Take a pill, sport. It was a throwaway line. It’s not worth breaking out the old “unwarranted generalizations” trope.
(But I do happen to prefer SC’s for almost all guitar applications. ;))
Edit - What got under my skin was the “it’s not that simple.” No kidding? It’s not that simple? Sheesh.
Every serious guitar player knows the reality of the superiority of the humnbucker to the single coil, and those that don’t, stack their single coils in an effort to compromise.
Sorry Yngwie, it doesn’t work…
Well, to be fair, Yngwie’s problems start a lot further back than his choice of pickups.
And besides, yer wrong and you smell funny.
Bah! My invincible Telecaster laughs at your humbuckers. It scoffs! It mocks them haughtily!
The Telecaster, sans humbuckers, is the guitar that built rock and roll - and country and the blues for that matter!
Another quick tip for the beginner guitarist is don’t forget you have a thumb, and positioned right, it is an excellent lever for getting that high wrist postion.
I am happy to walk away, while pointing out that your “throwaway line” was the provocative statement. When posting to a thread involving a beginner asking questions, I try to avoid sarcasm or irony or throwaway lines - it can lead to confusion for a newbie player just learning the language and concepts. YOU know it’s not that simple - but does the new player? A smiley face or somethin’ might’ve framed your attempt to bring the funny…
**Pithy ** - play what you love and enjoy. Captain Quint and I can compare scars some other time…
I’m not a guitarist, I’m a keyboard player, but I did spend some time a few years ago getting up to a certain standard on guitar, pretty much self-taught with help from guitarist friends. If there’s anything worthwhile in this post, it’s probably because I’m still close to a novice on guitar to this day. With that caveat, and for what it’s worth, something I wish I’d known from the start was this:
When you’re getting frustrated because you can’t make strings sound properly due to left-hand finger-positioning problems, don’t fret (hah!). It will come, and all it takes is practice.
I struggled particularly with barre chords. I couldn’t, for the life of me, finger a simple barre and have all six strings sound properly. I thought my finger wasn’t the right shape or something, and spent a lot of time adjusting the exact position of it on the fretboard, with no luck. Very frustrating indeed, especially when the kind of music I wanted to play (jazz, soul, funk, etc) often relied heavily on barres for smooth chromatic chord changes.
After a while, I stopped having that problem, and could play a perfect barre. The only way I can describe it is as if my hand “taught itself” the positioning through practice with absolutely zero conscious effort on my part. Even though I very rarely pick up a guitar these days, that subliminal learning hasn’t gone - I can still barre easily and sound all the strings.
Lots of good advice already here. Stuff I’ve read above that I would emphasize: arching the fingers of the left hand over the fingerboard and practicing with recorded music.
Try to avoid the temptation to go with whatever contortion of your fingers allows you to make a clean chord; try to force yourself to position your fretting hand so that the fingertips are aiming into the fingerboard, not stretching across it. It’s harder at first, but it’s the path to clean notes and chords. To improve your muscle memory, try hammering entire chords. That is, when you have your left hand cleanly fretting a chord, try to pick up all of your fingers at once and hammer them back down into position repeatedly, checking each time to see if the chord is still clean.
When you are first learning, you will take a lot of time to change from one chord to another. Playing along with the CD occasionally will force you to attempt to keep up with the actual tempo, and will help you learn to make changes faster. It will also let you compare your right-hand attack with that of the original player.
And as many have said, keep at it.
Make a decision to do yourself a big favour now, that your future self will thank you for many, many times.
Here it is:
Get a good teacher, and go for weekly or fortnightly lessons. Tell him (or her) that you want to understand how to play this thing properly, and that you are willing to put in a year or two really learning and understanding how this ‘guitar’ thing works, to provide a good foundation for a lifetime of playing, gigging (amateur or pro), enjoying music, enjoying playing, and exploring this wonderful world of the guitar.
Tell him that you want to be able to work out chords from names, and names from chords.
Tell him that you want to be able to look at either tab, chord charts or just chord names and play along to a song.
Tell him that you also want to be able to listen to a favourite song or two and understand how to play the underlying chords and rhythm part, plus at least some of the lead lines. Playing by ear is a wonderful gift to have.
Tell him you want to understand keys and key signatures, and learn how to transpose if you have to.
Tell him you want to begin learning scales and arpeggios, and the basics of constructing good, fluid lead lines and solos.
All of this will take at least two years of solid and sustained effort. There will be frustration and tears along the way, but that’s the same for everyone. But it will come, and eventually your fingers and your brain will be able to do all of the above and a lot more. And you will then be very well set up for a lifetime of guitar enjoyment.
This is the biggest single favour you can do yourself. Don’t put yourself in the position I got into, along with a million others, of trying to get ahead without bothering to learn the basics. Learn the rudiments, fundamentals and foundations, and learn them properly, from a good teacher who pushes you and expects you to learn things week on week. It will be worth it, and you will thank yourself many times over.
There’s been some very good advice given so far, but the OP should also be aware of a common problem that can affect some guitar players. It’s called GAS*.
*(Gear Acquisition Syndrome)
I obviously am in no position to advise on that problem.
And that’s just the guitars, add in half a dozen amps and a zillion FX pedals.
This is one of the funniest things I think I’d ever read in relation to the guitar!
I didn’t intend to start anything. I just love the word. I don’t have a clue what it does apart from bucking hum, whatever that means.
My fingers aren’t nearly as sore as I was afraid they were going to be. Either my fingers are tough from being able to pound out 100+ wpm when typing or I’m not practicing enough.
Humbucker. Short version: its designed to block out electronic hum from nearby electrical components. It also gives an arguably fatter tone, which some people prefer and others do not.
ETA: can we be done with pickup rants? Unless, of course, Pithy wants to know more, it’s his thread. [/hijack]
Bucking hum is exactly what it means. Single coil pickups are prone to interference from dimmer switches, transformers electrical stuff generally. Humbuckers have two coils wired so that any interference in one of the coils is cancelled out by the other. Having two coils means that humbuckers are (generally speaking) more powerful than single coils.
So why doesn’t everyone choose humbuckers? Two coils side by side sample the vibration of the strings over a longer length, this means higher harmonics are lost. Also all other things being equal two coils means more wire which means a higher impedance which also damps higher frequencies.
The result is that single coils are usually* very bright and jangle-y while humbuckers are louder and voiced more middle-y.
*do we want to start on P-90s etc?
Nah - we’ll scare the bejeezus out of poor **Pithy **- he just wants to play!