In the process of moving around, my girlfriend has left her electric guitar along with instructional booklet at my house for awhile. I decided I’d try and pick up playing guitar while I could, and see how it goes.
There’s one problem, though. While my fingers aren’t extraordinarily fat or anything, I seem to be having trouble putting my fingers on the right strings without touching the others and muffling the sound. I understand that this may be remedied with some practice, but quite frankly it gets annoying after trying for 30 minutes to get one chord and not quite getting it.
I’m wondering if perhaps investing in a cheaper second-hand electric bass might be a better road to go down. I’m assuming that since the strings are further apart on a bass that touching the wrong tring would be less of a problem. Is this assumption correct?
I played saxaphone in middle school, and some of the musical training has stuck, so I’ve got that major hurdle crossed, but are there any huge gaps between the two instruments that makes one preferable over the other?
Now, I’m not neccesarily interested in playing popular songs or being in a band or anything, it’s to be a hobby to pass the time away and feel productive, so I don’t really care about the versatility of either instrument, just practicality.
So, given my current difficulties with the guitar, would it be wise to try and learn to play bass?
You’d have to have some pretty huge fingers to be useless at electric guitar. If you want to play guitar, I would pick up a cheap acoustic first. The neck is wider and the strings are spaced out a little more. It’s also a bit more difficult to press the strings down. Those things together really teach your hands how to properly form chords. After you reach any level of compentency, you’ll be amazed at how easy the electric feels after that.
As a bass player, I would suggest you learn guitar first, then switch to bass for 2 reasons. 1) It helps to be able to look at your guitar player’s hands and know what they are doing and 2) It really sucks practicing bass alone, IMO.
Playing bass has a different set of problems, mainly finger strength. The strings are somewhat farther apart but it isn’t a huge amount.
It takes a while to get your fingers to do the right things on a guitar. My bet is that a) you probably don’t hold the guitar correctly and b) you probably have your left hand in a bad position. Guitar position and hand position make a huge difference. You probably hold your left arm so that your fingers are twisted. Basically your left arm should be about perpendicular to the guitar neck, a good right angle. To achieve this you have to get your left elbow away from your body. If you are in the right position your fingers are basically parallel to the frets and it is easier to fret the notes. I’d bet that your elbow is tucked in next to your body and that your fingers are at an angle compared to the frets. Having your fingers at a angle to the frets makes it hard to cleanly hold down notes.
If you look in Cafe Society for the ‘how to play guitar’ threads there is a bunch of good info. In one thread I know I posted a link to a site that shows the proper guitar position but I can’t seem to find that link right now.
One problem I have is remembering to keep my thumb out of the way. Get used to placing your thumb on the BACK of the neck. You don’t need to hold the neck up with your palm, that is what straps are for. (This is one of the things that guitarists disagree on.)
As for the bass, if you are interested in bass, go for it. In my experience, bass players are harder to find than guitarists. But don’t think it will be any easier to learn because “there are only four strings”. And, in the end, you have to be pretty damn good to entertain anyone else with a bass alone. With a guitar (especially an acoustic), not so much.
For the record, as a guitarist/bassist, I make a pretty good drummer.
Having difficulty fretting chords is a natural part of learning the guitar. You will notice that when you think you have the chord fretted properly, a quick strum of the strings reveals that, in fact, you do not. The notes fizzle or there is a muted thump as one finger, in an attempt to fret one string, rides over into another. How you hold the guitar is very important, but fortunately you will pick this up naturally as you progress. What seems to be more important in the beginning is your finger tips and the angle of attack with the strings. Try to position your hand in such a way that your fingers rain down on the fret board rather than strafe across the strings. It may help to sit in with a guitar player for a couple of sessions and, like a puppy watching another dog raise his hind leg rather than squat, you will pick up a few ideas on how to hold and strum correctly. This is a big step in setting up good playing posture and getting every note to ring from your instrument.
I do not recommend getting a cheap acoustic guitar, ever. Cheap acoustics are prone to have baseball bat style necks and there are always problems with intonation. they are just so much more difficult to play because they are, well, cheap. They are one of the main reasons neophyte guitarists put the instrument down never to pick it back up.
The last thing I would try to impress upon you is no matter how frustrating it is in the beginning, and no matter how much effort you have to put forth just to learn the rudimentary dynamics of the guitar, it is absolutely worth every moment of that frustration. One day soon, you’ll be using that instrument as a fantastic tool to rid your life of frustration rather than add to it. It is so much more than just, “I play guitar.”
I’m a newbie to both guitar and bass myself, but I’m… involved in the music industry. …my parents play in a band…
I think after you get past learning and getting comfortable with the chords, it’s pretty easy to play a song and have it sound good. A guy and a guitar can make a good sound pretty easily, even if he’s not going into solos.
The damn thing is getting comfortable with the guitar and the chords. I’ve never really gotten it in the 4-5 times I’ve tried to learn guitar, as I always end up with muted chords and achy hands. But when I did get something, it was immensely gratifying.
Bass, not so much. Bass always feel like a “support” instrument to me, so it’s never felt too gratifying. It feels lonely playing without the other instruments around.
The good thing is that I’ve never found it difficult to play bass (minus the solos) because I can employ my masterful “hunt-and-peck” method, memorize what I came up with, and groove along with a CD that way. I personally can’t do that with guitar because it seems like there’s a million chords and they all sound the same.
Personally, I’m sticking to drums… it can feel even emptier than the bass at times, but at least I don’t have to deal with all those notes!
It’s difficult to answer your question because you’re not comparing like with like.
You can learn to play the guitar (acoustic or electric), which can lead to many options: being able to play lead or rhythm in a band; being able to strum chords while you or someone else sings; exploring the guitar as a solo instrument in its own right, in the genre of your choice: classical, jazz, rock, folk, blues etc.
You can learn to play electric bass. For most normal people this mean you can learn to be one half (with the drummer) of the rhythm section of a pop or rock band. If you are exceptionally proficient and dedicated, then maybe you’ll become the kind of virtuoso (e.g. Stanley Clarke) who can actually feature the bass as a solo insturment, but this is very rare, very hard and very much a niche market.
So it’s not a case of switching from one to the other because it might be better-suited to you or your hands. You have to ask yourself what you want to be able to do or achieve. I sympathise if you do have larger hands than average, and perhaps this is making it slightly harder for you than for the average person to learn your chords and finger positions. Nevertheless, there are many different successful guitarists and some of them probably have hands that are even less ideally suited to the fretboard than yours. The truth is that it’s probably just down to time and practise. If you ask me and pretty much any other guitarist, they’ll tell you that they too suffered all the same problems that you’re reporting.
The one helpful note I can add is that on acoustic guitars, there is a world of difference between a ‘folk’ style guitar, where the fretboard tapers quite significantly, and a ‘classical’ or ‘spanish’ style guitar where the fretboard is more or less the same width all the way up. I can play a folk guitar, but I never do. I much prefer the extra width of the classical style guitar, even though ‘pop’ music is all I know.
Otherwise, I think the very wise Euthanasiast said it all. Especially this bit:
I agree with pretty much everything said so far. The problems you’re having are very common, and if you stick with it, it will get easier. About your fingers: Andres Segovia was a fairly good player, and he had fat, stubby fingers. Of course the fingerboard of his classical guitar was wider than the fingerboard of your girlfriend’s electric–different tools for different jobs.
My story: after playing guitar for 15 years or so, I experienced a spinal cord injury that left my hands temporarily paralyzed. As the movement gradually returned to my fingers over the next few months, I found that I couldn’t play my guitars, even the classical. I got a bass out of frustration with not being able to play anything, and I found that it was a lot easier for me, given my hand condition. Yes, there are different problems, but for the most part, I find bass easier to play. The longer neck and wider string spacing demand a bit less accuracy, at least for a fretted bass. Bass parts are usually simpler to learn, but that may be more true for those who have a little guitar background.
I ended up liking the bass much more than the guitar. I still have one guitar, but I rarely play it. Of course, it’s easier to entertain people with a solo guitar than with a bass, unless you’re at Stanley Clarke’s level of proficiency. You don’t often see people sitting around the campfire singing along to a bass. But if you are interested in playing with others someday, guitar players are easier to find than bass players, and you might have more opportunities with a bass. You could jam with your girlfriend! When I 'm not playing with others, I play along with CDs or the theme songs on TV. Or by myself, but maybe I’m weird.
If you’re like most people, you probably experienced a difficulty or two when learning sax. Same with any instrument. I would say (and a lot of bass players would strike me for saying it) that bass is generally easier than guitar, at least at the beginning levels. More fun too, at least for me. My advice is to choose the instrument that speaks to you more–that may ease the pain of the beginning stages.
[QUOTE=Euthanasiast]
I do not recommend getting a cheap acoustic guitar, ever. Cheap acoustics are prone to have baseball bat style necks and there are always problems with intonation. /QUOTE]
What do you mean by a baseball bat style neck? What should I look for in a beginner acoustic guitar?
Simply stated, it is a neck that feels like you are holding the business end of a baseball bat. It doesn’t compliment the shape of your hand very well and makes changing chords with any degree of quickness and accuracy a tedious and soul-crushing experience.
What you want is a guitar that you can get relatively inexpensive, yet allows you to grow into it. You want a guitar that doesn’t add further to the headaches associated with first picking up an instrument. You want the quality that you typically get with a good name brand guitar. I have a hard time recommending guitars at all because my philosophy dictates that I suggest something that may not be practical for many beginners’ spending allowance. Personally, I suggest spending no less than a couple hundred dollars, and try to get the most bang for your buck. I recommend you go used for your first acoustic. You get more for your money and if you decide it isn’t for you, you aren’t as married to the instrument. Look for a used Martin or comparable guitar that is in good shape.
For those that say you don’t need to spend that kind of money for your first guitar, I say that the greatest tragedy for a potential guitar player is that he put it down never to pick it up again simply because his instrument came up a little short. You have to have patience and dedication in order to learn to play well. A cheap guitar will take those things away from you faster than anything else. What if Jimi Hendrix put the guitar down six months in because it was cheap and too frustrating to learn to play?
It is an investment, but an investment that pays for itself a thousand times over. There’s no feeling better in this world than the moment people stop yelling for you to turn that crap down and begin yelling for you to turn the music down.
Basically, he is right - I have many posts in many of the threads mentioned previously where I go on about neck relief, action and intonation. Bottom line is that a bad-sounding but well-set up guitar (meaning it doesn’t sound great acoustically - maybe it sounds like a banjo or you are playing an electric unplugged and it sounds thin and not-resonant) is much better than a poorly set up but robustly-toned guitar.
As for bass and guitar - couldn’t agree more with ‘choose what chooses you.’ The only thing that matters is playing more - if one of the two makes you want to play more - well, play it. It’s all good at that point.
Given the bits I quoted above, I ask if you have considered classical guitar. My own background was very similar to yours, and when I got my hands on my brother’s electric guitar, I was not really satisfied.
I started taking guitar lessons to build on my existing music background (sax too). My teacher wasn’t a great master or anything (he was a “kid” in my mind), but he started teaching me classical guitar, beginning with pieces such as the Carcassi studies. I found that having a music reading background really helped in this endeavor.
I was hooked. Relatively few guitar players play classical guitar, so it is a fresh sound to many ears. In fact, many of the simpler studies from folks like Carcassi, Giuliani, or Sor are relatively easy to learn and they sound great.
The thing that sold me on the music was the soft nylon strings as well as the lack of barre chords in the music (in general).
Eventually I did find the courage to move back in to steel stringed instruments, purchasing a really nice semi-hollow body Gibson electric (Howard Roberts Fusion III), but I play strictly jazz on it, usually four-finger chords, rarely barres.
The slight down side is that while these days I love to play classical stuff like Villa Lobos (I love Choros #1), I feel kind of clumsy when I am strumming basic chords on a steel string acoustic at church for praise songs. No one laughs, though.
As a guitar player myself, I had the same problems starting out. My first few weeks, I had so much trouble just with simple open chords. I hated it, and even thought of quitting. I just couldn’t do it. Now, 2-3 years later, a successful band later, I’m so thankful I kept it up.
Just follow everyone’s advice and keep trying. I have skinny fingers, and even I had trouble with strings muting, etc. You really just need to learn how to control them. As others have said, try learning originally on an acoustic or classical.
—Kinda a side note, but somebody mentioned about holding your elbow farther from your body to help… I’d really like to start doing that, I think it’d help, but I cannot figure out how to train myself to. 3 years of bad technique and I can’t change it. I mean, the way I do it WORKS, but will it be damaging to my hand?
IANADoctor or an Ergonomics Specialist - but in my experience, things that can hurt your hand hurt when you are doing them. In other words, if your hand cramps up when you play and it hasn’t gotten any better as you get more comfortable play the licks you are trying to play, you are probably doing something that is not good in the long run.
In terms of how to change it - well, try going to see someone for a single lesson and see what they suggest - obviously it should be someone who has good technique themselves.
I shouldn’t talk - I am 100% self-taught and only took a few lessons after playing for 18 or so years. But I have changed significant parts of my technique at various times - the way I hold my pick (from 2 finger hold to 1 finger only) the way I strum (from flat-plane elbow-driven to hooked-wrist elbow-rotate) and how I hold my fretting hand (from, well, just bad to something functional). Bottom line is that you have to want to change, you have to be willing to put in the repetitions to burn the new approach into your muscle memory. For me, I changed something easy and fundamental and it helped - for instance, to change my fretting-hand grip, I moved the guitar from my right knee to my left knee - classical style - when I played sitting down. It made my modified hand grip MUCH easier to do and remember. Is there a similar thing you can do? Maybe have a 2 or 3-step routine you go through right before you play? “okay, fingers in ready position, elbow out - play!” until it becomes natural?
Basically that it plays well all up and down the neck. If you’re a beginner, probably the best thing is to bring along a friend who plays; have him/her check it out for you. Sit and listen while they play it; does it sound good? As much as you can, check it out yourself; is the neck comfortable for you? I think for around $300 or so you should be able to get something decent for starting on. I’d recommend looking at lower-end Martins, Takamines, and so on. I’m not sure I’d recommend a 3/4 scale guitar for a beginner, but I’ve played a “Little Martin” and a “Baby Taylor” at my local music shop; both sound and feel great, and sell for well under $400. Even a full-size acoustic steel-string guitar’s neck will normally not be any wider than a Stratocaster’s, at least if it’s the usual dreadnought* body style.
*Your basic folkie/singer-songwriter acoustic guitar shape. Think James Taylor.
I, too, love classical but skew more towards the earlier periods. Another great composer for working on is Lodovico Roncalli, who published a collection of nine suites in 1692. Excerpts of this frequently appear in method books (e.g. the ones by Frederick Noad), but complete copies of the entire publication can be hard to come by. I have a copy; if you would like one email** me offline and and we’ll make arrangements.*
There’s not much more satisfying than being able to pick up a guitar and play something on it, all by yourself, that will delight and amaze your listeners.
*Sorry, don’t know if I’m talking about a legal violation here, but since we’re talking about a work written in 1692 and published by an East German state-owned enterprise in 1953, I suspect it should be OK.
** I don’t get to my hotmail every day, so don’t worry if I don’t answer you promptly. I’m not ignoring you.
PERFECT!!