Guitar advice

[Dresden]

Recently, I ventured back into my long lost guitar playing "skills", for lack of a better word. I went out and bought a really nice, new guitar to give me incentive to nose dive back into playing. I played for almost seven years in my adolescence. Unfortunately, I forgot most of what I was taught/learned like it was some sort of repressed memory. I enjoy music, heavily, and even went as far as to purchase tablature software, Guitarpro, to help me further realize songs I'm interested in learning. Trouble is, my taste in music isn't exactly the most ideal music to be starting with. A great deal of it is very difficult to grasp and certainly isn't fodder for a novice. I've noticed over the past few months from some of the threads that surface, B3D has it's fair share of musicians. I'm inquiring about some sort of online resource that could show me the ropes again. Lessons average about $40 a half hour around these parts, so one can imagine how useful a utility like youtube has been as far as a teaching resource. Any suggestions?

 

[Sxotty]

Well I am waiting for guitar rising to try and get into that sort of thing again.

Note: I am not a musician though.

http://www.guitarrising.com/

 

[RussSchultz]

Find a cheaper instructor. I take mine for $30/hr, and he's a GIT grad who's been gigging and teaching for 25 years. Check the greensheet, or craigs list.

chordie.com has a ton of tab, but don't forget scales and other mechanical drills.

 

[Florin]

So which guitar did you go for anyhow?

 

[Davros]

Ive got an air guitar

 

[Suflex]

The best advice is to get the best instructor you can and just practice practice.....

It is very important to have good practicing habits, like using the metronome and starting any drill at low BPM and then working your way up.

 

[Arwin]

What do you want to play, how, and on which guitar? And I assume you read from tabs rather than notes.

And what's your previous experience - how did you learn to play in those 7 years, what level did you achieve, what kind of music did you play?

There isn't all that much to getting the basic techniques right, and those should be easy to pick up if you played before. The rest is just practice, practice, practice, unless you want to learn more about music theory in general and put that into composing/improvising or into figuring out music that you don't have tabs/sheets for.

 

[_xxx_]

YouTube has prety much all the lessons from the big guys, I always recommend it to beginners.

 

[Dresden]

So which guitar did you go for anyhow?

I ended up buying a Paul Reed Smith SE Custom Paul Allender.

What do you want to play, how, and on which guitar? And I assume you read from tabs rather than notes.

And what's your previous experience - how did you learn to play in those 7 years, what level did you achieve, what kind of music did you play?

There isn't all that much to getting the basic techniques right, and those should be easy to pick up if you played before. The rest is just practice, practice, practice, unless you want to learn more about music theory in general and put that into composing/improvising or into figuring out music that you don't have tabs/sheets for.

Yes, I can't read music. My instructor taught me a little bit of how to read sheet music, but I don't remember any of it. Besides, I've found tablature a lot easier. My previous experience was I went to an instructor for not that long. The rest I learned through friends and my father. Way back when I was into rock, now my tastes have evolved to metal. Luckily, I've found myself surrounded by musicians. I have plans to refer to a friend for practice, but eventually, provided I find a cheap enough one, I'd like to go to an instructor again. A lot of people I've talked to tell me they never once went to an instructor and somehow through the grace of God, learned to play like an expert, somehow. Unfortunately, that's not exactly how I operate.

 

[Arwin]

Ah, well in that case:

- make sure you learn to use only your thumb-muscles while picking and not your whole arm or underarm or even your shoulder.
- focus on learning to pick properly
- youtube. Search in the threads here - someone has a Youtube account with favorites to tonnes of great demonstrations that give you ample view of what the hands are doing.

 

[Davros]

most importantly practice you stage technique
smashing up the guitar, setting it on fire, ramming it into your amplifiers ect

 

[ERP]

I ended up buying a Paul Reed Smith SE Custom Paul Allender.



Yes, I can't read music. My instructor taught me a little bit of how to read sheet music, but I don't remember any of it. Besides, I've found tablature a lot easier. My previous experience was I went to an instructor for not that long. The rest I learned through friends and my father. Way back when I was into rock, now my tastes have evolved to metal. Luckily, I've found myself surrounded by musicians. I have plans to refer to a friend for practice, but eventually, provided I find a cheap enough one, I'd like to go to an instructor again. A lot of people I've talked to tell me they never once went to an instructor and somehow through the grace of God, learned to play like an expert, somehow. Unfortunately, that's not exactly how I operate.

Congrats on the PRS, I cave a custom 22 fixed bridge with birds, and I'd class it as the second best sounding guitar I own and 3rd best playing, which probably ends up ranking it 2 or 3 overall from the 10 I own.

IME the biggest thing you get from an instructor is they can see and correct fundamental problems, I could probably count the really useful advice mine game me on the fingers of my hands, but I'm not sure I would ever have corrected the issues without someone to point them out.

Outside that it's practice practice practice, I was talking to one of the other instructors at the location I used to take lessons, he's one of the most impressive guitar players I've ever heard, and how often he played came up in the conversation. He said when he took it seriously a few years earlier he was playing 10 or 11 hours a day, but these days it was probably only 4 or 5. Personally I'd go insane if I stretched my practice out to more than an hour or so a day.

I don't play so much any more because of my RSI, but I do miss it, and occasionally still pick up a guitar and play.

 

[RussSchultz]

Also, get 'audacity', a freeware audio program that is similar to sound forge. You can slow down, change pitch (for the songs that are recorded tuned to a different reference), select, loop, etc. I have that, and a USB keyboard I put on the ground, and I can use the space bar to play/stop/restart pieces I'm working on.

Its great for 'banging out' those tough solos (or even not-so-tough, in my case).

 

[Dresden]

Congrats on the PRS, I cave a custom 22 fixed bridge with birds

Lucky. Unfortunately, the 22 and 24's were a little out of my price range. However, I don't have the birds, rather bats! I really, really like PRS and plan on starting a collection of them. My next guitar I'd like a 22, 24 or a 513.

 

[ERP]

I wouldn't get too tied into one brand of guitar, my favorite is a Tom Anderson.
But I own a lot of different guitars and which one I play tends to vay based on how I feel and what I'm playing.
Having said that there is somethign to sticking to one neck length and frett spacing.

 

[RussSchultz]

I wouldn't get too tied into one brand of guitar, my favorite is a Tom Anderson.
But I own a lot of different guitars and which one I play tends to vay based on how I feel and what I'm playing.
Having said that there is somethign to sticking to one neck length and frett spacing.

Yeah, my hands are always confused when I switch between my SG and Strat and it takes a while to adjust mentally.

 

[Arwin]

While I was still playing in a band, I had to switch almost each song from my regular steelstring (Landola) to my acoustic bass guitar (huge) and then to my mandolin. Whole frets disappear under my fingertips on that last one ... Talk about having to adjust!