Anyone know of a good instructional program that is on CD multimedia?
Because of my work schedule and lack of a desire to take classes I am looking for something i can do in my office a work as well as at home but I don’t want to buy a bunch of 50$ learning programs just to find out the all suck.
I am a beginning player so I’m not up to anything even remotely advanced. My guitar is a strat so I would like a program that focuses more on modern rock and blues rahter than classical.
I have a few tutorials but nothing thus far that has made me want to buy it.
Also any of you dopes that play and want to share tips or websites with cool easy to play songs let me know.
but if you want guitar tablature or chord progressions…
this site http://www.harmony-central.com/Guitar/tab.html has LOTS.
I recommend learning a few basic cords, listen to a recording of a favorite song and play along…you’ll get a good feel for rhythm and chord changes. of course nothing beats a few lessons.
Kids, and your high fallutin’ E-lectronics these days.
Get yourself a good chord book. It will not only have all the chords you’ll ever want to play, it will probably also have explanations of chord progressions and scales. Then get your mits on some sheet music or tabulature, and practice.
Another tried and trued method is to find a buddy who plays. You see, guitarists love to show you what they know. You’d be amazed at how much you’re able to pick up. Free lessons!
OK, OK, OK. I wasn’t going to post again until tomorrow, but Jack Batty has a good point, (behind all his cocksure posturing ). I learned to play by 1)watching my father [he’s left handed, I’m not - very confusing] 2) checking out a Mel Bay book with chord chart 3) listening to songs over and over and over and over and over and over trying to “find” the chords. Had I learned a bit of music theory, I’m sure I would be better today than I am now.
The point: You can learn by doing, watching, etc., but I truly feel that you need to get some theory behind it. I’m not sure you can do that simply with a chord chart. If the book (as JB suggests) has some theory, so much the better. If not, keep going. Multi-media or whatever. You could even <shudder> take “real” lessons from a human!!
I recently hauled my old mid-sixties Harmony-made Silvertone out of its case for the first time in about 8 years and started playing again. I never played very well, and it took all of about two days to relearn everything I ever knew. My motivation for all this was to help encourage and participate in my three-year-old son’s intense interest in music (he’s decided he wants to grow up to be Miss Vicky, his music teacher – I’m not worried yet, really).
At any rate I decided to look around the local library to see what books they might have, since I didn’t want to invest much until I’ve established that I’m going to keep playing regularly. I came away with two that have suited my needs admirably. While I’m ordinarily loath to self-identify as being of feeble intellect, Guitar for Dummies is actually pretty well done. Typical of the Dummies series, it’s light in tone and covers a wide range of topics related to learning to play the guitar in all the various styles and genres, is never pedantic about music theory topics while still trying to help you learn enough to understand why you’re putting your fingers where you are and how all this stuff fits together. It also includes (though it was missing from the library copy I have) an audio CD with examples keyed to the text, so that when you’re trying something out you can hear how it’s supposed to sound. I’ve probably made more progress in the couple of hours I’ve spent over the last month skipping around in Guitar for Dummies than I did in any one of the six or seven years when I played pretty regularly with no direction whatever.
The other was The Complete Guitarist by Richard Chapman, published by Dorling Kindersley. If you’re familiar with DK’s house style, you have a good idea of what this book is like. It packs an enormous amount of history, great photographs, and tons of chord and tablature diagrams into a fairly slim package. It’s very dense, particularly in the chord finder and music theory sections. When I’ve scraped the bottom in Guitar for Dummies, looking for some specific information that was too esoteric to be included there, The Complete Guitarist has usually come through. It’s lots of fun to browse through, and seeing all the cool instruments and players kind of increases your motivation to play and improve.
I agree with rackensack about The Complete Guitarist - it’s a wonderful book for both reference and casual reading!
Also, if I can slip a personal plug by the mods, I wrote a perl script that calculates several scales/modes (200+) and chords/arpeggios (75+). You can check it out at:
He has done a good job with the web page as well as some lessons, finger-picking, strumming, theory, chord library, etc. I especially like the “Easy” songs list.
I agree with the other posts, OLGA is great when you hear a tune on the radio and wonder how the artist puts it together, however, I have found there are many interpretations of the music, some of them suck, others are great (just like music itself).
I have been playing for about 2 years and by far the best advice is to play with others regularly, followed closely by taking a real class (at least one). Practice early and often too!
If you are just starting, don’t try to get too complicated to fast. Keep it simple. My advice is to get some music by artists that you really like. It makes it a whole lot more fun to learn. I learned by fumbling through a book by the Beatles and figuring out the chords provided in the chord charts above the staff. Don’t be afraid to invest in a few lessons to get you started though. There is nothing like hands on instruction at the outset to make sure you are doing the fundamentals correctly. But keep it simple at first and try not too get frustrated if the results aren’t there immediately. It usually takes a few weeks of dedicated practice (say a half hour every day) before you get to the point where you get your fingers to change chords smoothly. Good luck.
Thnak you all for the great input and the links and book suggestions.
The reason I have decided against formal lessons is that I do get frustrated when I work with someone who is a lot better than I am. I have a lot of friends who are accomplised with the guitar (one of the reasons I want to learn to to be able to jam with them) but I have avoided asking for help because they all have wildly different ideas on what I need to do to learn and so I just get confused.
I really liked that OLGA page even though some of the songs don’t seem to translate or the tabs are upside down (from my reconing).
The reason I wante a multimedia lesson plan is mainly to do this at work when I have nothing else going on as I am now a graveyard site supervisor so I’m left to myself a lot and can turn up my amp pretty much as high as I want (which I have only done on the three songs I have nailed so far.). I figured that a multimedia tutor could show me finger positions, pause when I want it to and could work in the order that I want to work in as well as accompany me (my biggest hinderence is that I have never really listened to much guitar as I’m more into lyrics so I never know I’m playing something right unless I download the song and versions vary as I’m sure you all know) so that I would know if I have my timing right and listen for transitions which on rock guitar at least, never translate well on paper. Listen to “Voodoo Chile” and try to write down the into accurately for example. heh.
While I’m not an expert (there are probably many BETTER players out there than WORSE) the way I learned the little I know is by playing with other people. So much so that if you were to measure the amount I’d learnt by myself it would probably measure less than 20%. It’s a real incentive to play along when the whole band is playing a song and you need to hold your end up. I played with a “band” (note the ironic quoting) for about 3 years off and on and developed far faster from the jamming than the studying alone (even though I was probably more dedicated when learning alone, less distraction, etc.) Looking at books and cd’s teaches you chords, progressions, scales, etc. Comparing notes with other guys and having bass/drums to keep the time teaches you rythm, changes, and song structures (I think). Play with others if you can, although you WILL need a basic grounding before you can catch up with your more advanced buddies (unless they’re REALLY patient). If they’re better let them take the lead and you play rythm.
). I learned to play by 1)watching my father [he’s left handed, I’m not - very confusing] 2) checking out a Mel Bay book with chord chart 3) listening to songs over and over and over and over and over and over trying to “find” the chords. Had I learned a bit of music theory, I’m sure I would be better today than I am now.