What to Focus on in Your First 90 Days of Learning Guitar

You've got a little momentum going. You've worked through some basic material, maybe learned a riff or a chord or two, and things are starting to feel slightly less impossible. That's real progress, even if it doesn't feel dramatic yet.

But at some point in the first few weeks, a question starts nagging at you: am I actually working on the right stuff? That's a good question to be asking. Here's an honest answer.

The First 90 Days Have One Job

Your only goal in the first 90 days is to build consistent habits and a solid physical foundation. That's it. You're not trying to become a great guitarist yet — you're trying to become someone who plays guitar regularly and is building the right muscle memory to improve from.

This sounds underwhelming until you realize how many people skip it. They jump straight into hard songs, ignore technique, practice inconsistently, and then wonder why they plateau at month four. The first 90 days are what prevent that.

What Actually Belongs in Your Practice

Keep it simple. In the first 90 days, most of your practice time should go toward three things:

First, basic chord shapes and clean fretting. You don't need to know every chord — you need the ones you're working with to sound clean every time you play them. Buzzing and muted notes are a technique problem, not a finger strength problem. Fix the technique after getting the chord memorized and under your fingers.

Second, chord transitions. This is where most beginners lose time. You can play every chord perfectly when you stop between them — the work is in moving from one to the next without a gap. Practice the transitions more than the chords themselves.

Third, simple, complete songs. Not just pieces of songs. Pick something manageable and learn the whole thing, start to finish. Playing a complete song, even a simple one, builds a different kind of confidence than running drills.

How to Know If Your Practice Is Actually Working

Progress on guitar is slow enough that it's easy to feel like nothing is happening. Here's a more useful way to measure it: can you do something today that you couldn't do two weeks ago? It doesn't have to be big. A cleaner chord. A faster transition. A song you can play through without stopping.

If the answer is yes, you're progressing. If you honestly can't point to anything that's improved in two weeks, something about your practice routine needs to change — either what you're working on, how you're practicing it, or how consistently you're showing up.

A Clear Path Matters More Than Practicing Harder

The biggest trap in the first 90 days isn't laziness — it's practicing without direction. Putting in time feels productive even when you're spinning your wheels. What actually moves you forward is knowing what to work on, in what order, and why.

That's harder to build on your own than most people expect. If you're around Lafayette and want a clearer path forward, I offer a free intro session at Lafayette School of Guitar where we can talk through where you are and what makes sense for you next. No pressure, just a real conversation. Find out more at lafayetteschoolofguitar.com.

Joshua LeBlanc is a performer and guitar teacher based in Lafayette, Louisiana. Visit lafayetteschoolofguitar.com to learn more about guitar lessons in Lafayette.