Learning To Play Guitar

With chicks??

 

DaRizzle, Where the fuck have you been, bro?

 

Yeah, but rufies are illegal.

 

Never. I've rarely stooped to incorporate external influences...other than occasionally alcohol back in my BC years.

 

Having played for over 40 years and studied with many of the most accomplished guitarists in the world, my advice to beginners is blisters are over-rated.

If it hurts you'll play less and learn much slower or quit altogether. Your fingers will develop strength through repetition if you play regularly.

For an acoustic your best bet is buy from a music store like Portland Music or Guitar Center where they will have the action already set up nicely. There are a myriad of flaws in the typical used acoustic that a beginner would not notice until too late. For economy models I like Epiphone, Takamine and Yamaha. They are well-built and will last you a lifetime. Your hand size is important to what type of neck you choose, and if a guitar feels fat or awkward to your grip do not buy it.

For electric and super-easy action, you can pick up a Fender Squire Strat with a practice amp for $200 or less at Costco or any music store. Lots of these for sale used also but at that price why buy used? The older Squires made in Korea seem to be better than the newer ones made in Mexico.

When practicing ALWAYS play super slow and cleanly, without mistakes. The biggest mistake made is trying to play faster than you can cleanly. You learn what you practice and if you practice sloppy you will play sloppy. Speed will come to you quicker from playing slowly. Like Denny said, learn in small chunks at a time. A new chord, then another, then learn to move smoothly and cleanly from one to another. Learn new songs one or two bars at a time.

 

I've been playing for the better part of 5 years, and at least for me, it was definitely monotonous when I first started.

When you first start playing guitar, you HAVE to have patience, that's really the big thing. It takes a while to start getting anything remotely close to good. Like I said, I've been playing for nearly 5 years, and I'm still nowhere near where I want to be skill-wise.

The other thing I'd recommend is to not waste your time with instructional books. I got those initially, but they're only good to teach you basic chords and notes, and these are all things you can learn from resources online. One of my favorite sites for those is going to be www.cyberfret.com. It has a bunch of online lessons, scales, etc., to help ease things along.

The other thing that I'd recommend is to start learning off some easier tabs (i.e. songs like Good Riddance (or anything by Green Day), Smoke on the Water, etc.). Doing that also helps you learn some chords, as well as some chord progressions, which you can use to start writing your own music once you're able to build off those chord progressions.

Lastly, I'd recommend to NOT toil around with alternate tunings until you've got a solid grip on standard tuning. There's no need to make things more complex until you've got a good grip on the one that you're going to learn a good chunk how to play guitar in.

 

I e-mailed him this morning. As of yet, he hasn't gotten back to me. He's probably out with a bunch of wild ones.............

 

Dunno...being lame...this regular season has sucked....Congrats on Wes matthews blowing up

 

Hmm....perhaps, I'll go down this path. They're right down the road from my place of employment.

http://portlandclassicguitar.com/lessons.html

Does $30 per 1/2 hour ($120 per month) seem reasonable? I see people are learning classical guitar there. Is that a good way to break-in to learning to play the instrument?

 

Lessons are fine and all, but I'd wait before starting them, otherwise you're going to be paying someone to teach you basic chords, how to strum properly, etc., and you can learn all that for much cheaper using either books or online resources.

 

good technique is VERY important....gotta have good technique to progress in the future

 

ive played for about 20yrs and most of the basics have been discussed already.

1. get a cheapie to start, a lot of people dont go thru with it and can be a waste of $ to deepend straight away. also, then if you do stick with it, the upgrade is going to feel AMAZING!
2. if there are some free classes to teach you some of the essentials, ie tuning, fretboard layout, scales, even alternative tunings - go check em out.
3. play some things you recognise and like - the buzz of being able to hear yourself play something that sounds right and that you dig goes a loooong way to keeping your attention.
4. practice to get your finger strength up.
5. hit up ultimate-guitar.com and check some tabs of classic songs out. just about everyone has rocked smoke on the water, smells like teen spirit and sunshine of your love - it's part of the institution

 

I'm well aware, but you can learn good technique on your own, I find no point in paying $30 for half an hour of lessons to be taught something that is easily learned by repetition and practice on your own.

Don't get me wrong, lessons are a great thing, but I find no point in taking them until you've got a basic understanding of the guitar.

 

Group class....very good idea. Cheap and you will get the basics.

Check the local community college, they offer beginning guitar classes usually

 

so what gear is everyone rocking?

 

I currently have a Ibanez ART2EX1, that I love given that it wasn't a huge price tag for how good of a guitar it has been for me. I have a crappy Line 6 amp that I'm going to get rid of for some type of tube amp next year (I've got my eye on a nice Fender one at Guitar Center), and then I have a few pedals - the Jekyll and Hyde distortion pedal, the Boss DD-7 Delay pedal, the Way Huge WHE401 Swollen Pickle for fuzz, and then a Morley Bad Horsee II for my wah. I also have a Digitech RP355 multi-effects pedal which I no longer use since I have the other pedals that sound exponentially better.

 

Classical guitar is a whole different beast with a whole different way of playing. Unless you want to specialize in only classical music I'd stay away from that until you're very comfortable with playing.

 

To further what he said, classical guitar is basically all about finger picking, and it can be a giant pain in the ass to learn how to play. If that's what you're looking to do, go for it, but otherwise, I'd stray away from it if you're looking to play more modern stuff.