Teaching Yourself Guitar

Hey guys. I recently acquired a fairly nice Alvarez Acoustic guitar but just simply don't know where to begin with it. I can play some piano but other than that I really can't do much else musically. I would find a teacher but I just can't spend any more money than I already have to so I was wondering if any of you guys had any luck teaching yourself and if you have what books or websites you used to learn? Thanks.

Yeah, I taught myself completely. I had a couple of lessons at the beginning but I found them of little use so I just quit and learned everything myself.

It's been a few years but the main websites I remember using are JustinGuitar and GuitarJamz. They have some pretty good video tutorials to teach you the basics. The best way to get started though is to just learn all of the basic open chords and then start looking up songs that you like and trying to play them. Also, if you have any friends that play, they can help you and they'll be cheaper than a teacher obviously.

I promise you if you follow this system you'll be off to an amazing start. This is one of the best guitar sites online

http://www.justinguitar.com/en/BC-000-BeginnersCourse.php

I tought myself basically everything I know. I just found random sites with either video lessons or tabs, and just kept practicing like crazy. Good luck! Like simo said, if you know anyone that plays guitar just ask them to show you some of the basic chords.

As a starter pick a song with just a few chords , try open chords like G, D, C in the first position (first three frets) . Personally i taught myself for a while and then got lessons , this if anything speeds up the learning process as when teaching yourself it is often easy to forget some of the more rudimentary things. I have been playing for 8/9 years and i think i am pretty good , i still have lessons too as there is always new stuff to learn. The lessons i started off with involved the teacher showing me how to play my favourite songs so it isn't all theory and boring stuff.

I picked up my moms old guitar, about 20 years ago, learned just a few chords and never even bothered hanging in.
I regret that realllllllly hard, since for two years I've been playing more and more.
Actually since a few weeks a couple of hours a day.

It's crazy how you keep on finding new stuff.

Like the other day, I was thinking about Wherefore Art and tried it. Couldn't handle it, sounded like crap.
But this morning, tried it again, gave it a few more tries and whuppa, got the intro after two minutes of trying.

Every new thing feels uncomfortable at first, but hang in and you'll get there... That what describes guitarplaying for me....

Powerchords do the easiers trick sometimes too

I'm getting lessons soon, just for the technique stuff.

Yep....just learn a few chords, then figure out which ones sound good together to you.

Also, find a book called 'Zen Guitar'. It's a VERY short book that I found it last year (after playing guitar for 17 or so years) and it was great. There are no 'put your fingers here to make this chord' or 'here's how to play a scale' type stuff. It just tries to help open your mind to the idea of just 'playing' with a guitar to learn it.

There was one section that made sooooo much sense to me. I don't have it handy, so I will try to sum up: When you are a little kid and get a new toy, do you pore over all of the directions and learn how to play with it? No. You just open the package and start playing. Do the same thing with guitar. Just play with it.

I don't know. It was a good book. LOL

spgilbert wrote:

Yep....just learn a few chords, then figure out which ones sound good together to you.

Also, find a book called 'Zen Guitar'. It's a VERY short book that I found it last year (after playing guitar for 17 or so years) and it was great. There are no 'put your fingers here to make this chord' or 'here's how to play a scale' type stuff. It just tries to help open your mind to the idea of just 'playing' with a guitar to learn it.

There was one section that made sooooo much sense to me. I don't have it handy, so I will try to sum up: When you are a little kid and get a new toy, do you pore over all of the directions and learn how to play with it? No. You just open the package and start playing. Do the same thing with guitar. Just play with it.

I don't know. It was a good book. LOL

Wow, that has been what I tell people about the guitar. I tried telling my sister-in-law this when I tried teaching her last year, and my nephew wants me to show him a few things and this is what I told him a couple weeks ago. This is basically what I've been doing for the last 7-8 years after taking lessons off and on for 3 years. I've tried doing the tabs and books thing, but I feel like they don't do much. When I got my first guitar I got the Mel Bay chord book, which was god sent. I also recommend a book from the Berklee school of music. It basically teaches you how to sight read. I only got a little ways in, but I feel like I should break that out again and start playing through it.

I would like to get back into lessons, but only if one or both of the teachers I'm dying to learn from are available. I think I would be a lot more focused than I was back when I was taking lessons before, since I'm now done with school and my schedule is a lot more consistant than I was when I was 20-23.

Teach yourself, seriously.

Thanks for all the responses.

I'm using that justin guy. He seems pretty cool and easy to learn from.

Bad news is I suck. I only know a d chord and it sounds like shit. And my fingers hurt.

Practice practice practice is all I can say, I started with bass like 5 years ago which made finger control so much easier when I started guitar 3 years ago. Aand now I'm picking up drums. I'm all self taught also.

Down side of self taught is you tend to get really out schooled by people who actually had lessons. There is something about that teacher thing that just can't be done with self taught. Though it really all depends on what you want to do. I never took a lesson because I don't want music to be like school(go home learn all of these chords by next week ect.) You can get decent by self taught, but most likely you won't get pro good(unless your some prodigy) self taught people tend to form bad habits that a teacher could stop.

But once again its all about practice, I tend to play a half hour to an hour a day just for fun now. But when I'm learning something new(or get in a zone) I can usually play for a couple hours. But I just love playing music so it really is all about what you want to do.

I play for me, what's fun for me, and nothing else

I am self-taught as well and I have decent technique and know all the chords and what not. This is what Justinguitar learns you as well basically.

Recently I decided that that wasn't enough for me, since I want to understand (guitar) music (especially 'songwriting') as in 'how does it work' and 'why does this sound right'. I have always been more of a rhythm guy and I have always had troubles with figuring songs or riffs out by ear and that has bothered me for a long time now. It's also a character trait I have, I want to understand what I'm doing; I can't stand not knowing what the hell is going on.

I stumbled on spytunes.com which kinda was exactly what I wanted. It teaches you some songs and while doing so it tries to explain why the song works. As in, 'why does C to Am sound so awesome'. Someone gave me the e-book (the main text with theory is not free, unlike the song and technique practice videos) like a year ago but I never really looked into it that much until recently. So now I am plowing through the beginner's songs (since I am technically beyond that) and meanwhile finally understand what in god's name a 6-4-1-5 chord progression entails (shoutout to Brian Fallon).

It's a good website and you might use it to complement some of your learning, but my main point is that you should try not to neglect the theory too much if you are even remotely interested in music. So instead of going "I don't care what powerchord this is, I just see I have to put my finger on the 3rd fret and two fingers on the 5th fret on the two strings below" try to keep in mind that you are actually playing a chord with a name and a place (and as such a number) within a certain set of chords.

Good luck. It seems like there are a fuckload of guitar players on Dimestores so don't hesitate to ask anything

Slight Hijack related to my previous related thread.

Anyone got any experience with Yamaha Guitars? Is an F310 a suitable guitar for a beginner or not?

Thanks

Reviews on amazon say its great for beginners and also it goes for around 125, which for a beginner you should never spend too much on the guitar until you understand your style, and needs

Heres a video on how it sounds, and for a beginner guitar i say pretty good

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2_hDSqY3S6U


But you should go to guitar places and play around to find the instrument sound that best fits you and when you buy once again stay in that 125 range in my opinion.

I have a crappy ibanez acoustic that I got for 100 and its perfect for me even after playing for a couple years, a more expensive guitar might sound better, but unless you are playing shows and being serious you can make a cheap one sound awesome. It all depends on the player

Yamaha makes some nice guitars that sound better than their price. I have no experience with that model, but as a whole, I'm a fan of their guitars. Preferably you should find a friend that plays guitar and take them with you to a real guitar shop.

Ok, I have seen that Yamaha for £100 online, would you still advise that I go and try one physically in a shop myself before I splash out?

I don't know conversions but I assume that's close to $125, it really all depends on if your satisfied with the guitar/reviews.

If your not, or have no clue what your looking for in a guitar go to the guitar shop and give it a spin, if you don't like it, you can try out other guitars there, find what you like, and either buy it there or go home and buy something online with the knowledge of what your looking for.


I've bought my two basses online, my first one and Ltd b-50 I bought basically only going on reviews and knowing nothing about buying an instrument. I lucked out though and when it arrived it actually turned out to be a really great bass. But looking back on it it was a really stupid thing to do

My second bass, a music man sterling, limited eddition dargie delight II, it a fucking beauty, and I put countless hours researching it and using the experience I've gained from playing through out the years to make my choice

So, I'm a few weeks into the Hustinguitar scheme, and, it is tough, but there is definite improvement! I'm just trying to get some good technique going atm, not rushing into songs. I'm taking my time to do clean chord changes (very hard) but my speed id picking up. Its going to be a while yet before I can play some songs, but I'm working away!

What are some super easy gaslight or frank turner songs I can try to learn? I'm starting to lose my motivation because I'm just doing chords and stuff and it's getting boring.

All Gaslight Anthem and Frank Turner songs use chords too.

If you can play chords in the key of C then you can play nearly every Gaslight song.

Yes I understand. I'm not very fluent in all the chords on C yet so I'm just kind of asking you guys to give me names of the simplest gaslight songs. I just don't want to have to search through all the tabs to find a super simple one.

old white lincoln

am - f - c - g

basically the entire song you can play that - very simple and fun

We Came to Dance is just Em G D C the whole time.