just bought acoustic guitar and now need some help

just got myself an acoustic guitar and enrolled for some lessons and had 3 so far. what would you sugest in music to start off with and play something really easy. also is there anything out there that i can play along to so that i can get the strumming and tune right. i have tryed a cd but it to fast for me and i get lost badly.

 

http://www.chordbook.com/guitarchords.php?v=1

http://www.olga.net/

Couple of great resources there. Good luck, it's a great hobby.

 

thanks bud going to have a look see now. will post back

 

hello

I taught myself how to play bass, and I would go thru periods where I didn't feel like I was moving along fast enough. Well a friend of mine told me I needed to have fun with it, I asked how can you have fun till you can play? He said "scales" and learn "tabs". They helped, giv'em a try

Here's some links I found--

http://www.guitartricks.com/category.php?input=scales

http://www2.guitarvision.com/default.aspx

I used google to search "music~scales~guitar"

Also check back here tomorrow during the day, there's quite a few guitarists here who will offer their ideas

 

thanks !! these sites are awesome

 

I also taught myself to play bass...then guitar...then drums.

Anyway, I would get Guitar Player and Guitar World magazine every month. The columns alone are full of tips and such.

Another great thing to get are some drum loops. I have Cool Edit Pro and Sound Forge I used to use for recording. I would arrange all of the drums and just do continuous loops. Just jamming along with some drums is also a great way to learn.

Your doing things right though. In retrospect, I wish I had taken lessons. I'm sort of a jack of all instruments, master of none.


Good luck!

Steve

 

What kind of music do you like?

It's important to consider the kind of music you like and want to play. Otherwise you might get bored quickly. When I was around 10, I wanted a guitar. My parents got me an acoustic and I took lessons. At that time I was really into metal, like Ozzy and Maiden. This guy was teching me country and crap like that. It lasted about a month, and I didn't touch a guitar again until I was older and could afford to buy an electric.

What I'm saying is, it's important to learn the basic fundamentals, and the first songs you learn are going to be Twinkle Twinkle little star and Happy Birthday, but make sure your instructor knows exactly what type of music you like. If it's country, tell him you want to learn country. If it's rock, tell him you want to learn rock. Some instructors will sway you toward what they like, and that'll turn you off real quick.

If I had learned "Crazy Train" as my first song rather then "My My Miss American Pie" or whatever the hell it's called, I'd have stuck with guitar and would probably be a great player today.

Just my .02


Steve

 

Evilevets is right I believe. You will get bored if you're trying to learn stuff you don't really enjoy. But if you enjoy folk music/singer-songwriter type stuff, even if it's not your final goal, there's lots of it that's relatively easy to learn -- a few chord patterns and some easy finger picking styles can be lots of fun and very satisfying and, if you can sing at all, you can sing as you play. There's lots of old Bob Dylan, Peter, Paul and Mary, Simon and Garfunkel, Joan Baez, Judy Collins stuff that you can learn fairly quickly once you've gained some facility with a handful of chord patterns and a few finger picking styles and most of it is available on CD. And lots of it is slower stuff and not terribly difficult though you probably won't want to start off trying to play the exact licks you hear on the CD's, but you can still strum or pick along with lots of that old stuff. And from there you can branch out into bluegrass, blues or rock or whatever grabs you.

I haven't played in years but bought myself a cheap acoustic guitar back in the mid-60's and a folk songbook that had some fundamental chord patterns and a few easy finger picking patterns and that got me started. Then I started buying Dylan and Peter, Paul and Mary and Simon and Garfunkel songbooks and learning songs out of those. And I was fortunate that there were several other guys in my college dorm who played and we'd learn stuff from each other. And there was one guy who wasn't flashy but could really play. He was a grad student and a bit older, but was very patient and generous with his time. I'd ask him to show me stuff, work on it awhile and then come back again and he'd show me some more.

The one real mistake I made was to get too dependent on learning things by rote and getting locked into rigid finger picking patterns. Fairly early on I think, you want to try to listen to recordings and figure out for yourself, by trial and error at first until your ears get trained and your playing skills improve, what a guitarist is doing rather than just learning chord progressions and doing simple strumming or the same few finger picking patterns over and over again.

It may seem impossible to learn that way at first, but spend a bit of time trying to figure out for yourself, from some very simple slow folk songs, for example, exactly what chords/notes a guitarist is playing and how he's picking or strumming to get the sound you hear. And keep trying to do that, but don't spend so much time trying to learn by ear that you get discouraged. Just make it a part of your routine -- maybe for 30 minutes a couple of times a week in the beginning.

It may seem impossible, but break it down. Just by trial and error find the first couple of notes/chords and then the next and the next. Once you begin to make a little progress you'll get better and better and be able to productively spend more time learning stuff by ear from recordings. And the rest of the time spend learning to play from tablature song arrangements, or simple chord patterns and picking routines, and, of course, whatever your teacher has you working on.

And keep your ears "open" -- hearing/seeing guitarists live is very helpful and can add motivation too. It doesn't have to be someone famous. Check out your local newspaper for people performing in your area -- concerts, festivals, local bars, whatever. Sit as close to the stage as you can and watch what they're doing and listen. And don't be shy -- when you hear someone you really like try to talk to them between sets. Ask them how they got started, what books or techniques they found helpful when they were just starting out. Ask them if they teach beginners or if they know a good beginning teacher. Musicians are just like anyone else -- some won't be interested in talking to you, but many will. And nearly everyone likes to hear that you enjoy listening to them so tell them which songs you heard them do that you especially liked and, if you don't recognize the song, ask them who wrote it or where they heard it. My experience is that often you'll wind up getting some good information and pointers about stuff to try, CD's to listen to and maybe get some contact info for a really good instructor.

A good teacher should be able to help you with learning to play by ear and be able to suggest some recordings of simple songs that you could use to acquire those "play by ear" skills. And it's another hallmark of a good teacher, I think, that while they'll insist on the need to acquire basic skills and will know music that will be appropriate for you to work on they should also be adaptable enough to help you learn to play stuff you're particularly interested in. Don't be hesitant to let your teacher know about particular songs you're interested in learning to play. Even if they're too difficult for you initially your teacher may be able to show you easier arrangements of them to work on. And letting your teacher know what you're particularly interested in learning to play will help him understand what sorts of skills and easier songs you can work on to get to where you want to go.

You might like to check out this website for a great instrument/music store here in my hometown of Lansing, MI:

http://www.elderly.com/

This place sells a variety of (mostly) string instruments, including a variety of electric and acoustic guitars, sheet music and song books, instructional videos. As far as guitars go they have everything from cheap new and used instruments to really expensive stuff (check out that $16,000 Martin on the page above! *L*) They have a catalog mail order business also and you can sign up for their free catalog at the far top right or at the very bottom of the page linked to above. Besides a great inventory of instruments they sell a variety of CD's (folk, blues, gospel, bluegrass and international/ethnic music), and instructional videos and instrument technique books also. And look at the top of the webpage for their toll free number if you want to talk to someone at Elderly Instruments about songbooks, quitar technique books or CD's with slower songs you can try to play along with. People there can be very helpful. And if you're ever in the area their store is definitely worth a visit.

Hang in there -- it's great fun once you begin to make a bit of progress. A really good teacher can make all the difference though. Give your current teacher a fair trial, but if he doesn't seem to pay attention or care about what you're interested in learning then I'd look around for someone different. And if you can find someone close to your skill level to play with that can add a lot of motivation and fun to learning also, even if you just start out playing the same tunes in unison.

 

thanks for your time taken to respond and i have taken in what yoou said.

what i am struggling with is when i look at the the song the lerics are there with notes written above but what do i do if there is a few words and ony 2 notes. what strum pattern do i use or should i pick. or should i only play the note when i come to it. i also struggle with the tunes because as a kid we were never aloud to listern to radio or put a LP on because it was to much noise.

i tried to strum to a cd but i get lost just after i starts as it plays to quick. is there cd out there where it plays a song at a slow pace enough so that i can keep up or at least try.

 

A friend of mine, who spent a lot of time trying to teach me guitar, once said; 'chords and notes and scales are all right, indeed essential , but that's detail; it's the right hand that phrases and phrasing is most of it!'*


Took me 10 years to realise what he meant.

A little practice everyday, mixed with a little self expression is better than a big practice once a week trying to ape someone else.



Go for it













* Other way for sinisters of course