Learning Guitar

[epp_b]

I took beginner lessons at school in grade six. After that, I continued to play and just taught myself using a sheet with a wack-load of chord tabs.

If your dad had a "classical" guitar, one with a wide fret board and nylon strings, I'd recommend starting with that.

Absolutely. Nylon-stringed guitars are very easy to play without having to wait for callouses to develop.

[Blind_Io]

I will start with the Alvarez for that reason. I hope to eventually play the Martins with their steel strings.

[BlaRo]

As long as you learn some HEAVY music, not any of that whiny simpering "indie" bullshit written by ironically trendy unshaven skinny douchebags in their grandfathers' tight clothes croning about useless stuff they thought of while they were stoned off their ass. No, seriously, fuck you Max Bemis, and you sucked at Juice Jam.


I ain't playin' no surf music, I'm gonna play some HEAVY music. I'm gonna play it bad, I'm gonna play it loud...it's gonna sound like, it's gonna sound like...

+ YouTube Video

[Blind_Io]

^ I'm not that interested in metal or indie music. I'm actually more interested in classic rock and some folk. I want to be able to play a few of the really classic folk songs and maybe some traditional Irish pub songs. All the guitars are acoustic anyway, that's kind of what they were made for.

[Crazyjeeper]

I know I'm going to get crap to for suggesting this, but learning stairway is good practice for getting your hand into shape.

[Blind_Io]

"No Stairway! Denied!"

I'll keep that in mind. I think I need to find a song I like and I know and learn on that - something with a basic 3 chord structure.

[BlaRo]

Originally Posted by Blind_Io

^ I'm not that interested in metal or indie music. I'm actually more interested in classic rock and some folk. I want to be able to play a few of the really classic folk songs and maybe some traditional Irish pub songs. All the guitars are acoustic anyway, that's kind of what they were made for.

Classic rock's a step in the right direction from that crap everybody around me listens to that passes for "rock". (And BOC is classic rock these days anyway.)

I played Led Zeppelin, Metallica, and obscure Pink Floyd material on my acoustic for a year before I was able to get my electric. Besides the irony of cranking out Slayer "Raining Blood" on my $179 starter Yamaha acoustic, you can learn a lot regarding fingering positions and picking techniques from Hendrix & Co.


And no, Stairway deserves respect, dammit. The ghost of John Bonham is not one to be trifled with.

[Blind_Io]

I have respect for Stairway, it's just that every time I hear someone mention it or start to play the first few licks I have that scene from Wayne's World pop in my head.

I guess that kind of dates me these days.

EDIT: For those who don't remember, or were too young to have seen it, this is the scene:

+ YouTube Video

[jensked]

Hello Blind_Io

Let me start by saying how sorry I am to hear about your father.

I can understand why you want to learn to play the guitar. That being said, I must say I have known several people who tried to learn to play an instrument at a certain age. It's possible, but only if you dedicate several years to it. And you must accept you will never have the same "musical feeling" as people who start early in life. I don't say that to disencourage you, just to set the expectations right.

That being said, I do hope you'll stick to playing. Those people I know that started to play when they were older, well, they're the most passionate about it

I started to play the guitar by just sitting next to the cd player and try to play the melody on one string. The finger setting for chords is not difficulty (barré chords are more challenging), but I think you will have more difficulties with the strumming hand.
For me it didn't take too long because i already was an accomplished piano player ()

So you do you want to strum and sing? Most difficult there is to strum on the rythm (sp?) and sing at the same time without loosing drive.

Keep us informed about your progress, those are some fine guitars.

[cvrefugee]

CCR songs are pretty easy to play and they still sound cool too!

[jeffy777]

+1 for http://ultimate-guitar.com/

Great to hear you're going to start playing!

And don't worry about learning to read music. I've been playing guitar for over 10 years and can't read music, nor have I ever taken a lesson, yet I can play songs such as "Stairway to Heaven" (ok, not the full solo, hehe...but I could if I put the time into it).All you really need to know is how to read TABs, and they are really easy to read.

I have a friend who started taking lessons and was trying to learn to read music, but she got so discouraged with the technicality of it that she quit. I think if she just would have started with more basic tabs, she would've had a much more enjoyable experience.

Basically, you can play any song just by looking at the tabs (as long as your fingers can follow along that is).

And you really don't need a book. There are loads of good free tabs online, and articles that teach you how to read them.

Here are a few lessons on reading tabs to get you started:

http://www.ultimate-guitar.com/lesso...lature_ii.html
http://www.howtotuneaguitar.org/less...ad-guitar-tab/

And once you get the basics down, there is some really sweet software called Guitar Pro that let's you import songs that people have saved in a certain format. When you load the song, the tab scrolls along and the song plays along with it, so it's a really cool way to not only read the tab, but to hear it in action

You can check out the software here:
http://www.guitar-pro.com/en/index.php

The cool thing is that ultimate-guitar.com has many songs in Guitar Pro format, so you can get a good collection there.

If you have any questions on any of this, just give me a holler

[powah]

^ Ultimate-Guitar.com and Guitar Pro are excellent. I use them mostly to get tabs of songs that i'm not too sure about, but most of the time I can just listen to a song and then work it out by myself

[cdbob]

Learn how to read music, there are tons of fake books out there with songs in them. Also learn more then one style of music, just because it will make you a lot better player then learning just one, also try some jazz after you've played for a bit, its good for harmonic knowledge and the ability to solo.

Start with scales and then advance into songs, dexterity is key to playing and instrument, so make sure you can play all your major and minor scales before you get into chords or you won't understand chord structure as well.

Which is also a good reason to study a bit of musical theory to know how the notes played in the tab relate to the chord.

[KaJuN]

One thing that seems to help me is to resist the urge to play a song exactly the way I hear it. If I try to imitate someone else's style I usually end up sounding pretty badly. But when I add my own little touches to it I think it sounds a lot better and it seems easier to play. Music isn't written in stone after all.

Originally Posted by cvrefugee

CCR songs are pretty easy to play and they still sound cool too!

I just recently rediscovered them and I can't figure out why they went missing from my music collection for so long.

[jeffy777]

Originally Posted by KaJuN

One thing that seems to help me is to resist the urge to play a song exactly the way I hear it. If I try to imitate someone else's style I usually end up sounding pretty badly. But when I add my own little touches to it I think it sounds a lot better and it seems easier to play. Music isn't written in stone after all.

That is really good advice. A person can go nuts trying to play an exact replication of a song. It's best to add your own flavor and have some fun with it

[smib]

You guys are giving some very helpful input, which is good not just for Blind but for me as well. I am really starting to consider learning to play guitar. I've wanted to be able to play for a long time but have never gone through with it, but now I think I will. The only difference with me is that I want to start off with electric. I know that many will say it's much more beneficial to learn on acoustic and then move onto electric if I want, but between others having to hear me learn to play and the fact that at this point I really have no interest in acoustic, I want to start electric. Now I don't want to hijack Blind's thread, but since there are some knowledgeable people here I would like some input on where to start with electric. Basically where I can get a decent guitar to learn on for about as little money as possible. Money is very very tight, but I don't want to that keep stopping me from giving this a shot.