of the observance is not documented. The abandonment pattern is well known to anyone who teaches.

Beginners almost always stop at the same place, and it is physical rather than musical. Pressing steel strings against a fretboard hurts until the fingertips toughen, which takes a few weeks of regular contact, and the barre chord, where one finger holds down every string at once, is the specific wall. It demands hand strength that has not developed yet, sounds buzzy and dead while it is developing, and arrives in most teaching sequences just as initial enthusiasm is fading. Players who get past it generally continue; players who meet it at the wrong moment put the guitar away.

Several practical things reduce the barrier. Lighter gauge strings need less force. A guitar set up properly, with the string height lowered at the nut and bridge, can be dramatically easier to play, and most cheap instruments leave the factory needing exactly that adjustment. People frequently conclude they lack aptitude when what they have is a badly set up instrument.

The nylon-strung classical guitar is gentler on fingers and is a reasonable starting point for adults who want to play at all rather than play a specific style.

On practice, short and frequent beats long and occasional. Distributed practice consistently outperforms massed practice for motor skills, so fifteen minutes daily does more than two hours on Sunday.

How to take part

• Take it out, restring it and tune it. Old dead strings make everything sound wrong.
• Pay for a professional setup once. It is cheap and transforms a difficult guitar.
• Try lighter strings if fretting hurts.
• Practice fifteen minutes a day rather than saving it for the weekend.
• Learn a song you actually want to play rather than working through exercises.