beginner guitar question

[Wilco23]

(hope this is the right forum for this)

i'm looking to pick up the guitar and learn to play. do any of you have any recommendations for books, dvd's or websites that would be a good starting point? i have a friend who's going to help me pick out a good acoustic guitar to buy.

any help is appreciated.

[stormstarter28]

when you're learning chords, chordfind.com is a good site to learn how to play pretty much every chord known to man. I would also recommend buying an uber-cheap guitar to start off with, then if you decide to get serious, invest in a quality instrument. There's no sense in spending several hundred dollars on a starter guitar, especially if you quit within a 6 months.

[davebreal]

[ QUOTE ]
(hope this is the right forum for this)

i'm looking to pick up the guitar and learn to play. do any of you have any recommendations for books, dvd's or websites that would be a good starting point? i have a friend who's going to help me pick out a good acoustic guitar to buy.

any help is appreciated.

[/ QUOTE ]

the absolute best begginers approach is to focus on rhythm training by doing different strums in time with your right hand. a metronome can be had for under $15 and will help with your right hand training.

do not worry about trying to learn fancy chords at first. do not attempt to learn Stairway to Heaven. this will result in deadends, lacking in music fundamentals, frustration, and probably a short guitar playing interest.

you can attempt a beginner's primer video, but even those might be too complicated.

http://www.amazon.com/Learn-Play-Acousti...9874&sr=1-1

any other questions, let me know.

[slothinator]

The "Stairway to Heaven" comment is a great point. Learn to actually play the guitar before you start learning to play songs. There is a difference. I have met so many people who can play tons of songs note for note, but can't just pick up the guitar and play in a free for fall jam session. It's because they don't really know what they are playing; the songs are just a collection of notes to them. Don't be that person.

[xoom]

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It's because they don't really know what they are playing; the songs are just a collection of notes to them. Don't be that person.

[/ QUOTE ]

I'm that person. I've been playing guitar for three years. How do I fix me?

[slothinator]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
It's because they don't really know what they are playing; the songs are just a collection of notes to them. Don't be that person.

[/ QUOTE ]

I'm that person. I've been playing guitar for four years. How do I fix me?

[/ QUOTE ]

I'm not much of a teacher, but I have few ideas. Learning music theory would be a good place to start. And not just chords and scales; learn what makes them up,how they work, and how the two work together. Someone else mentioned learning rhythm patterns with a metronome. Great suggestion. Same thing when practicing scales. You'll be amazed how much easier it is to learn and play other people's music when you understand music theory; the pieces "make sense", so to speak.

[otnemem]

I hear this guy's good.

[gusmahler]

I'm also a beginner, have gotten several beginner type books and am also taking lessons. Here are my thoughts:

* Uncle Tim. His strategy is to learn major scales and the chords that go with them. Basically, you spend you're entire first year doing just those scales. You spend 1/3 of your time doing scales, 1/3 doing chords, 1/3 playing songs. I'll go along with Sloth and say that playing songs isn't optimal compared to learning the chords and scales.

* Steve Vai. Nice article in a very recent Guitar World. He says you should spend 1/3 of your time doing finger exercises (including scales and pure finger exercises), 1/3 doing chords, 1/3 doing songs.

* Guitar Principles. Her thing is that too many people start with chords, scales, etc. without learning proper technique first. So their bad techniques become ingrained. So her books emphasize doing everything correctly first. You're supposed to play VERY slowly when learning scales and chords and do so without any tension. Her books don't really teach the scales and chords and are meant as an accompaniment to them--i.e., her books teach you how to practice, not what to practice. But they make good points. One of the exercises is to take a metronome set fairly slowly and switch between two chords. Surprisingly, even though I thought I had mastered the transition, I really hadn't. I really have to go in depth with this method though. I've only been glossing through it.

* Troy Stetina's metal method. I have the Lead Guitar Primer and the Rhythm method. The Lead Guitar primer teaches you the A-minor pentatonic scale and some licks. That's it. The Rhythm guitar book teaches power chords. That's it. Sounds like I'm knocking the books? No. Really, if you want to play metal, that's what you should learn first, because pentatonics and power chords form the basis for much of metal.

* Lessons. My first teacher was really haphazard. He would choose random songs for me to learn and teach me chords as they became necessary. He also didn't listen to me. Naturally, I ended up quitting him. My new teacher is a much better listener and knows that I want to learn the basics first. So he is going through all sorts of styles and teaching me lots of different chords. The problem is that, being advanced himself, he expects me to learn stuff faster than I am capable of doing. But he does listen to me and slows down when I ask.

What I am currently doing is basically the Vai method. I spend my primary time doing finger exercises, then I do the chords, both the ones I know and the ones my teacher is showing me.

The key is practice. When I first started, I was making huge progress because I would practice 2-3 hours per week. Now that I've started a new job, I'm lucky to practice 1 hour/week. If I just applied myself, I'd be progressing much faster.

[davebreal]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
It's because they don't really know what they are playing; the songs are just a collection of notes to them. Don't be that person.

[/ QUOTE ]

I'm that person. I've been playing guitar for three years. How do I fix me?

[/ QUOTE ]

to be proficient at the instrument you need to know: different strumming patterns, different time signatures, corresponding chords in keys, pentatonic scale

right hand technique (rhythm) is much more important than left hand technique to learning the foundations of music.

it's extremely hard to teach yourself. i've reached many small plateaus and always find myself frustrated by limitations also. the absolute best way to learn is to have a teacher or experienced friend give you lessons. otherwise you'll probably need to invest in videos and books, which are extremely abundant. you might be able to find a few learning resources on youtube if you look hard enough also.

[amplify]

This guy has some great online beginner to intermediate lessons. Learn your scales the way he teaches.

When buying an acoustic the most important thing for a beginner is that the strings are not too high off the fretboard, making it difficult to play. This is the case with many beginner ultra-cheap guitars. There is little to lose by going for something like the Seagull S6, it will retain a lot of its value for resale if you don't end up using it and it plays very sweet.