text: does playing the guitar take a long time to learn? nothing better to do during summer, so im thinking about learning to play the guitar without a teacher. any guitar players willing to give tips at how to learn it fast? i suggest that you get hold of a guitar tutor book like "teach yourself the guitar" and work through the book fairly slowly. you will probably find that the fingers of your left hand will develop blisters from pressing on the frets, but with time these should disappear.   although you might want to learn fast it is better to try to build up your technique slowly and make sure that you are comfortable with one lesson before you move on to the next one. lots of people learn to strum a few chords on the guitar, but it takes time and effort to learn to play it really well.