Picking up the guitar

Cafe Society
1

I know this is a well travelled topic, and I’ve looked through the old threads as best as I can. (My search-fu is weak; a search on ‘guitar’ in the title brings up a lot of general guitar threads.) I’ve still got a few questions specific to my situation, though.

General comments: I’m not an utter newbie to music–I played violin for about five years back in grade and early high school, and could read music back then, though I’ve since forgotten. I am, however, a complete stranger to guitar. Musically, my interests are varied. My strongest interests, with respect to the guitar, would be in classic rock (used fairly broadly here, to pick up a wide swath of 60s/70s stuff), hard rock, metal, and punk. I’m also fond of “Celtic” and other European folk, especially when it’s blended into the above genres. (Think Flogging Molly or Gogol Bordello.) I also enjoy a bit of old-school country here and there–Johnny Cash and so on. wouldn’t mind doing the more American folk or classical guitar occasionally, but it’s not a major draw.

  1. **Electric vs. acoustic. **If there’s a consensus here, it seems to be that electrics are easier to start with due to the physical configuration of the guitar–narrower neck, smaller gauge strings. Acoustics, of course, have the benefit of being much more portable; it’s easier to share music with others when all you have to drag around the guitar itself, not amp, etc. The further consensus is to start with what you’re more interested in playing–for me, as you might guess, that would be an electric. Are my thoughts in the right area here?

  2. Amps. A friend suggested that, rather than go with one of the starter packs with a cheap practice amp, I might instead plug an electric into my computer (a MacBook Pro) and use sequencing software with a plugin to imitate an amp. He seemed to think that the performance I’d get this way would most likely exceed what I’d get with one of those starter-pack amps. This would save me money that I could then use to get a somewhat nicer guitar. Does this seem like a reasonable plan? An amp would be a purchase further down the road.

  3. Lessons. I definitely plan to take some. What should I look for in a teacher? I don’t suppose I’m going to find one with the same sort of wide-ranging interests as mine, but I can at least avoid the jazz guys. :wink: I snagged a bunch of ads off craigslist and have them bookmarked for once I’m back home.

  4. **Choosing a guitar. **Like I said, I can’t play (yet!). I’ve got an uncle who does, though; my plan right now is to get some help from him–he can at least give them a little play and I can listen to the sound. What else should I be thinking about, as a complete guitar tyro, when I go to the store?

  5. Anything else y’all guitar heroes care to add. :slight_smile:

Thanks everybody!

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Lessons: I think you’ll find anyone with enough experience to teach guitar will have pretty wide tastes, don’t worry about that. Just find someone you like.

We always say this: Play a bit every day even if it’s just a few minutes.

Do get an amp, you’re going to play classic rock and punk through a computer? No way. Make sure you’ve got an overdrive option, either built into the amp or get a stomp box.

Electric vs accoustic. I’d think it would be weird to only play electric but I suppose to start out it’d be easier on the fingers. Aim to play both in the longer term, just playing electric is a bit wussy :slight_smile:

Choosing: Ibanez and Yamaha both make excellent “starter” level guitars, just about impossible to go wrong with them. What’s your budget?

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I’ve been playing for 30 years and I make up stuff like this and this. I also play electric.

You’ll get lots of different opinions and no consensus, because it all comes down to what you want to achieve. IMHO, if you start with an acoustic you will actually focus on learning to play the guitar, and then you can progress to electric when you’re ready. If you start with electric, you will probably get distracted by having ‘easy’ fun, experimenting with effects, power chords and so on and so forth, instead of actually learning basic technique. I agree that an electric is ‘easier’ in some ways, but think about whether that’s a good thing from your point of view. Sometimes, ‘harder’ is better because you learn more and learn better. An acoustic forces or at least encourages a more disciplined approach because there are fewer distractions. An electric is better for quick, easy fun right from day one.

Another factor to bear in mind, and I don’t wish to spit on your toast here, is that this might not work out. Learning to play guitar isn’t easy, and you will go through two weeks of pain while you learn your basic chord shapes (all guitarists do). Many start, not so many continue. Generally speaking, an acoustic is a cheaper investment if it doesn’t work out. With an electric, you tend to invest in lots of other kit as well, so it becomes more costly to admit that this really isn’t for you.

So all in all, I’d say get an acoustic first, see if it works out, get your basic technique down (enjoy the pain!), and then treat yourself to some electric heaven when the time is right.

I don’t quite understand where sequencing software comes into this plan. An amp is about being heard, and sequencing s’ware isn’t. Anyway, if you’re asking my advice, you’ll start with an acoustic so an amp isn’t necessary.

Teacher / student is a relationship, and like any other relationship it can take a while to find the right one that works. You have to be right for the teacher and the teacher has to be right for you. Go with personal recommendation if you can. If that’s not an option, look for track record - someone who has actually made a career out of teaching and has been doing it awhile, as opposed to a guitarist who is just passing through your town for the summer and looking to pick up a little cash on the side by giving lessons. Beyond that, all you can do is go for lesson one and see if you think the vibes are good. If not, move along. Don’t underestimate the importance of geographical proximity. It’s much easier to motivate yourself to go for regular lessons if it’s not a royal pain to actually get to the teacher.

You don’t need to buy new. You can get a perfectly good first guitar, and save a ton of money, by buying second-hand. Most beginners do. It’s a great way to ‘test the water’ and see if the guitar is right for you.

In general, don’t buy anything you haven’t actually tried playing. It’s a very personal thing, so you want to get a guitar that you like the look and feel of, and that you think sounds good or at least adequate for your needs. Go to stores, and if ncessary go to several, and try everything you want to try before making a decision (if the sales staff get annoyed by your wanting to try everything, first of all they aren’t doing a very good job and secondly that’s not your problem).

As another rule of thumb, be boring. Stick to the better-known brand names. They got to be the better-known names for a reason. I have recommended buying an acoustic, but if you insist on starting with an electric than go for a Fender or a Gibson - not because they are necessarily the best guitars, but because you can’t really go wrong with either and they are both very ‘safe’ choices. You can go back and be more adventurous once you’ve mastered the instrument and are regularly playing stadium gigs.

If you see this as a short-term thing, you will very probably give up eventually, not get much out of it, and wonder why you bothered. If you can take a long-term approach, playing the guitar will give you a lifetime of pleasure, reward and satisfaction. Even if you are an excellent student, it’s going to take you over 6 months to be really comfortable with all the basic chord shapes, and 1-2 years before you can strum and read chord charts fluidly and instinctively. It’s going to take 2-3 years to develop good picking technique and learn about lead lines, improvisation, modulation and so on.

The best advice I can give you is to start properly, get a teacher who makes you learn good technique and good theory, understand chords and chord inversions, understand how to spell the chord from the name or vice-versa, makes you learn your scales and modes and so on. Be ready for it to be rather slow and a bit tedious for your first two foundation years. But then you will be well-placed to accelerate the learning and really develop some serious technique and have a huge amount of fun.

It’s a slow journey and it can’t be rushed, but the view from the top is spectacular.

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Electric v acoustic … 50/50. You’re right, it is a little easier to get used to an electric for the reasons you stated. But think about it the other way … you learn on an acoustic, and by the time you try out an electric, it seems easier. Like swinging a heavier bat in the on-deck circle.

However, I’d say, with an electric, most people seem to try to wrestle ‘sounds’ out of it, rather than music. That is to say, a lot of the time an electric is about … “check out this crunch, or flange, or chorus, or whatever.” See what I’m saying? That isn’t to say that you can’t learn or produce cool music on an electric, but an acoustic -to me- seems more organic, for lack of a better term.

Amp wise … your’s sounds like a decent solution (through the computer) for what you want it to do. You really only need an amp if you want to be loud. Shit, you can play your electric not plugged into anything at all if you really feel like it. On the other hand, if you really want that “I’m playing rock and roll just like Jimi did” feeling, I don’t know how much a simple computer program will work.

Again, I go back to the “a PC is not an amp” platitude, that for me, carries some weight.

In conclusion … shit, man, what ever turns your crank. Just play!

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That sounds almost exactly like my situation about nine months ago. I’m far from an expert, but here’s how I’ve handled each of those.

I hadn’t picked up a viola in a couple decades, but I also have a very good memory. If you remember whole-notes, half-notes, quarter-notes, rests, etc., you’re already way ahead of most people. You’ll have to learn where the notes on the staff correspond to frets on the fingerboard, but you’d have to learn that anyway.

And guitar music can also be written in tablature format (six lines (one for each string) with numbers indicating which fret) just below the staff, so you can use the notes for the rhythm and the numbers to know where to put your fingers.

I started with an electric and I’ve been happy so far.

I don’t have an amp yet, but I got one of these. It’s a little effects box that can mimic lots of different amplifiers, and I just plug a pair of headphones into it. There’s also an aux port that I connect to a portable CD player. It keeps things quiet for the neighbors, I can experiment with a lot of different sounds, and I can play along with the practice exercises that came on a CD with one of my books. When you need to be heard, you can plug in a little powered speaker (like you can get for an iPod). I don’t think I’ll be performing with that rig, but it sounds good enough to learn from and it’s reasonably portable. I’m glad I have a battery charger, too.

Strangely, I practice with the box set to mimic an acoustic. That seems to be the least forgiving setting, and I want to be able to hear my mistakes.

I took a group class at the local center for adult education. I figured that at such an absolute beginner level everything would be pretty standard; how to hold the instrument, very basic chords, etc., and the particulars of the instructor wouldn’t come into play much yet. I really liked the guy who led the class, though. Everyone else was completely starting out. It was interesting to hear him teach some very basic music theory, like notes and keys, which are kinda tricky concepts to grasp if you aren’t used to them. I kept wanting to jump in, though. (“Well, there’s 12 notes, but you only use about 7 at a time…”)

After the lessons, though, I hit a bit of a lull. It was a bit boring to practice the same songs he’d given us over and over. I found a book for beginners that I really like, and I’ve been making good progress. I look at the stuff near the end, and if I can get to be able to play that, I’ll be pretty happy. I’ll go back and take the advanced group class, too, at some point.

I did the same thing with the help of a more knowledgeable and generous doper. (Thanks, tdn, you’re aces in my book.) You’re right that you won’t know what to really feel for, though. Start reading about and listening to the details of different guitars. The geekery here goes very, very deep. Do you want to sound like George Harrison or Eric Clapton?

Someone around here said that the right guitar is whichever one inspires you to actually pick it up and practice. I like that.

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I would bet that WordMan said that, and I’m sure he’ll weigh in here with some good advice.

My advice on electric guitar choice would be: try Epiphone. I have played a dozen or so Epiphone Les Pauls and SGs, and I own an Epiphone Dot. They make very nice entry-level electrics, much better in quality than the various cheap Fenders. And while I’m plugging Epiphone , they make a cool little tube amp called the Valve Junior that is relatively inexpensive.

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Do you want to go “meedly meedly meedly meedly meedly meeeeeeeeeeeeee!”, “grunge grunge grunge”, or “dee da da deedle birds in the garden fresh mown grass” Personally I like the birds in the garden thing and had a good outcome from getting an acoustic first. My point is that you should look at the music you are interested in playing and get a guitar that suits. The primary goal, in my opinion, when learning some form of music, is to ENJOY it! So you must get something that you will enjoy playing.

No. Get an amp. It doesn’t have to be a good one, but it is far better to be moving some air than listening to some anemic screechings through a computer.

Get something cheap but serviceable. It has to be playable but you don’t want to spend money on something that you don’t get the full use out of. Basically you’re at the stage where you imagine you might like to play the guitar, but you don’t really know. Don’t spend a lot of money straight away.

My tip is to quote David Gilmour, “Feedback? Christ, where would rock ‘n’ roll be without feedback.” My interpretation is “noise is all good, as long as you like it.”

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For the reasons you’ve given for getting an electric first (narrower neck, smaller gauge strings), why not consider a folk size acoustic? I started out on a classical Spanish, got a little way but I have very small hands and found it a stretch at times. Moved on to a dreadnought, but found the body size inconvenient. Had an electric for a while, found it a pain because I couldn’t keep the amp out, so I couldn’t just pick up and play, I had to get the amp, unroll the cables, plug it all in, blah blah. My most recently purchased, and favourite so far, is a 1963 Framus folk acoustic, which has a nice tight little body, slender neck, and a voice like honey.

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What’s the general feeling about using a thumb pick?

Is it better for beginners to go ahead and toughen their fingers? The thumb can get pretty sore finger picking until callous develop. But, you won’t get a callous using a thumb pick. catch 22

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Not really catch-22, because, like many artistic things … if the way you’re doing it works for you, then you’re doing it right. However, I would say if you learn with a thumb pick, you’ll probably play with a thumb pick forever. I play with no picks whatsoever … it’s just the way I learned.
Electric/acoustic … brings up another thought. Maybe the OP might want to swing more toward a hollow-body (or semi-hollow-body) electric. You won’t get the full acoustic sound but you can pick it up and play it without an amp and still hear something half-decent.

(I mention it because I picked up one of theseover the holidays and I love it. Although, I do play it exclusively through an amp)

11

Thanks for the replies, guys.

I can appreciate the argument you guys make in favor of an acoustic, ianzin & Jack Batty, and the goal in the longer term is definitely to be able to do both. In addition to the physical differences between the two (which are perhaps not as urgent for me as some, as I’m a 6’1" guy with decent-sized hands), I’m thinking of the “whatever inspires you to pick it up and practice” angle as well. Given my interests, it seems like an electric is going to do that more than an acoustic. But I’m interested in hearing any argument that could be made in the other direction.

Budget is somewhat flexible. For a rough upper limit, let’s say no more than $500–but I’d be happy to spend less than that.

Thanks for mentioning that amp, Crotalus–didn’t know there was anything tube-wise in that price range. (Ok, didn’t know for certain what the price ranges of amps were generally, of course. :))

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Another relative noob checking in here.

My interests were probably similar to yours…my primary music interest is classic rock, and that’s what I wanted to learn how to play. So, I went with an electric.

I got an Epiphone “starter pack”, with a Les Paul Special II and a small amp. It’s not a bad guitar, and the pack was only around $200 at Guitar Center. Regardless of how you go, I’d definitely recommend having a professional do a setup on your guitar. As mine came in a box, they didn’t set it up, and it was a mess until I learned that I needed to have that done.

The amp that came with isn’t bad, either, though I know it’s not great. I recently got a Pocket Rockit headphone amp, which is nice for practicing late at night (though my main amp does have a headphone jack, too).

For me, lessons were definitely needed. I tried to just teach myself for a few months, and made very little progress. I found a local music school, and they set me up with an instructor whose interests complimented mine. I have a half-hour lesson every week, which is very motivating (and I now have someone to tell me if my technique is good or bad), though I still know I need to practice more. Nonetheless, after 8 months of lessons, I know can actually play the guitar and have it sounds almost like music. :wink:

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One other thing … lessons are definitely a good thing, but I can say without a doubt that I learned far more about playing guitar by just finding guys who already knew how to play and getting them to show me a few things. Whether it’s how to play a particular song, or how you do that squelchy-squeaky thing, or how that riff goes or whatever … always, always, always try to leech as much info as you can from people you jam with.

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hard not to find something to your taste with this group

http://www.workshoplive.com/

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2. Amps: I sometimes play my electric guitar through my MacBook Pro by plugging it directly into the microphone jack and playing through GarageBand with the monitor turned on. It works decently well for clean sounds and really well for distortion/overdrive type sounds. If your guitar has active pickups or you used one of those USB guitar cables, the clean sounds would probably sound better.

If you’re inclined to use a soldering iron, you can make a surprisingly good small amp for about $20 by following the directions on this page.

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**Crotalus **is right that I tend to champion the “whatever keeps you playing” angle. Not much to add - sounds like you are thinking about electric, which is cool - as I have said in many other threads, I like to play unplugged electric in front of the TV, especially during baseball season - I can focus on all the repetitive stuff I need to work on - chords, scales, song parts - in a semi-focused sorta way.

Beyond that - the Epi Valve Jr. amps are cool, provided you are okay with a simple tube amp with no bells and whistles (hobbyists love modding them, too). You could also choose to go for a 15watt Marshall or Line 6 - digital aspects to it, but with lots of features at a point in your playing when learning how to work with tubes isn’t really a top priority. Or find a used Fender Blues Jr. for $350 or so - great amp with a tube heart.

Gotta run.

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Any suggestions for where to start doing some of this, or do you just mean here, in the old threads?

I’m just as clueless about what to look for in an amp as I am about what to look for in a guitar. I’ve got a fondness for tubes as part of another little hobby, and I probably don’t figure I need bells or whistles at this point. (Modding it down the road sounds like a fun project in itself.) But would the features be on the Marshal or Line 6 that you mention that I’d be giving up with a more bare-bones amp?

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Amps - I have a Fender Vibro-Champ XD. It’s just a 5 watt amp but it sounds great. The nice thing is I can get the tone I like but at a comfortable volume level. It can get pretty loud, too, if I want. I like using an actual amp vs. modeling software/boxes although my POD through my computer speakers doesn’t sound bad in a pinch.

You can start with your favorite guitar players, solos, passages, etc… If you look into it a little bit you’ll discover what the guitarist was playing at what time. Maybe that’s the kind of guitar you want to think about getting. Since pro level guitars are so expensive you’ll want to look at a model with at least a similar pickup configuration and (maybe) body style. Then you want to look at the plusses and minuses of said guitars, read reviews (no shortage of these on the net), handle some at a music store, ask around here, and so on.

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Poke around on Wikipedia, for one thing. I looked up a few great guitarists, and there was information there about what guitars they played throughout their careers. Anybody good enough that you’ve heard of them has probably played a lot of different guitars over the years, but they get identified with certain instruments. B.B. King is known for his semi-hollowbody Gibson. Eric Clapton started with Gibsons when he was in Cream, then had a couple very famous Fender Stratocasters during the 70’s and beyond. Buddy Holly and Jimi Hendrix were Strat players, too.

Once you learn what the different guitars look like, you can do an image or a video search and see who played what, and when.

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If you like to tinker, than an Epi Valve Jr. or a Fender Blues Jr. would be a great way to go - tube-based and very modifiable. Digital amps by Line 6, Fender, Marshall, etc are more likely to have a clean channel and a crunchy channel you can switch between, on-board digital effects like delay and chorus, things like a headphone jack and other sockets and plug-ins (e.g., so you can feed mp3 files into the amp and play along - or feed the amp output into a computer).

Also, solid state amps just operate differently - there is another thread where I laid out the differences. Bottom line is that the Volume control on a tube amp is really a Tone control - yes, it increases loudness up to a point, but it is more about dialing up how much distortion you want in your signal - once you get that level of distortion you want, you basically don’t touch the control - it is set up in your sweet spot. From there - you get tubey goodness - i.e., great dynamics, touch responsiveness - stuff that an experienced player takes advantage of. With a digital or mostly solid state amp, you not only get those extra features, but the Volume control is actually a Volume control - you vary the distortion via other knobs and vary the loudness using a Volume / Master knob. Easier to use right out of the box, but missing that tubey goodness in the tone.

I think the Vibro-Champ XD that **mack **mentions is an attempt to strike a balance between tube and digital - I have heard good things about it but don’t have any experience with one…