I am considering starting to use my breaks to learn to play guitar. I know close to nothing about it.
What model should I buy? (I’m looking for something cheap.) Should I buy an electric or an acoustic? If I buy an electric, I also have to buy an amplifier, or?
Can’t really help you, but wanted to wish you luck. I had never in my life played any instrament, but got the bug to play the banjo. I started last summer and it’s pretty much part of my life now.
I have been thinking idly off and on about this myself. Keep us posted!
I do know from reading around that the two skills are different (acoustic vs. electric). Not that there isn’t a lot of cross over, obviously, but for example, Jack Black had a hard time at first playing e. guitar for School of Rock because he’s always been an acoustic player. He got over it, of course.
I’ve been thinking of the new game, Rocksmith…
Hey, that looks really cool.
I recommend this guy’s website. I’ve been taking personal lessons for a while, but this is the best I’ve found on the web if you don’t have a personal teacher. You can skip to his “songs” and “riffs” sections to get a feel for him. His accent is a bit thick, he’s from Fresno or Boise or something ;), but he’s very clear and methodical unlike many other youtube videos.
There are plenty of starter kits for under $150, like the Fender/Squier starter kit. It comes in both electric and acoustic flavors, and includes everything you’ll need and some extra crap you don’t.
Alternatively you can take $100 to any pawn shop and they’ll set you up, but take a friend who knows what they’re looking at.
As far as learning, what I did was buy a bunch of guitar magazines and learned by the tablature. I was learning current and well-known songs which made it easy since I knew what it was supposed to sound like, and it taught me a lot of basic and advanced techniques.
What kind(s) of music do you want to play? This can affect the type of guitar that would suit you best.
Are you interested in guitar mainly as a lead instrument, or mainly as an accompaniment to singing? This can affect the particular playing skills and styles you’d want to focus on.
I always recommend beginners start on an electric. You can string them with very light strings and they will take much less finger pressure to fret. It takes a while to build up callouses on your finger tips. Have whatever you select set up at a music shop for maximum ease of playing. Save the heavy gauge strings and higher action for after your fingers get toughened up. An unamplified electric is plenty loud that you can hear yourself play and you can get an amp later if you stick with it and start sounding good enough that you want other people to hear you.
Get a cheap electronic tuner. It makes learning so much easier.
The other school of thought is that you learn on an acoustic and by the time you switch to electric, it’s like buttah! Think of swinging two bats in the on-deck circle. When you get to the plate it’s easy swinging. Same same. You get to used to the bigger strings, the higher action and the greater spacing on the frets and then on an electric it all seems so much simpler.
Here’s the advice I always give beginning guitarists. Find other guitarists to play with. Guitar players love to show you what they know. I learned more about how to play guitar from just picking things up from random musicians than I ever did from any lessons (which I never took anyway … so I guess take that with a grain of salt).
Agreed on this.
I picked up the guitar 3 years ago, after taking lessons as a kid, 35 years ago, and never practicing. 
I got an Epiphone starter set (an inexpensive Les Paul electric guitar and an amp)…I went for an electric because I wanted to learn how to play classic rock.
While a starter set can be a good deal, see if you can get the store to open up the box, so you can try out the guitar (or, better yet, so you can have someone you trust who knows a bit about guitars try it out)…the guitar I got with my set had a problem with the low E string, and I was never happy with it. I wound up getting a new guitar 18 months later.
As River Hippie notes, you don’t technically need an amp to play an electric guitar (though it’ll sound a lot better with one). His suggestion of an electronic tuner is also an excellent one (though a lot of the starter sets come with them).
I’d also strongly suggest getting lessons at a local music store. While there are a ton of lessons you can take online or on DVD, I think there’s something to be said for getting actual interaction with a real person as you play, and a sense of accountability to your instructor which can help with keeping dedicated to practicing.
Lots of good points made above, although I lean towards starting on an acoustic myself (classical or steel-stringed though?) I particularly agree with Jack Batty’s point, play (guitar)with other people as much as you can.
The initial learning curve can be pretty brutal, it could take you quite a while to make any real progress. Once you can strum through a few songs you’ll start to pick things up a lot more quickly.
Variety’s good to, don’t just lock in on what you like, try and get some range to your playing. I started out in classical as a kid, and never use a pick, which is a bit of a shortcoming in my playing.
Hmm rock music. Mainly as lead instrument I guess.
I tried out a classical acoustic guitar today. It hurt my fingers a lot. He said that would go away quickly, but I thought it was pretty crazy.
Are you sure it was a classical guitar? That generally means nylon strings, not steel, which should be pretty easy on your fingers. Steel strings, especially the thick ones that acoustic guitars might use, are the opposite.
Oh, nylon strings can totally hurt your fingers when you first start out. I started playing about a year ago, with nylons, and my fingers were in constant pain for the first few weeks. I would keep them under running cold water just to ease the pain… and then go right back to playing for hours, because I’m insane. Then it just completely stopped hurting, and I was fine, just like that. It seemed to happen rather suddenly.
Another web site recommendation: Ultimate Guitar. About a gazillion pages of chords and tabs.
QFT. I also like the comment about just going ahead and buying a cheap little tuner – save a bunch of time. OP wouldn’t believe the difference in action without playing some of them. Not even a guitar player myself, but it’s for me the best instrument next to keys. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hT8dAeHe7Ow&feature=player_embedded#!
Just for getting started, get a nylon-stringed guitar [classical or flamenco won’t matter at this point]. Electric and Country (steel) strings will bite through virgin fingers like piano wire through a target’s neck – well, in fact it is a certain gauge of piano wire after all…
Once you’ve learned the basics and built up some calluses on your fingertips, you can switch to electric or country (if you wish) and not have to worry about the pain of a two-hour practice session disuading you from ever touching “that damned thing” again.
Like any other training, set a practice/study schedule (short at the start and increasing up to a limit) and stick to it. You’ll burn out less quickly (or, hopefully, not burn out at all).
Find a human to teach and coach you. A trained teacher is better than this cool guy I know who plays in a band, since the teacher will know how to start you out and help you progress based on your skills – as opposed to showing you *these really cool licks *and tricks well before you’re ready to understand them. IMHO YouTube and other Internet video-teaching offerings are horrible for this reason. Even group lessons at the community center can be good for starting out.
Also, something one of my teachers said on the first day of class: Don’t be afraid to go find a different teacher. Not all teachers are good teachers. Whittle away the worst and you’ll find that not all good teachers fit your style of learning.
Don’t give up. Some things will be easy, some things will be difficult – and the things will never be the same for two different people.
Be willing (and eager) to make mistakes and be heard making them. Nobody expects you to out-play Joe Satriani until you’ve got a few years of experience under your belt. One of the benefits of learning the guitar is gaining the knowledge that you can make mistakes, even in public, and still not get shot for them. I’ve heard violin training isn’t so forgiving. :dubious:
Lastly (and I know I’ve been very verbose already) some advice for after you’ve learned the basics: Reach out beyond the guitar. Understanding a bit of music theory, musicology, the physics of sound production, the electronics of sound engineering, and different styles from what you love playing can really improve the stuff you love playing.
—G!
“Forget all about that macho shit
And learn how to play guitar!”
. —John Mellencamp
. *Play Guitar
*. Uh-Huh
You can get a used guitar on Craigslist extremely cheaply. If you do, examine the body of the guitar to see if there are any obvious cracks or deformities, evidence of moisture damage, etc. A not-too-obviously-damaged guitar will cost you 30 or 40 bucks and is virtually guaranteed to be up to the task.
Don’t worry too much about damaged or missing strings, though. You can replace those in a cheap guitar without much difficulty, in about 15 minutes, for about 6 bucks altogether.
Before you spend money on lessons, learn how to read guitar tab notation. It takes 90 seconds of explanation to get the concept, and gives you access to mostly passable versions of any song you can imagine via google. Once you understand tab (the easiest, most basic musical notation ever!) you can teach yourself a few basic songs on the internet. If you still have the bug after a few weeks, THEN spend money on lessons.
I don’t mean to be a spoilsport, but “I want to learn to play the guitar” typically leads to twenty years later having an old guitar in the closet that you haven’t played for almost 20 years. You can save a lot of money by discovering whether it’s just a passing brief novelty for you, or an actual hobby from which you’ll actually benefit from lessons and expensive equipment.
Of course, this is all just my opinion. Just something to think about!
First off, get someone who is an experienced player to go shopping with you. For a beginner, price is not as important as playability. Not all guitars are made equal (even the big brand names) so having someone tell you whether a guitar is in good shape and worth learning on is a valuable asset. They can tell you whether the neck is straight, check the intonation, action, tone etc… Trying to learn on a defective or awful sounding instrument can be difficult and well …discouraging.
As a player for almost 30 years, even though there are more resources available to you now than ever, don’t always rely on them to learn. Spend some time doodling, improvising or downright jamming instead of learning songs note for note or imitating other players’ styles. You’ll be surprised what you stumble upon. Very few people can reproduce someone’s else’s songs exactly, and IMHO , why would you want to?
Do a search here on combo’s like “learning guitar” “starting guitar” etc…there are a number of threads over the years.
I hope you hear from these posts that: a) we’re all pulling for you; b) you need to provide a bit more info on type of music, etc. - or go through the process yourself of deciding on stuff like that; and c) there are decisions you can make that can make starting out a bit easier - e.g., start on an electric since it is easier on your fingertips vs. a steel string - but you have to balance that with the type of music you want to learn.
My main message in all of these starter threads: the most important decision criteria you should have in making guitar purchase and learning decisions is “will I keep playing if this happens?” Deciding you MUST take lessons because it is the “right” thing to do but it turns out you are not a lesson-taking-kinda-guy is bad. No different than with exercise - if you decide that tomorrow you are going to get up at 5am and run 5 miles every day forward - well, good luck with that…