The recent post about playing the sax prompts me to ask a similar question about the guitar.
In short, I wanna learn to play the guitar. I know how to read music, I learned to play the clarinet and piano as a kid, and I live in the SF Bay Area with lots of musical resources.
Here, in no particular order (deal with it) are my questions and comments:
[ol]
[li]What guitar should I buy? Does it depend on what type of music I wanna play?[/li][li]As for the music, I figured I’d start with easy stuff like folk music, but I also like jazz, rock, and even classical.[/li][li]Should I get a teacher? Does it matter what the teacher’s musical focus is?[/li][li]How long does it take a noob to learn, if the noob has some musical background?[/li][/ol]
I’ve played guitar 10 years along with other stringed instruments …acoustic guitar , electric guitar , 12-string guitar, banjo, sitar, and piano.
However, I’m no expert in musical training but I offer my advice henceforth…
I recommend an acoustic guitar because it will help you develop finger callouses faster. Don’t invest more than $200 initially since you don’t know at this point if this will be a lasting venture.
You wish to begin playing fold music so again - acoustic guitar
Having a teacher doesn’t hurt, but I would not necessarily recommend one since you have the musical backround already and it’s cheaper and very effective if you learn through guitar websites, guitar books, and guitar magazines. It does help to know other guitarists and pick up pointers and visually grasp what’s happening.
There is no finite amount of time. You can begin playing songs smoothly when you develop the dexterity and strength in your fingers. Play often daily eventhough it hurts the fingertips in order to maximize your progress.
What guitar should I buy? Does it depend on what type of music I wanna play?
Yes. As for the music, I figured I’d start with easy stuff like folk music, but I also like jazz, rock, and even classical.
I would suggest a steel-string acoustic as being the most versatile, reasonably suited to that range of genres, and arguably the best thing to start on. Should I get a teacher? Does it matter what the teacher’s musical focus is?
Depends on what you want to achieve. If you just want to strum chords, you can probably teach yourself reasonably well, though a teacher would accelerate and improve the process. If you want to do some picking, a teacher would probably make a big difference in how much and how quickly you learn. The teacher’s focus can be significant – try to find one who is familiar with the types of music you’re interested in. How long does it take a noob to learn, if the noob has some musical background?
Depends on the noob, but most people can do something recognizable as music within two months. Chances are, though, you’ll still be learning and improving after ten years.
While this makes economic sense, there’s a possible Catch-22 – some cheaper guitars are difficult to play and can be especially discouraging to a beginner. Having a guitar-playing friend check it out before you buy can be very helpful. Also consider a used guitar to maximize the quality to price ratio, but definitely have it checked out by someone knowledgeable.
Yes on both counts. I too suggest starting with a relatively cheap acoustic. Once you get into electric guitars is when you’ll want to start thinking about specific parts like pickups and bridges.
You can play many kinds of music in simplified forms - like playing single notes instead of chords, for instance. that’s how I started off.
I’ve never had a teacher other than the internet, but someone who can show you how to pull off specific maneuvers and make sure your hands are in the right position can help.
Depends how well you take to it, how hard you try, and how much time you put in.
Once you learn to read tablature (an extremely simple guitar notation style for morons like me who can’t read music), you’ll find the On-Line Guitar Archive indispensable.
I would suck at guitar way worse than I do now if not for OLGA. Come to think of it, OLGA was the reason I first got on the Internet, back in 1995.
There was a website (www.powertabs.net) with excellent and accurate tablature, but the site shut down (temporarily?) very recently. Check back later to see if it returrns to form.
It might not hurt to go a little higher than $200 as the quality in the price range < $500 tends to go up sharply. It’s worth it to go with a established, respected brand, particularly one that focuses mainly on acoustics. You could look at lower-end Takamine or Martin models, although with the latter I think you’re getting well over $500 for their most basic folk-style acoustic. OTOH Martin does make a 3/4-scale “Little Martin” model which plays wonderfully and sells for under $400, and Taylor makes a “Baby Taylor” that is similar.
Since you read music, once you get going on guitar try to learn a repertoire of solo instrumentals that you can play, for times when someone says, “You play guitar? That’s great! Play me something…”
They are loud enough when un amplified to hear what you’re doing but quiet enough to not annoy other people in the vicinity. You can buy an amp later if you want to jam with others. A good electric will be louder than you’d think without an amp.
You can start with very light (008s) and gradually work up to heavier strings as you progress, and build up finger strength and calluses.
They are easier for beginners to tweak the action to their preference.
Find someone who knows about guitars to shop for a used one with you if possible. Lots of beginners give up so there are many barely used guitars floating around and they often can be had cheap. Check your local papers, especially the ads only ones you see at convienience stores. If you don’t know an experienced guitar player who can help you, get the book “The Guitar Handbook” by Ralph Denyer. It has some very useful info for what problems to look for in a guitar. (even new guitars can have issues.) It is probably the most useful book I’ve seen for beginners and experienced players.
You’ve gotten plenty of good general advice already. I will put in another plug for a software product I’ve mentioned before: Guitar Pro. It’s sort of hard to describe, but it’s basically a tablature/sheet music editing/viewing program, with a full MIDI implementation and host of features for helping learn to play. There’s a library of several hundred songs in GP format at http://www.mysongbook.com; heavy on metal/progressive stuff, but a lot of other stuff as well. A GP “song” file can consist of up to 256 different tracks, with multiple guitar, bass, keyboard, vocal, percussion, and other instrumental parts. Any of these can be displayed in real-time as it’s being played, with the option to isolate any given track so that it plays by itself or to mute any of the tracks so that it’s omitted from the playback. In addition to the combination standard notation/tablature display, you can also display a fretboard or keyboard or both with notes for the current measure highlighted. There’s a “speed trainer” feature that lets you select a section of a song and play it over and over again in a loop, increasing the tempo slightly each time. There’s a tuner, scale and chord diagram tools, and stuff I haven’t even looked at yet after two years of using it.
So what does it do? Basically, for me, it’s a way of being able to see how to play songs I know, while having a “band” to play along with that never gets tired of playing the same thing over and over again, or of how bad I still am. Granted, you’re limited to material that other people have tabbed in GP format, unless you’re ambitious enough to make your own tabs, but there’s enough stuff out there that I’ve had plenty to keep me busy. Obviously, you’ll need to get started with either a beginner book or video, but once you’ve got a few chords and basics down, you can learn a lot with this program. You can download and try it out for 15 days for free.
Standard disclaimer: I have no connection whatever with the developers or distributors of Guitar Pro – just a happy customer.
Other good resources for starting out: http://www.wholenote.com has online lessons that vary a lot in quality, but some are quite good, and most are useful to a degree (and you can’t beat the price); Guitar for Dummies is actually pretty good for the absolute beginner, and it’s often available in libraries if you don’t want to actually shell out for it.
I am just beginning to learn guitar myself. I signed up for Beginning Guitar for next semester. I figured that since I want to learn, I may as well get some credits for it. And this way I will be more likely to practice. You might see what the local community college is offering.
I also probably bought the worse guitar out there. $30 internet special. Why? It’s $30, and I am pretty much living off of student loans. If I make through the semester, I will invest in a real guitar.
I also advise against getting a cheap acoustic guitar. They can be hard to play. Especially if the action is high. I’d go at least $300. I was incapable of doing bar chords with my first cheapo guitar. My wife spent about $300 or $400 on a decent one. Not only could I bar relatviely easy, it sounded so much better.
Like you, I started playing piano and could read music before I learned how to play guitar. Reading music is far more difficult on guitar than piano . . . the piano has one key for each note, but the guitar has several places to play the same note, making reading music and then playing it on the guitar extremely time consuming.
That is why tablature is so helpful. I would skip reading “regular” music altogether and simply learn guitar from tablature, it’s far easier and can convey far more information specific to guitar playing.
One alternative is to rent a guitar from your local music store. It will likely be a guitar in the $300 range & will cost you $50 for two months.
If I were just learning now, I would probably buy a baby Taylor or maybe a big baby. they run about $300 to $350. When you want to graduate (or just give up), they are easy to sell. You might even make a profit.
There is a huge difference beween a guitar in this range and a $30 internet special. It is very likely that the cheap guitar will be impossible to tune because the intonation is off (and it would cost twice what you paid for the guitar to repair it). Think about it; these guitars are sold to people who don’t see or handle them first and when they do get them, they don’t have the necessary experience to evaluate them. Having said that, I wish Agnostic Pagan the best of luck. Let us know how it turns out.
Any guitar you buy might need to be “set up” i.e. have the action lowered or raised to you liking, but on the cheap guitar this might not be possible (and certainly not worth it).
Frets.Com will tell you more about your guitar than you wanted to know.
I agree with this 100%. I know I definitely got what I paid for. An instrument resembling a guitar that I can use as a substitute until I can afford the real thing. I only bought it so that I could get my hands on ‘something.’ Unfortunately, I do not know any guitar players I can take shopping with me and it is only a temporary measure due to severe budget constraints. And not having the necessary experience, I could not evaluate a ‘good’ guitar either. Once I take the class and learn enough to know how to buy a proper guitar, I will certainly do so.
On the plus side, I am learning how to tune a guitar regularly.
Questions regarding good guitars though. How long do they stay in tune? And how long should a set of strings last? How much tension should a string have? And is there is good way to tell this?
I am going to join the minority and say you should start with a cheep electric guitar and not an acoustic. There are two main reasons for this.
The first is that you get more for your money with a cheep electric than with a cheep acoustic. Making an acoustic guitar is a labor intensive process and can’t really be done cheaply, so when you buy a cheep acoustic you are getting something that looks like a guitar, but only just barely qualifies as a musical instrument. They are hard to play and will make you easily frustrated because no matter how much you practice they will NEVER sound good. And you really shouldn’t spend much money on a first guitar. Get a Fender Squire and be done with it. I think Guitar Center even has a started pack with a guitar a mini amp and a case for about $199.
The second is that, although no one ever admits it, learning to play the guitar hurts. Your fingers will hurt from pressing on the strings, your wrist will hurt from using muscles that you aren’t used to using. You will probably be concentrating very hard, so you will likely end up making your thumb sore from squeezing too hard. All of these will be minimized by an electric guitar. The action is lower and the neck more forgiving. I learned to play on an acoustic, and today prefer playing my acoustic guitar, but if I had to do it over again I would start with an electric.
Lastly, PLEASE TAKE LESSONS. Please, at least a couple with a private instructor. I see so many people playing with technique that is going to cause them wrist problems later in life, and people who taught themselves and now have so many bad habits that they can’t get past that hinders their playing. You can learn a lot from books and the net, but you can’t really know if you have your wrist positioned correctly, or if you are fingering something in the right way unless you have someone to watch you. Group lessons are fine too as long as the class is small, but if you can, take a couple of private lessons.
A nice guitar could hold its tune for days, assuming no drastic changes in temperature, pressure, or humidity. Any atmospheric change can throw even the nicest guitar out of tune.
Strings last an average of several weeks for most players I know. Of course, this entirely depends on how much you play the guitar and how oily your fingers are. Elixir makes Gore-tex covered strings that will help out players with oily fingers. Cleaning strings after each session will help, too, though I’ve never had the patience to do it. Usually, strings will start to tarnish before they actually go bad; you can tell a bad string because it will have a very flat timbre and won’t stay in tune. I prefer phosphor bronze strings to bronze, as they seem to last longer.
Since you’re in St. Louis, may I recommend you stop by the area’s nicest acoustic store, Music Folk. I’m biased, as I used to work there, but you won’t find a better store without going to another state.
For beginners, the majority of whom are interested in playing pop/rock/folk, I can heartily recommend the Seagull line of guitars. Solid wood tops, which are usually a feature of more expensive instruments, are standard on the Seagull line. They’re very playable and very affordable–$300-$400 will get you a killer little acoustic that will last for years (it will last longer, but as you improve, you’ll develop a taste for nicer guitars, and thus begin the downward slide into financial ruin).
If you’re looking for a classical guitar (read: if you’re more interested in playing classical guitar music), I can recommend the La Patrie guitars, made by the same Canadian company as Seagull.
