The guitar

Ive been playing for under a year now and iam still useless...I know the chords and iam learning the shapes of the g major scales...I love messing around and not knowing what iam doing...iam making up random put togethers and its been fun....Should i go for lessons or continue to teach myself? Iam trying to find my style and i wanna have a good ear for the music as well...Some tips?...By the way its a Epiphone Sunburst Electric..Ill post a picture

 

Teach yourself for a bit but then get lessons. Trust me I was teaching myself and after a couple of years realised I was good but not getting any better

Turns out I needed to shape up on the theory I learnt in a class. Now I have put that together with what I taught myself, and I would consider myself a good musician now

End of the day, you can only teach yourself to be quicker and more comfortable. You cannot teach yourself much of the theory unless you by a book and study it, and even then it's just harder than getting someone more qualified to show you.

 

Wow nice....Thanks...I was teaching myself some chords and just today i was gonna tune my guitar with this guitar proffessor tuner thing and i seen a whole new genre of chords i could learn on the tuner thing...I was excited Lol...How does a theory work? the only book i have is the guitar for dummies thing and i only skimmed through it and a guitar technique magizine from november 2008 lol

 

music theory is all about notes, scales, harmonies, key signatures..."music rules" if you will. basically its all about the different ways or relating notes to one another, like the 3 base notes of a chord, or the 7 different notes in most scales.

 

I spent the first six months teaching myself, I find that if All you do is what the teacher tells you, any instrument gets boring.

I would look up chord shapes, learn some songs with them. Also, look up tabs, they're free on the Internet and easy as fuck to read.

Do this, and when you love the guitar and can play some stuff, go to a teacher and you will lean more, faster

 

I think teacher or no teacher depends on who you are. I suggest to anyone learning to just learn you basic G, C, D, A, E, Am, Em, really all the chords you can. And also the minor pentatonic scale or "blues" scale. Those will be the most useful things starting out. And also those are the first things a teacher would (at least "should") teach you.

 

Something else is there are looooads of youtube videos explaining anything you need and there are even some that are quite good. I would give that a try as well. Good luck!

 

saves..

 

Lol yeah i about a chord pamphlet before so i know the A, C, D, E, G chords along with the minors, majors, 7ths?, sus?...Theres like 7 of each base chord...I know theres a shitload of chords as well, still learning...I love learning it but it takes so fucking long...I thinking about playing until may or june and then getting lessons...I almost learned all of the G major scale (theres like two shapes left and iam just learning this new one) but iam concentrating more on the different sounds its making for the first time...before it was always repitive practicing without me really listenning.

And if i had to pick a favorite chord it would be the C or G....I like that.

 

my guitaring is almost complete...THANK YOU SQURIELL MAN :cheers2:

 

lets get together sometimes...I have a image in my head, this is how i want it to be lol

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cwqhdRs4jyA"]YouTube- Traveling Wilburys - End Of The Line

 

I have given guitar lessons. I took guitar lessons 2 years after i started playing. As long as you put the effort in and have a respectable teacher, lessons move you along at least twice as fast and probably exponetially faster than trying to teach yourself. Like anything though, a teacher/coach can only do so much and it's really up to you to apply what you learn and progress.

If you live in San Diego or anywhere near feel free to pm me lol. Actually feel free to pm me with any questions anyways.

I just found that when i taught myself i learned things and played decently but my playing didn't really take shape until i got lessons. In a weird kind of ironic way a teacher at times basically tells you what to play so it would seem limiting but usually after a couple lessons you realize how much more freeing it is. Pretty much everyone when they are learning has the problem of learning some bad habits and teachers can help point that out to you and expand your sound and awareness besides simply teaching you new chords and scales. Lessons just give you direction and you don't end up sounding like your teachers or robot musician because music i believe is an innate/personal thing and you end up putting yourself (feelings,thoughts,experiences) into the guitar playing.

 

I've been playing for 45 years, now. The first 40 years were self taught. I learned more in the last 5 years than I did in all the time prior.
One of the problems with being self-taught is, you may be creating bad technique habits that you aren't aware of. You don't want to practice your mistakes, because the longer you do that, the harder it is to break yourself of them, later.

I find that video lessons are a great way to learn, and not as expensive as a personal tutor. You can get some good stuff on Youtube to start with; then you can buy videos that deal with more advanced and style specific stuff, later.

 

thank you, really appreicitated..Iam most likly gonna find some lessons or either go back to the person who i first started off with once i get a job along with other little things.

 

well last night i was playing it and i felt like smashing it against my wall, i dont know how much long i can last people Lol

 

It just takes patience. I am self-teaching at the moment...and it's cool to have a bunch of people around to relay tips and tricks off of. I use a lot of youtube videos to help out. I'm learning a bunch of classic rock and acoustic/folk-type stuff...I also get tabs off the net and most importantly...LISTEN TO MUSIC!!!

Yeah, I don't think lessons are necessary if you're dedicated, it is very liberating to teach oneself (tons have done it without lessons!) I won't discredit theory at all..but I believe in finding one's own style naturally..I dig that. I write riffs on index cards and tape them to my wall...put my strap on and just stand there and practice. I understand the frustration so much, but if you just relax and focus youll get into it. Trust me!

 

I played a good bit today and iam starting to listen to the notes of the scales now as well as the chords like really concentrating my ear to it.Its been tough remembering the lettering of the scales.Orison319 Gsus helped me out today lol.Iam happy with how iam playing i just want to be a better.

The theories sound interesting, like the laws of music.I might go to the libary and found out some more on that. cheers

 

LOL If i had a nickel for everytime i wanted to do that, i would be a rich man. I have no clue where you are at right now but if you want to get started with theory I would first learn the Standard Tuning which is how you tune the guitar with a tuner which is from 6th (top string) to 1st (bottom string) E, A, D, G, B, e.

Then we will go up the string so start off with the 6th string which is E. So when you play that string with no fingers fretting that is an E. When you hold down your finger on the same string the:
1st fret is f
3rd fret is g
5th fret is a
7th fret is b
8th fret is c
10th fret is d
12th fret is e

STOP right there! That is every possible note on that string. the 12th fret is always the same as the open note (no fingers fretted) so on the top string the 12th fret will be E just like as when you play it with no fingers, it's just higher pitch which is called an octave. After this the guitar just repeats itself so:
13th fret is f
15th fret is g....
and so on.

So when you play a chord (for now) the first note you hit is going to decide the chord. That's why when you play an E chord you don't fret the top string (which is called open), and when you play a G chord you fret the top string on the 3rd fret which is the g note. To play an F you fret the top string on the 1st fret.

Hopefully this is helpful, may be hard to understand over the net but i'm bored and thought i would try to explain this.

 

you should be able to read the whole fret board now, if you just did that A,b,c,d,e,f,g stuff.. Every other cord you play follows the same , If you was to play a E-maj7th slide down thats now F-maj7.. and so on, Am 2 steps the next is Bm one step Cm then C#m ..
at the 12fret thats a mini guitar Its the same as the top 12..