I'm starting a leisure learning course on the 19th of the 4th called "Guitar playing for beginners" at my local college as learning to play the guitar is something I've wanted to do for a while and I know that there's a few people on here that play so I was wondering if any of them had any handy tips for me to help with learning for when I start. (its an acoustic guitar course btw)
I started myself a few weeks ago. The best tip so far is to just e patient and practice as often as you can. I talked to my old teacher (Who currently play guitar in a band) the other day. He told me to learn a song I liked as soon as possible. It will help you keep up your motivation through the boring part of the learning process. (In the beginning it is pretty boring, but it is pretty satisfying when you feel that you manage something.) If your fingers are short and fat like mine you will feel that they don't fit between the strings. It's irritating, but not as irritating as figuring out that they DO fit, you are just holding the guitar wrong. Oh, and your fingers will hurt a bit the first week or so especially if playing on a steel stringed guitar.
Good tips, especially on learning a song you like. I started playing (bass) all those years ago just because I wanted to be able to play some of my favourite songs. The satifaction I got from being able to do so motivated me to learn more and more. The problem I had when I first picked up an acoustic guitar to learn a few chords was that I couldn't get into the habit of holding it properly. That was just because I'd gotten used to holding a bass, but if you get used to the neck of the guitar straight away, you'll be well on your way to playing properly. I'd like to learn to play electric as well, but at the moment, that's a little far down the long list of "things I'd like to do some day"
All good tips so far, dont under estimate the value of keeping your guitar in tune, otherwise those songs you're learning wont sound right - and lessons definetly help speed up the process of learning.
Tip from a teacher - G, D and C are the keys to a million songs. Learn them, practice the changes between them, love them. From there, add chords, in order - E, A, Em, Am, Dm, F, B. The last 2 require a lot of strength in your index finger, so they'll take a while, but it's all building up, so be patient. After that, it's literally practice, practice, practice. While it's all very helpful for quick learning to target a few easy songs for chords and go from there, the best form of study comes with a basic understanding of theory behind it. Even if it's just the major scale in a couple of keys, it could be the difference between playing F or G in the middle of "Knocking On Heaven's Door". And nobody wants to hear the F. Other advice: Don't hit the strings too hard with either fingers or a pick. They'll make their noise and do their thing with a moderate amount of force applied. If you think you're going too rough on them, switch to a thin (less than 0.7mm) nylon pick. It'll bend a little on contact with the strings, which will take the force out of the arm/hand movements (isn't physics fun?) Keep your thumb in the middle of the neck. If you let it ride too high up over the top, you'll close your hand off and start muting strings. If you move it too far down, you risk slipping off the neck. Start from the middle and by all means adjust slightly, but if your thumb's wrapping around the top, stop. You're not Angus Young yet (heck, I don't even think Angus Young is Angus Young any more). If it starts to hurt really badly and constantly, stop. If it starts to peel a load of skin, stop. If it starts to bleed... well, you didn't listen to me twice before, so I'll shout it - STOP! Don't be afraid of facial expressions. EVERYONE pulls those facial expressions. It's fine, really. Oh, and please don't play Smoke On The Water. Pretty please? No? Well, I tried... Hope that helps you a little! Will
+1 If you are going to learn some songs, pick something achievable. Nothing will make you feel like you are rubbish than trying/struggling and failing to learn something for ages. I'm not saying don't aim high, just because you cant play a song through the first few times doesn't mean you won't pick it up, but trying to learn Guitar Boogie just ain't gonna happen after 2 weeks of playing Trust me I know bits off 1000 songs I can't play and only a few songs the whole way through!
Hehe. I learned the first 12 notes from Smoke on the water a few years ago. The rest of the song? Not so much... Good tip. I'll try to remember them too.
I'd try Wish You Were Here; that's pretty much what I started on, it's possibly a little difficult in places but it's essentially an easy song that then becomes difficult to master (which is good as you can keep coming back to it and seeing how much you've improved or practice it to build up techniques). Oh, and don't neglect scales if you ever want to do any sort of improvisation.
Were you guys talking about Incubus' Wish You Were Here or Pink Floyds? Both awesome songs, but I'll assume from common sense that you were referring to the latter
QFT. Plus the solo's awesome, and totally not that hard to learn. I'm gonna vote for the former cos it's tonnes of fun to play along with while not thinking too hard I taught myself purely by picking the bits of songs I liked and learning them. Probably not the best or quickest method but it's kept guitar insanely fun and relaxing for almost six years and an understanding of theory naturally works its way into your brain eventually. Even if I don't know the names for everything... Most of all be inventive. Practise what you gotta practise and then just fiddle with chords, notes etc...invent stuff, just plonk your fingers down, give it a strum and write it down if it sounds good. The voice recorder on my phone has proved invaluable over the last year for helping me remember bits of riffs and chords that have popped into my head some idle tuesday evening
Once you've got the basics down try some open tunings too. It'll give you a metric f***ton of ideas. I use Gootar a lot for ideas and new tunings.
Definitely! Open C + slide + overdrive = mmmmmmmmmmmm tasty! Speaking of tunings a got a free guitar app for my girlfriends iPhone (metronome, chord book tuner etc) and during my brief flick through it I noticed a tuning labelled new standard...? I'm about to google but I'm interested to hear if anyone knows anything about this, it's been a while since I was current in these matters. Edit: turns out it's not so current...
Get a good book of scales and practise playing them as it really helps to build up precision and they form good roots for any form of solos etc when you get that far
Drob B is the tuning of the gods... And as Tom Morello once said, 'If you want to rock out, lean on F sharp!'.
Choose songs you really love to play ... that's hell of a motivator (at least it was for me ). Some bands publish their guitar tabs on their website or on fan pages btw.
