I Want to Take Up the Guitar...

Cafe Society
81

Yeah, I forgot we’d established the origin via that serial#. :smack:

Awesome! How do you like the tone? Getting more comfortable? I’ll second WordMan’s recommendation for a boost of some sort; when you get the preamp in that bluesJr cooking a little hotter, it’ll sound very nice.

Can you read tabs? Looky here, songs galore. “House of the Rising Son” is an ez one, and probably has at least one new chord for you. Or anything by Creedance. Can you do barre chords yet? If so, all of AC/DC and Green Day are in easy reach. Or “Good Riddance (time of your life)” if you like mellower; it’s, what, four chords? The picking pattern is a little tricky, though. Or whatever, I don’t know your tastes.

I don’t, but lots of people do; it’s a personal preference. If I was a character in Lord of the Rings, I would have named my sword “My Sword”.

82

I like this guys free lessons. He has newer songs.

This guy’s free lessons are songs from the 1970’s. Which is what I prefer playing.

83

I can play all the open chords and barre chords (about 90% with the guitar, thank you very much). I can read tab and sheet music.

I have reams of music printed out and can strum pretty much any thing with chords. I have a handful of more difficult songs that I can play well (wish you were here, something) and a few more that I struggle with eternally (stairway).

I am working on the fingerpicking in friend of the devil & scarborough fair but I want to expand my repetoir with more songs that I can play well.

Hah! That’s actually a good idea. Name my guitar after a sword! I am reading Two Towers to my daughter at the moment. I’ll look there for inspiration.

84

You should get on Youtube and search on “guitar lessons” and the names of songs you want to try to learn - you will get more hits than you know what to do with…

…as for naming - I have tried a name with pretty much every guitar, but none have stuck except for identifying nicknames, like “the Blackguard” (typical nickname for butterscotch Telecasters that have a black pickgard), or “the Tele Special” (my latest project guitar which combines the features of a Tele and a Les Paul Special - creative, eh?). I have one that ended up with a name that stuck, but there’s lots that’s special about that one…

…as a rule, most players just refer to their guitars by the model or by an identifying characteristic. Even Clapton’s most famous guitar is “Blackie” - and John Mayer’s favorite Strat is “The Black One” - original!

…we guitar-types must save our creativity for the actual playing - yeah, that’s it :wink:

85

Resolved: My Goldhat is going to teach my guitar to gently weep this weekend.

86

Awesome. You must be having so much fun with that Strat. No more feeling like your fretting hand’s wrist is going to break. Rock on!

Well, here’s the list, have at it. “Sting” would work, except there’s that guy with the same name. Maybe “Beater” or “Biter” (from The Hobbit) ? :slight_smile:

Are you good at hybrid picking? That’s what the Gently Weeps guy seems to be doing.

87

I am not but I plan to be:-)

I did a little on Friend of the Devil but it goes too quickly for me to make it sound respectable.

88

No, but I do greet it sometimes when I pass by. Maybe give the strings a little strum.

The Needle and the damage done is an easy tune to fingerpick, even though I think Neil Young flatpicks it. Just start with your basic D chord and it falls together real easy. Blackbird by the Beatles is easy to do as well.

When I first went nuts with fingerpicking ('til it hurt) I played a lot of Bert Jansch and John Fahey. I used Fahey’s album and book ‘The Best of John Fahey 1959-1977’. That was my bible. It had a lot of alternate tunings that I then applied to some of the Jansch stuff. This is before there were tabs widely available on the 'net. Basically if I was contorting my fingers too much, I fiddled with the tuning until it became easy.

Stefan Grossman put out some good fingerstyle books, too, but the stuff that really stuck and I continue to play is the Jasch stuff I figured so long ago.

There also another book ‘Fingerstyle Fiddle Tunes’ I had fun with.

89

Hey, where’d our OP get off to? cmyk, you there?

90

I just made my son a deal - if he learns the lead to why my guitar gently weeps and plays with me, he can have a new guitar too.

Am, 5 3, squeeze, 1, 5, 2, 5, 3

It’s coming along.

91

Ha! I made a similar deal with my son. Only it was Jesus of Suburbia (his choice, just chords not solo) for an amp.

92

I hope it’s okay to bump this. My sister picked up on something I mentioned like three years ago – that in my tiny apartment there’s no room for a piano but maybe a guitar would be a way to get music back into my life – and outta nowhere, she up and bought me an acoustic guitar! Steel string, a Huntington. She got it from eBay and it’s probably not a very good quality but y’know, it’s still awesome. I ain’t looking to shred on this thing… all I wanna do is play a song someday. (Any Beatles song would please me tremendously!)

I’ve never played before, though I am a musician. Well, I’m a singer, so you may be tempted to deduct a few points from my musical IQ. :smiley: I can sorta accompany myself on the piano but no other instrument.

And I’m nervous! For three days I’ve been trying to fiddle around with it thanks to various Youtube lessons and they all go so fast and my fingers are killng me and my stupid middle & ring fingers don’t want to stretch far enough to wrap themselves around a basic a C chord (E, sure, and G is awesome, but C can go piss right off!!), and I seem chronically inept at pressing only one string at a time, which makes all my chords sound like suspensions. HALP! Am I hopeless or is this common with newbies?

And importantly, how are the new folks from this thread faring?

93

Count me in as someone who had about 10 lessons on an acoustic, gave up, and, thanks to much Rock Band, is seriously considering getting back in. It’s really easier on an electric? That’s good, because the neck on the acoustic was always a pain.

I admit, I’m deep in the ‘considering’ stage, rather than the ‘going and doing it’ stage. I think I’ll hit that in spring, about the time I master ‘expert’ in Rock Band. It’s not the same, but it really is stretching my fingers out.

94

Three whole days? It’s going to take a bit longer than that :slight_smile: The fat finger problem will sort itself out, just concentrate on getting the chords to ring out as well as you can. The real beginner’s problem is changing between chords, once you’ve got one sounding good move on to the next, don’t just sit on that G.

If you want to play pretty much any Beatles song you’ll need bar chords, look at a chart and you’ll see F, Bb, Eb, Bm, Gm. . . not hard, but you can’t play them as open chords. As soon as your fingers can stand it work on them.

Do a bit every day (even if it’s just a few minutes) you should see real progress after a few weeks.

On preview, learn a scale or two. There can be more to it than just strumming.

95

I am the poster child for a ‘decent guitars make it easier to learn’. I was stuck on a plateau for about a year but now I am up climbing the mountains.

As for the pain of being a newbie…if you hate C wait til you get to F!!

It took me about month to get to the point where I could play recognisable 3 chord songs. I fat fingered for several months. I still often hit a string that I am not fretting.

Tip 1: Single note melodies
The book that I learned from had me alternate between playing little single string melodies and learning chords. Aside from being a handy way to learn the notes that you are playing, it is satisfying to play little tunes - even if its just yankee doodle.

Tip 2: Choose the right songs
I don’t think the beatles ever wrote anything that has less than about 6 chords and they rarely used any plain chords. Set your sights a little lower and aspire to something easier than the beatles :slight_smile: Pretty much anyone else. “Peaceful easy feeling” (G, Em, A7, D) was the first thing where I really felt I could play something but there is plenty of stuff with just G, C & D.

Tip 3: Get lessons.
I am having lessons now and I am learning lots of simple blues riffs (like Jimmy Reed stuff). I wish I had known them a year ago. My wife says 'Wow! You are getting really good!" but I am playing really simple blues progressions (try it - on: the A string play, 2-2-4-4-5-5 : you’ll feel like a genius (I know I do!).

Tip 4: Play scales
It took me forever to be able to think in the guitar-ese. I still want to translate into piano and back all the time, but at least, now, I know that if I have an E, I know where where to find another one now. Finally learning scales did it for me.

Last tip.
At some point you’ll find yourself on a plateau. You’ll know all the basic chords and will be able play a fair few songs but just don’t seemed to be getting any better. That’s the time to shopping.

My new guitar is such a joy to play. I can play for 2 or 3 hours with out my fingers hurting. Chord changes are easier and suddenly I can play barre chords after a year of trying and failing.

I hope you have as much fun as I am and make sure you check back in with a report!

96

It’s funny that the first barre chords people start with are F and B or Bb, which are the hardest ones to play, because the frets are further apart and you’re right up against the nut, where on many guitars it is harder to fret. And the A-major shape barre chord is one of the trickier shapes, too.
I’d say start out with E/Em/Am shapes up at the fifth or seventh fret.

97

I missed this thread the first time it came around; don’t know how.

Full disclosure - guitar teacher checking in here. All of the following advice is freely given, but is biased heavily because of what I do. You have been warned!

I strongly urge anyone who wants to take up an instrument, any instrument, to get a teacher. A real one. A human being in the same room with them for at least half an hour once a week. I have yet to encounter a new student who makes me say to myself ‘she’d be a much better player if only she had been self-taught.’ Yes, some teachers are better than others, just like any other field. It’s just that I’ve dealt with self-taught students with bad habits - things that I think any teacher would have put a stop to right from the get go.

What good is a teacher when you’re starting out? Well, the teacher can examine the instrument and tell you whether it’s in good playing condition or not. The teacher can tell you whether it’s set up well for your hands. The teacher has often worked out some ideas about what to start you off with, and how to keep you working on concepts that are beyond your grasp but within your reach. One of the hardest things about teaching grown-ups is that we already have strong ideas about the pieces we’d like to play, and those ideas are not necessarily filtered through practical considerations of ergonomic development.

When the instrument is unfamiliar to you anyway, how can you tell if it’s you or the instrument causing the difficulties? Most folks end up saying it’s them, they just need to work harder. If it was the instrument causing the problems all along, you’re wasting your effort and possibly hurting your hands for no good reason.

98

Yes. It is. The neck is much narrower, and the strings are much thinner compared to an acoustic, so you don’t need as much force to fret a note. There’s still a steep learning curve as far as making your hand understand what to do and how to do it, but the instrument fights you far less.

99

I started at 13 with a Toyota acoustic, that I still have.
A few peeps taught me to string and tune it, and a couple chords.
Took one lesson, learned Yankey Doodle and said F’this.
Bought an Ernie Ball chord book and played along to Albums.
Then songs of the 60’s-70’s tab books.

My second was a Conn 12 string.
Then a no name elec hollow body, and a fender super champ amp.
Then splurged for a 78 les paul black beauty, Ampeg amp.
Then a JB Player, with a Crate amp.
Aria pro2
Fender 12 string elec
A Double Neck Ephiphone
ect…

Currently play Charvel Standard w/Behringer half stack.
A Fender 12 Acoustic and a Carlo Robelli Elec Acoustic.
Strings, D’addario 10’s, Martin Light’s on the acoustics.
I had several basses and keyboards and drum sets.
I use Yamaha Keys and Squire Precision Bass and a pearl 5 piece at the moment.

30 years of entertainment thus far.

I’ll add, Keep the strings clean and wiped after every use, with some anti rust stuff, works for me. I could care less about the stupid finish. As some folks are with their $5,000 wall hanger.
Learning scales wasn’t big on my list of stuff to do, finger pick em out as you do chords. After a while you see the patterns. Only later do scales really need addressing. If you wanna play stuff like The Ventures.

Keep it simple with chords, just the major and minors to start.

Oh, and it was just a hobby for me cause’ I was a bored teen.

But, then I got good. :smack:

100

So, I bought a cheap guitar.

(Not from there.)
I’m guessing I could have done better. But I think it’s good enough to learn on.
Picked up the Hal Leonard Guitar Method books, 1 and 2. It’s going to take a while, but I think I can do this.