Learning the Guitar

Hi there, I hope that someone can help as I know there are a lot of musicians here,

I want to learn to play the guitar. It is something that I have always wanted to do, but never got round to it. Now, I have musical experience (I played the 'cello for 10 years so I know that I have the dedication).

What I am looking for is the reccomendations of a good starting instrument - Acoustic? Electric? What is a good starting point?

And also, anyone have any experience of being self taught, where is a good place to teach yourself?

And any other general advice that people have?

Its probably worth noting that I won't start untill I have graduated this summer (so ~4 months left) as I want to keep focussed on my work, but after then I need something to stimulate me

So yeah, any advice/musings you may have?

Thanks

BTW, I'm based in the UK if that matters at all?

Hey,
I'm playing the guitar for six months now and I think it's going well. I learned it myself (with a little help from my friends and brother, not the song;)). But the main problem at the beginning was to press my fingers on the strings. I didn't have the strenght and it hurted a little. This problem disappeared as I was playing a little longer. But as you're playing the cello I guess you don't have any problems with that. 'Till now I was only playing chords, but I'm learning how to play solo's now. The best way to learn is to make fun and play songs you like. You can watch youtube clips that learn you how to play, but if you've got more money (I'm just a poor young kid) you can go to a guitarschool (don't have any experience with that though).

I hope this post has helped you, if not, don't worry:
Just play the guitar and make fun!

Steve

I've been playing two years, completely self-taught. It may be best to start acoustic, but only if that's what you really want to play. If in your heart you're an electric guitar player only and start with acoustic, it will be hard to stick with it. But if you like playing acoustic, then technique-wise, it's the best place to start. More strength is required to play acoustic, and when you mess up, you'll hear it. Distortion on the electric can mask your mistakes sometimes. If you start acoustic first, it would be a breeze to pick up an electric down the road.

Anyways, I'm not too good at recommending specific models of guitars but I do know that Yamaha and Seagull, to name a couple, make really good reasonably priced beginner (acoustic) guitars. If you go electric you'll have to spend more just because you'll want an amp with it.

My husband has played for 13 years, and his suggestion is to ALWAYS start cheap. Even if you're "oh man I KNOW I want to stick to it and do it FOREVER!" it's still a good idea to get a cheap basic guitar to start with. He started on an acoustic, I believe. Once you get the hang of it and find out once and for all that, yep, it's what you want to do, then you can go for the fancy toys!

I recommend not starting TOO cheap as some guiatars that are under the £150 mark are pretty difficult to get in tune for more than about 2 minutes. Get some songs you like and learn them, find some scales , start with major and blues they work well for enhancing picking technique and finger dexterity, then just keep playing. As i have had lessons i would highly recommend it , ive been playing for eight years and still have lessons and still find ways to improve. A good teacher can make you improve a lot faster than simply being self taught , you can also pick up bad habits.

I've been playing for around two months now and I've been using this site: http://www.justinguitar.com/

This guy makes everything real simple and he has an extensive beginner course so I'd suggest you start there, good luck!

Yes, don't go too cheap. Some cheap guitars are simply unplayable, and people give up without ever realize it was the guitar, not them, that was the problem. Buy a fairly inexpensive guitar at a shop and make sure it comes with a set up so that it will be in playable condition.

Been playing better part of 4 years.

From your experience in Cello, I assume you have a pretty decent knowledge of music theory, chords, scales, etc? If yes. GREAT - you are already wayyyy ahead of the majority of guitarists

http://justinguitar.com/ is the absolute greatest website out there. It is amazing, free, organized. There are hundreds and hundreds of typed lessons and video lessons.

Honestly I would start with an electric. At guitar center you can get fairly decent starter gear for not too much. Just don't get anything by "Squire". Maybe a Yamaha. As for an amp, anything is pretty good. Line 6 makes alot of nice amps for just playing in your room.


Back on "if you already know music theory". If you do, all you really need to learn is basic technique, names a strings, how to find notes. I recommend printing off a basic chord chart to get started.

As for now, learning songs - http://www.ultimate-guitar.com/

Awesome, cheers guys

I have fair enough (although rusty) understanding of music theory so I'm hoping to be in good stead

I will probably start acoustic, wondering what a good price for a begginer guitar is, and as rec'd above, Yamaha/Seagull a good one or is there better?

I would go for something around $150

Yamaha would be great
Washburn makes alot of awesome guitars in that range too

Ive owned a Tanglewood for about 5 years and its great , heres a range of prices , mine was around £500.

http://www.guitarandampshop.co.uk/acatalog/Tanglewood_Acoustic_Guitars.html

I've been playing guitar for about six years now, and I'm also 100% self-taught without any lessons, nor have I really referred to much over the years besides UltimateGuitar.com, which is kind of hit and miss since a lot of bands don't have a lot of stuff on that website.

Like the other guys, I do suggest starting pretty cheap, but not TOO cheap. I started with an Epiphone, and they do make some pretty fantastic guitars for starting, especially some of the acoustics. For electric, I would suggest getting a Les Paul Special, around $200 to $250 for a pretty decent one, and a Line 6 is definitely a good amp to start with - I still use my 30 watt Line 6 daily, and I think it only cost about $250 to $300. Electric is definitely a good place to start, assuming that most of the music you listen to is electric, as well as the fact that most songs that involve electric guitars have a good basis of chord patterns and strumming. Acoustic is a definite must after a little while, since it stretches out your fingers and toughens your fingertips up as well - it also foces you to want to play more cleanly since it's harder to get a full crisp sound out of an acoustic guitar until you really start bearing down and can concentrate on your sound rather than just where to put your fingers. I play with an Epiphone Acoustic AJ-EB-15 and it hasn't let me down since I bought it, and they really aren't too expensive.

For some really basic practicing, just look up chords to some of your favorite songs and go at it, trying to imitate the song exactly. Doing that to a bunch of different styles of songs will help you get a grasp of different strumming patterns and that really does help in the beginning. I played a lot of simply rock songs from the '50's when I started, but when I began trying to play a lot of Flogging Molly tunes, THAT got me to play really fast, and quite efficiently as well, since everything they have involves incredibly fast double strokes, over and over and over. After a while you'll definitely want to explore some finger-strumming patterns for acoustic, that just rounds out your skill so much more and it gets to be really fun as well.

i want to learn bass, anyone play?

Honestly it's pretty similar. The only different thing is you are playing much thicker strings, no chords, and preferably not using a pick.

Ive played bass on ocassions, mainly in a session class i have at UNI the quote i often refer to with bass is "its easy to play bass but its hard to play bass really well" or something like that. Most important thing is beig able to play well with a drummer.

Right. As the bass guitar should go with the bass of the drums.

JoshRaymond wrote:

i want to learn bass, anyone play?

If you can play the guitar you can probably play every single TGA song on bass. But that's really simple stuff, if you want to do more complicated things just learn a song and practice, after awhile you'll get there. But I warn you, it's pretty fucking boring to play on your own. If you play with a band however it's great!! oh, and as stated, listen to the drums cause you're working together.

Yeah guitar to bass shouldn't be too difficult a transition to play simple stuff. You won't be Les Claypool but lots of punk stuff is just the root notes. Maybe I'm unusual, as a lot of people seem to want to be "in the spotlight" all the time, but I would love to play bass in a band. Seems like it would be a blast.

If you're really into bass, check out alot of older green day stuff. and not to mention one of the bests ever - Flea from RHCP

i dont play guitar but i do play drums, that should be a easy cross over right?

Ha, well I would still say you have an advantage because you'd probably have much better rhythm than the average guitar player.