I just got an acoustic guitar with the hopes of teaching myself how to play. (The guitar was picked out for me by a very experienced musician who knows what to look for in a beginner guitar so please don’t start the “make sure you get a guitar with the strings close to the …” thing like everyone else has so far.)
I know there are videos out there for this… I’m more inclined to that sort of thing than to a book, but I’m open.
So anyone out there teach themselves guitar? Recommendations? Suggestions? Hints? Dire warnings?
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From an actual catalog: “Disco balls create an enchanting, dazzling effect of light shafts, adding movement and glamour to any occasion” the Abrams’ bris was certainly memorable
O p a l C a t www.opalcat.com
My 16 y/o son taught himself how to play about a year ago. Now he’s on the 'net all time down loading tabs(?). He learned by going to a music store and getting a good beginners book. After that he started learning the notes and chords to songs he liked (because he knew what they were supposed to sound like. Everytime he had the chance to play guitars w/ someone he jumped on it in hopes that he would learn something new.
I guess the advice here is: There’s probably a million ways to learn, but the most important thing is to jump in there and practice, practice, practice.
FWIW, I mostly want to play folk songs and instrumental stuff like “is there anybody out there” off The Wall. Purty stuff.
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From an actual catalog: “Disco balls create an enchanting, dazzling effect of light shafts, adding movement and glamour to any occasion” the Abrams’ bris was certainly memorable
O p a l C a t www.opalcat.com
Learn four chords–G, C, D, and Em. (This is the key of G.) Learn 'em until you don’t even have to think about it, and you can just throw your hand up on the fretboard in a G on the fly. Learn to change easily from one to another.
Now just spend some time playing around with those four chords. (You’d be amazed how many songs you’ll be able to play with just them!) Listen to songs and hear how they go together. Pay attention to how you strum the chord, and how different “attacks” make different sounds–emphasizing the low notes, the high notes, forward, backward, hard, soft, etc. Think about how you can put those sounds together to create rhythm.
When you get bored with those chords, learn a couple others.
There are lots of beginner books out there, which will mainly function to give you diagrams of the chords. There are plenty of web sites that do the same thing, so I would probably go that route.
You’ll probably drive your family up the wall (God knows I did), but if they love you, they’ll clench their teeth and deal with it.
Good luck!
Dr. J
PS: One important thing–before you do anything else, learn to tune it.
“Seriously, baby, I can prescribe anything I want!” -Dr. Nick Riviera
Some people learn better with videos and some learn better with the books, but I would recommend finding a instructor/teacher if you would really like to know how to play the guitar. You set up a time that you see them each week which is usually a half hour. The average rate is $10-$12/a half hour.
It all really depends on your goal, do you just wanna strum chords or do you want to play symphonies.
If at first you don’t succeed you’re about average.
If you want to eventually just step up on stage and JAM with people I suggest practicing your scales, specifically, the blues scales. Scales are the “rules” of music. If you know those you can stick in a BB King CD or whoever and wail away. After you learn those everything takes off.
The other thing is this: pick it up EVERYDAY, no matter what. Even if it is just a symbolic pick up you have to do this.
Since I’m STILL teaching myself how to play, I’ll share what little I know. I agree with everyone else that PRACTICING is the key, as well as getting the major chords down. (My main problem right now is I can’t strum a guitar with any rhythm at all…)
One random note: make sure you have nylon strings on it…makes it a LOT easier before you get calluses. Oh, and I still have all the sheets/books I had from when I took guitar class in college. If you want me to pass them along, let me know! (If nothing else, it’d be free! :)) And GOOD LUCK!
I have at least 4 books, including “Guitar for Dummies,” a cool computer program called Guitropolis, which was pretty fun, and I still can’t play guitar!
Advice I was told (and didn’t follow): You have to practice. Practice, practice, and practice. Pick it up and play it until you get blisters. And make sure you can tune it. And cut your nails.
Advice I can offer: Try not to hang around people who have been playing for 25 years and like to show off!! :mad: I’m kidding. But this pal of mine will offer to help me, only to get bored after 5 mins and start jamming! It’s a little discouraging…
The local community college may have a beginning guitar class. It might be more interesting to learn with others and cheaper than private lessons.
I don’t plan on getting on stage and playing for people, and I don’t plan on playing with people (I don’t do much social stuff in real life anyway) … I’m more interested in getting good enough to play the more note-by-note stuff than strumming… it’s gonna take time though
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From an actual catalog: “Disco balls create an enchanting, dazzling effect of light shafts, adding movement and glamour to any occasion” the Abrams’ bris was certainly memorable
O p a l C a t www.opalcat.com
Then Opal, I’ll repeat my offer of the book I had from my college class…it was for a classical guitar course, so I learned to do note-by-note stuff. Actually, I tend to think that’s EASIER than strumming, but YMMV.
Heck yeah! You want to email me to figure out the details?
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From an actual catalog: “Disco balls create an enchanting, dazzling effect of light shafts, adding movement and glamour to any occasion” the Abrams’ bris was certainly memorable
O p a l C a t www.opalcat.com
We Can Work It out/Beatles. Forget about all those crazy chord changes in the bridge. I believe that an F#m will do the trick for starters. Just learn how to play it. It’s easy.
“What’s right is only half of what’s wrong and
I want a short-haired girl who sometimes wears it twice as long.”
George Harrison - Old Brown Shoe
Don’t put nylon strings on an accoustic guitar made for steel strings. The low tension won’t be enough to counteract the force of the truss rod in the neck which can easily back bow the neck. Also if you’re changing strings don’t remove them all at once or cut them all. This is another quick way to ruin a guitar. Change one string at a time.
I don’t have anything profound to add to the good advice already given except to be patient with yourself. For a long time it’s going to sound like this:
Try to make the chords sound as good as you can. It’s hard at first to keep your fingers in the right place on the right strings and you’ll hit a few clunkers, but if you’re going to all this trouble you might as well learn them right.
And the sore fingers callus up pretty quickly.
I have a little extra sympathy for you, Opal, since I just got a new 12-string guitar today. I’m proficient on a 6-string and I was a little surprised at the magnitude of the difference between the two. The left hand is not too different but the right hand, the “picking” hand, needs a whole new technique (since you have to be sure to pluck two strings each time.) So I’m a newbie myself.
“I used to think the brain was the most important organ in the body, until I realized who was telling me that.”
Emo Phillips
I learned completely differently from everyone else. First I learned tablature, then I picked a simple riff and learned how to play that proficiently. It got my pick hand used to picking and my fret hand used to fretting. I then learned a couple more riffs, constantly practicing. I didn’t start learning chords until I was already getting good at fretting and picking. This is basic stuff, but it’s needed if you’ve never played before. I liked it this way because it let me develop callouses on my fretting hand, and it let me learn the feel of my guitar before getting into chords.
Its a simple book, easy to read, the songs suck but you can learn the basic chords ands how to play them, after that, get a song book with the songs you want to learn, listen to them while reading the book and learn when the changes occur and how they sound.
Thats how I learned.
btw Opal, have you got the Earls Court version of “The Wall live” yet? its called “Is there anybody out there”
it is excellent.
The only thing I’d add to this is that you can really cut a LOT of time off the learning curve by at least starting with a few guitar lessons. You really need someone to show you how to position your hands and fingers - it’s not easy to get that out of a book. And if you start off wrong, it’ll be much, much harder to progress.
Failing that, a video might help.
When I first started playing, I got the basic chords down (C,D,G,Am,Em). There’s your whole Eagles songlist (-:
Once I started tackling tougher songs I had a hell of a time. I was trying to transition to all these funky chords by repositioning my fingers in all these wacky ways, and it was a pain. After a couple of years of sporadically struggling with this stuff, I was playing with a new friend and he said, “Why are you doing it the hard way? Here, let me show you a couple of shortcuts…” And everything got much easier.
Go to: http://www.htmlgoodies.com
and search that site for “guitar.” There are a couple of free javascripts that will show the fingering for guitar chords.
