I have never heard of Sungha Jung before this thread but I just spent an hour and a half on YouTube watching and listening to him. I’m awestruck. That kid’s already a guitar monster, but with maturity he’s going to be absolutely transcendent!
I first discovered him in here, but I couldn’t tell you which thread. If I’m not mistaken, he’s out there giving concerts etc. You might check amazon.com etc. for more.
Bless you for trying to help me, lobotomy, but I can’t figure out anything from the old white guy “playing” air guitar.
I find it really hard to separate the movement between my ring finger and my pinkie for chords–especially when they are not on the same fret. My thumb drifts and I find I have to press down so hard on the strings (wires?) that the finger pads are quite sore.
I’d really like to learn to pick and just strum a few old hymns and folk tunes (beyond Jimmy crack corn etc). I haven’t even learned Mary Had a Little Lamb or similar yet. I will bookmark this thread and come back to it when I have more time to learn. I didn’t realize I would have this problem. I had 3 lessons and my teacher quit* (in general, not because of me!). I have not had time to re-start my learning. 
*and he was kind of well, odd. First lesson he tells me (when I commented that finding a sitting position, on a folding chair, to “set” my acoustic guitar was a challenge) that I should have bought an electric one because they’re not as awkward. Well, let me run right out and buy one. :rolleyes: Second lesson, when I told him I wanted to learn a simple Beatle’s tune or a Johnny Cash song, he gave me a fist bump. I kid you not. So, here’s me, middle aged white soccer mom type looking dumbfounded because I had never been fist bumped and had no idea why he was shoving his fist sideways at me. I can proudly say that MY fist bump preceded Michelle Obama’s, though! 
Third lesson he stopped teaching. I have a book and a CD…
You’re in luck. There are a lot of hymns and folk tunes that use major chords. And you can cheat on one of them.
The first time I picked up a guitar I couldn’t make a G. But if you only hold down the sixth string (with your ring finger, third fret) and only strum the top four strings, there’s your G. It’s a good way to tell yourself, ‘Hey! I made a chord!’ Only you have to keep trying to make it properly or you never will.
A D is easy, and a lot of folk songs use it. An A might be harder since you have three fingers together, but a D and an A will give you a good start on, say, Rock-a My Soul.
Anyway, if you’re trying to make chords you obviously can see how they’re made. As has been said before, just do the first beat with a downstroke and leave out the other strokes. like this:
D D D D
ROCK-a my SOUL in the BOSom of ABraham...
A A A A
ROCK-a my SOUL in the BOSom of ABraham...
D D D D
ROCK-a my SOUL in the BOSom of ABraham...
A A D
OH... ROCK-a my SOUL
Play it slowly, just the downstrokes, until you can change between a D and an A. Try to sing along while you’re doing it. Or use ‘La’ instead of the actual words. Just make the sound at the same time you stroke each chord. You’ll soon have the muscle memory to play the chords and sing along.
Then you can start with the upstrokes. Strum down and up and keep the rhythm. Then add the words.
Another exercise is to choose a series of chords and play them. Say, D, G, A, D. Practice strumming each once and quickly changing to the next. Do this with all of the major chords.
So now you can sing while you’re playing the first strokes, Play down- and up-strokes to get the rhythm without singing, and change between chords smoothly. Put it all together and you’re playing and singing. But I think the first thing you have to do is be able to make the chords without thinking. Once you get that down, it’s pretty easy to pick up new songs.
I’ve said elsewhere that I’m no great shakes as a guitarist. I can play chords, and pick a few simple notes. But I amuse me anyway. If I can do it, you can to!
Use the force 
Seriously, don’t worry about it. It’ll happen, especially as you get more competent.
I can sing pretty much any song, even the first time I play it. But if it has a complicated structure that involves an unusual fingerpicking or flatpicking style, I have to learn the guitar part separately…to the point of people able to play the entire song automatically w/o thinking about it.
I was noticing today that after SEVEN years I still can’t sing and play “Rebel Rebel”!
Minor aside: singing along to Rebel Rebel, if you are playing the full riff correctly, is actually really, really hard. Sure it is basically just the one riff except for the pre-chorus (“they say I’m crazy, they say you’re wrong - you tacky thing, let’s put them on”)…
I play it in my band and my guitar-playing friends can’t figure out how I do it - all I know is that if I stop or slip up, I’m screwed…don’t let that song be your yardstick for sing-while-playing competence…
…I was thinking about that old Biz Markie video where he was dressed up like Mozart going You…you got what I neee-eed!.. 
Hope that makes you feel better…
The only way I got past the sore finger pads was to keep the guitar within arm’s reach. Playing during each ad break for two TV shows a night will give you enough practice to begin forming calluses and muscle memory (where you don’t have to think about where to put your fingers) within a week or so. That way you don’t have the problem of ‘making time to practice’ which is easy to avoid. Also, having it broken up into small chunks means you (I)don’t get so frustrated and your fingers don’t get so sore so fast.
Of course, once you start learning songs, you run the risk of getting so excited and enthusiastic that you play till you get blisters. Then, you’ll get enthused about something else, lose all the calluses and have to start again, though the muscle memory always come back quickly.
My guitar teacher was brilliant, I ran out of spare cash.
Jealous, jealous, jealous. But thanks for the great advice, all. I will pick it back up soon (most likely when I’ve got the house to myself. I’d like to be able to play a simple song by the time my daughter comes home from first semester college. There–I have a goal!).
Rhythm is one of the most important things when playing and singing simultaneously (its pretty crucial in general for music, but particularly in this situation). To help maintain proper rhythm, always remember that if you miss a note, it can often be best to just let it go.
Think of playing a song as something similar to driving in a crowded city with only one-way streets. If you miss the building you were looking for, you can’t back up or you will cause an accident with the car behind you. Instead, you need to circle the block and come back to that building.
Similarly, if you are playing (for example) the verse of a song, and miss a note, you can’t go back to it or you will cause an “accident” with the next note coming up. Instead, it is often best to continue on through to the chorus - you’ll have another chance to play that note during the next verse.
I never know for sure if my analogies make sense to anyone but me, but I hope this helps…
That was one of the things they said in my old class: If you miss it or don’t get the chord right, just keep going.
Poorly.
That makes perfect sense to me…one of my pet peeves is million note players with disrhythmia. I say you don’t stop unless you have a severed artery or something…you can always pretty much fake your way out of anything as long as you.don’t.stop.
Agreed - and it’s a hard lesson for beginners to learn because the emphasis is on getting the chords right. It’s once we’ve got reasonably confident that the emphasis shifts back to keeping the rhythm.
Unstrung? I’m really enjoying your posts, just had to say it. I could be developing a dopercrush (blush).
And now for the post I couldn’t post at the weekend:
I don’t know how long that is - but there are plenty of great three chord songs, especially folk songs. One of the first pieces I learned was Green Door - which uses A (and A7 which is just one finger less), D and E7.
You can work it out so that there’s always one finger that stays on the fretboard, either in the same place or sliding along to start the next chord. I found that very helpful.
Teach Your Children is G, D & A, so is Mr Tambourine Man, though I found the ever increasing verse lengths threw me. Puff the Magic Dragon and Marie’s Wedding, too. The Proclaimers 500 Miles, Cap in Hand and their cover of My Old Friend the Blues are playable in 3 chords- GDA are the easiest and I just shift the capo till I’m singing in key. (Zsofia, many many kid’s songs are two or three chords and freely available online.)
Seriously, the capo is the only thing that lets me sing along - I generally can’t play in the same key my voice can reach and vice versa. Mine cost about NZ$20, probably US$15.
Once you have those chords down pat, add Em and you can play Scarborough Fair and quite a few others. PM me which of the above songs you like and I’ll send you my very simplified chord and lyric sheets - or just have a look online, that’s where I got most of them in the first place. As others have said, learning how to transcribe from one key to another is invaluable, it can make an impossible chord change dead easy.
Don’t be jealous about the guitar teacher, he’s a great musician and lives next door. It was faintly embarrassing to be learning from him, since enthusiasm =/= talent. We’ve come to an understanding where I don’t pretend to be musically inclined and he doesn’t pretend to understand why I write.
Some chords can be omitted, too. E.g. you may find a version of the Christmas carol “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen” that has a chord change on virtually every single syllable. I’ve been playing about 25 years and I can’t play it smoothly; what’s more, it isn’t worth the investment of time to practice till I get it.
Experiment with leaving out some chords, especially if you’re just beginning…sometimes the omission is barely noticeable.
That’s what happens when piano players try to arrange things for guitar. They don’t realize that you don’t play the guitar the way you play a piano.
Well, for what its worth, I wholeheartedly disagree with that guy. If he’s teaching the most proper hand/arm/torso/etc positioning for guitar, it shouldn’t change depending on whether you are playing an acoustic or an electric. And if being the most proper isn’t the goal, then the focus should be on finding the best body position (combination of most comfortable and easiest for you to get your hands where they need to be) for you and whatever guitar you are playing.
This. My vote is for practicing either the singing or the playing until it becomes automatic, and then think about the other while the one is on autopilot.
I play by ear so I am forced to get in the zone, and let my animal brain move my fingers. I can not read music, and am unbelievably envious of those who can. It works for me, but is absolutely no help in playing anything new.
(yes, I’ve had lessons, that’s most of the reason I remember HOW to make a chord, but it is 100% rote memorization of where the teacher put his fingers to make That particular noise. Putting ‘em all together in the proper recognizable order is pure lizard brain for me. I gotta lot o’ lizard brain in my head. That’s not the point. The point is suggestting things until Zsofia finds the method that works for her.)
I remember reading an article several years back about a guitar player who was having trouble with a certain riff. To overcome his stumbling block, he set the guitar on a stand in a central room of his house (one of those stands that holds the guitar in playing position - for the life of me, I can’t remember what they are called). Then, he made a rule for himself… whenever he passed through the room with the guitar, he had to try to play the riff at least once. This notion seems like its along the same lines of what you are suggesting, and IIRC it worked pretty well for that dude.
I’m also a proponent of practicing in front of the television, whether it is solely during the ads or throughout the program you are watching. Muscle memory is indeed the key, and sometimes letting your fingers get their workout while something is distracting the other half of your brain can be extremely helpful.
Aw, shucks. [Insert embarrassed eye wandering and/or toe twisting on the ground here]
But seriously, if any of my suggestions work well and help out, then I’m pretty happy about that.