Learning to play a guitar!

[audrey]

Hi family and friends, how's everybody doing?

 

 

So I decided to improve myself a bit over next year or so. One of the things I always wanted is to learn how to play a guitar.
I started few days back and got over some basics. I have 4-5 guitars at home and a brother who's been playing them for last 14 years.

However, he's a bit impatient with me; after all I'm very much a beginner at this and he isn't home that much to give me lessons.

 

So wanted to ask you guys, do you know any good learning websites and/or videos I could benefit of? There are so many online, but figured I should ask here since maybe some of you learned it by yourself that way?
 

[schNee]

ask koen =)

[audrey]

A lot of guys play guitar here, wanted to ask a general advice so I can gather the info here instead of asking person to person

[Aft3rmath]

I learned the very little I know from Marty on youtube.  https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCmnlTWVJysjWPFiZhQ5uudg?spfreload=10

[Quovadis]

Is it acoustic, classical or eletric guitar?

 

1. Check the basics lesson on youtube.

( Placing your fingering hand, placing your picking hand, holding thr pick, strumming, alternate picking, etc )

2. Learn how to read tabs ( mostly for electric guitar ) / chords ( mostly for acoustic guitar )

3. Head over to ultimate-guitar.com and learn the songs you like!

 

If it's electric guitar, I could probably give you a few hints if you wish.

[Koen]

Hello Audrey, I've played 8 years myself when I was a kid, but since I never practiced, I never got good. A few weeks ago I was talking with a friend about getting back into it, the enthuasiasm was there, but I'm still slacking.

 

Anyways, He showed me a song that is really easy to learn, and is quite famous. Namely "Let it be" from the beatles. (tabs can be found here: https://tabs.ultimate-guitar.com/t/the_beatles/let_it_be_crd.htm ). Now the F C/E Dm C part, I do a little different. Like

e|--------------------------------|
B|-1--1--1--1---------------------|
G|-2------------------------------|
D|-3--2-----2---------------------|
A|-x--x--x--3---------------------|
E|-x--x--x--x---------------------|

 

You can't expect to learn guitar over night, it is a matter of practice, get a hold of all the cords, be swift enough, get in rythm etc. etc.

 

Anyways, good luck . I know there are better guitar players around here compared to myself, but if you have questions you can always PM me!

 

EDIT: Oops, made a small misstake, fixed now .

[audrey]

I learned the very little I know from Marty on youtube.  https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCmnlTWVJysjWPFiZhQ5uudg?spfreload=10

 

I'll check it out, thanks. He seems to keep it simple.

 

Is it acoustic, classical or eletric guitar?

 

1. Check the basics lesson on youtube.

( Placing your fingering hand, placing your picking hand, holding thr pick, strumming, alternate picking, etc )

2. Learn how to read tabs ( mostly for electric guitar ) / chords ( mostly for acoustic guitar )

3. Head over to ultimate-guitar.com and learn the songs you like!

 

If it's electric guitar, I could probably give you a few hints if you wish.

 

I have all kinds of guitars, the one in my hands now is acoustic. I still didn't really learn to hold it properly, everything still hurts and so on. I can't get the chord right if I'm not looking at the guitar and I can't really not look at the screen either. Main problem may be that I started with songs after being shown the chords. I probably should practice chords over and over again first. They still seem very complicated to me (there are so many!!), and I'm a bit lost and hopeless at the moment. But determined.

Once I get over to electric, I'll let you know so you can give the hints. I love hints.

Hello Audrey, I've played 8 years myself when I was a kid, but since I never practiced, I never got good. A few weeks ago I was talking with a friend about getting back into it, the enthuasiasm was there, but I'm still slacking.

 

Anyways, He showed me a song that is really easy to learn, and is quite famous. Namely "Let it be" from the beatles. (tabs can be found here: https://tabs.ultimate-guitar.com/t/the_beatles/let_it_be_crd.htm ). Now the F C/E Dm C part, I do a little different. Like

e|--------------------------------|

B|-1--1--1--1---------------------|

G|-2------------------------------|

D|-3--2-----2---------------------|

A|-x--x--x--3---------------------|

E|-x--x--x--x---------------------|

 

You can't expect to learn guitar over night, it is a matter of practice, get a hold of all the cords, be swift enough, get in rythm etc. etc.

 

Anyways, good luck . I know there are better guitar players around here compared to myself, but if you have questions you can always PM me!

 

EDIT: Oops, made a small misstake, fixed now .

 

I'll try that one. Wanted to try from Massive Attack - Teardrop, it doesn't seem very complicated either

And thaaaanks, here's a stroopwaffel for you!

[Chameleon]

Don't try to start out learning songs..  Learn the basics, like what each string is, from there learn your major and minor chords.

 

Start simple, play simple, the rest will come to you..

 

I don't have any websites or youtube videos I can tell you about..  When I began to learn there were no such things..  I learned the chords and then played the rest by ear..

 

I wish I had better advice for you..  Just practice, even when those finger tips are so tender you cant touch anything, keep going..

[Nimrod]

Good for you! I started playing guitar at 16. I never really got serious with it, just played off and on through the years. The main problem for most beginners is getting the mechanics down, holding the guitar, strumming, changing chords etc. So that is the main thing you should be attacking right now (imo). A good site to learn from, and is totally free is www.justinguitar.com, he even has a course just for beginners. Another good website is nextlevelguitar.com, they do have free videos on youtube, but its mostly a premium service $$. Nextlevel has courses for beginner, intermediate, advance, and a ton of other lessons. By the way, try not to jump around too much when you're first starting out. I made the mistake of trying to learn bits and pieces from every guy on youtube, and got completely lost. This is okay to do once you reach the intermediate level. The guitar for dummies book is good to learn from as well, if you're into reading. I have over 200gb of instructional material for learning how to play guitar. So let me know if you need anything, and I'll upload to my mediafire account and send you the link for you to download  . I'm really into guitar and music (can you tell? lol), good luck on your musical Journey.

 

P.S I also have the entire nextlevel premium guitar course but its 10gb 

[gaskarthx]

First of all, it's awesome to hear that you want to learn how to play guitar! It's also really cool that your brother has been playing guitar for a pretty long time now. I think it's really useful to have someone like him around when you have questions.

 

I am a beginner as well, but to be honest, I actually play just for fun. I have never took any lesson, I just try to teach myself - which a lot of guitarist would probably not recommend, because you could be teaching yourself things the 'wrong way', even though I am not sure if there is any 'right way'. If it works, it works, right?

 

Anyways, I started learning simple things as the names of the strings, , slowly playing a pentatonic scale and playing chords (powerchords, bar chords, etc.) 'correctly' (making sure I press the strings down hard enough, not accidently muting strings I shouldn't and muting strings I should) and playing these chords in random order. Not because it would sound nice, but because I wanted to be able to switch between chords without stopping every time and looking at my guitar when I had to change chords. Also, rhythm is pretty important as well, so you might find a metronome pretty useful. Just use the speed you are comfortable with and when it goes well, you could improve the speed.
Also, I think it's pretty interesting to try to guess how some artist play a song when you just listen to it. It's nice to figure it out on your own, but you might be wrong. But that doesn't really matter when you have fun, I guess.
Oh, don't forget the strumming! That is also really important. Don't focus on downstrokes only, practise some alternate picking, muting, different rhythms, etc.
Maybe you could also try some bends and hammer on/pull offs.

 

You said your problem was that you have to look down at the guitar every time you had to play a chord, but that's perfecly fine. You have to start somewhere. I guess it's all about muscle memory, I started like that as well but now I can play most chords without watching. Just don't stop playing, you will get there for sure!

 

I think our music taste might be different, since I prefer my electric guitar over my acoustic one just to play rock music, which I just don't really like to play on my acoustic guitar. But I'll tell you, just start small. Don't start with songs that are too fast or too difficult. When I started playing, I wanted to play songs like American Idiot, Sweet Child O' Mine and other songs that were just too fast and difficult for me to start with. It's so damn frustrating when you try over and over again and you still mess it up every time. Playing guitar should be fun, so just take a step back when things are too hard. Play some other stuff. Try to understand tablatures and play some easy songs. It feels great when you can play a song and it sounds good! Now I can easily play American Idiot and I also figured out how to play Bang Bang and it goes pretty well. At some point when you try a song that once was too hard to play, you'll be surprised that you are able to play it now and it just gives you a lot of motivation to learn other songs as well!

But hey, I'm just a girl who loves music and likes to grab her guitar for fun. I am not a professional at all, you might or might not find some tips useful. You just have to find methods that works for you, where you are comfortable with. Just make sure you continue having fun playing guitar, it would be such a shame when you quit playing. A guitar is a great instrument, don't give up! Once you improve your skills, you could play some songs with your brother, that would be really epic!

 

The songs I started playing were Therapy by All Time Low, All The Small Things by Blink-182, Boulevard of Broken Dreams, When I Come Around, Brain Stew and Jesus Of Suburbia by Green Day, Self Esteem by The Offspring, Seven Nation Army by The White Stripes, Wonderwall by Oasis and Smells Like Teen Spirit by Nirvana. Even the solo of SLTS is super easy, so... maybe you could try some of these songs, even though most of them aren't acoustic. Ugh, what am I saying. Just try to learn easy songs YOU like! It's way more pleasing to be able to play your favourite songs instead of some random songs.

 

Wow, this post got longer than I expected and I am not even sure if this is useful. If not, I'm sorry!

[docwarren]

For acoustic, learn chords. Then when you want to learn a song, figure out the bass line. The bass line will tell you which chords to play.

 

For electric, learn power chords. Then when you want to sound good, turn the distortion up all the way and muddle your way through it.

[Platonic]

Are you beginner as in, from scratch or do you already know some things? If you are beginner, I'm going to look for my digital guitar course from a guitar school. They used a very fun method to learn basic chords, by looking for famous parts from songs.

[Bambi]

Hey audrey !! What a funny coincidence. I have 2 days ago also started playing guitar. playing guitar is very fun and it is not as difficult as I thought had. I learn quickly play chords but my big problem is to play the strings Correctly. my fingers are too thick and I touch the other strings too. maybe that is because of the cheap guitar, I have now ordered a guitar for 300 euros and I hope that I can play it better with the new guitar. to learn to play guitar, I recommend youtube videos! there are many tutorials that are very well explained. I wish you much success

[TinyRick]

So, it looks like you got the information you needed, but here in a condensed version for you.

1.) Learn the basics before songs. I.E-String names, and basic chord locations. (A,E,C,G,F,D) learn to pick different styles. like (D,D,DUD).

2.) Looking at the strings in totally normal, your brain knows you don't have the muscle memory just yet. Just keep at it.

3.) Acoustic are good to learn on because they require more pressing force than an electric, it's all preference. Though @docwarren is right, electric steer towards power chords way more than acoustic.

4.) In regards to your question, Youtube is always a good place to start, but you need to know what you are searching, or if you are wiling to pay a small subscription. Yousician on Google Play and I believe Apple Store is an amazing app to learn.

5.) Practice Practice practice and you'll be the next Joe Satriani ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yo6LXD7uzn4 )

 

I used to play often but don't as much anymore. Make sure to just play it a couple hours a day. Remember, you can only improve.

[EmtHipple]

ive been playing since the mid 90's and somedays it still feels like i just started lol. It all comes in time. Practice practice practice. once you get those callouses built up on your finger tips it wont hurt. If hand strength is the issue grab a stress ball and work your fret hand when you're just relaxing. the most important thing is to have fun.  once you get the basic chord structures down and you get comfortable in the transition from one chord to the next in the pentatonic  scale you will be ready to take your big step into smashing a bag of cats against the wall....err i mean playing your first song . What music style are you most interested in playing?