ok, every month i see a few people posting threads about how to start and self learn and stuff. so i decide to open a thread for beginners'. feel free to post your own lessons and sort. (note: its strictly for starters so dont put whack-o theories here)

anyway to start off.............some tips

the most important thing for people wanting to learn guitar is to HAVE a guitar. it might be a kapok, but as long you get one. i know tons of people who wants to learn, but refuse to get a guitar............bollocks really.

patience, have tons of it. one of the things in music is not to rush, but instead to play it slowly and effortlessly. tons of shredders out there would tell you to start slow and slowly push the tempo up, and those words are very true. blindly rushing songs would make you sloppy, your technique wont improve and you waste time and effort. i made the same mistakes in my first 2 years of learning, i rushed blindly. so have patience and slowly learn it.

practice v. jamming. this is another tip. there's a huge difference between the two, what i see it is that practice is playing to improve and jamming is just playing for fun. playing the same power chords patterns for a billionth time aint practice, its jamming. so we cant expect to improve by playing the same stuff the all the time.

theory, there are tons of rumors that tell you theory stuns your creativity. its utter bollocks, its important, knowing theory would save heaps of time and better your phrasing. knowing when to put what is better then slowly trying a something to fit. simply put, knowing what to put is better then guessing what to put.

dont give up, a lot of people give up especially the self taught guitarists. they take a song a little too hard get demoralized by it taking that long, and just quit. this is normally whats common in the real beginners, where they give up after a few weeks.

anyway, enough of those.

where to start? well, its best if one learns a song first before really learning the basics. just for a good kick start, recommendations are

stand by me
james bond theme
indiana jones theme

find the easiest those that take two strings to play and are quite slow

then the harder part, open chords. some guitarists prefer teaching the power chords cause its simpler but i think those should come later, well after this at least.

chords one should learn

E maj, E min, C maj, A maj, A min, D maj

maj = major
min = minor

its a chord finder,

http://www.all-guitar-chords.com/index.php?ch=C&mm=&get=Get

(the chord in the above link is a C maj)

after this you can practice on some songs you can start with

bob dylan - knocking on heavens door

G, D, Am
G, D, C,


i hope this helps anyway. i'll post more next week

This post has been edited by +3kk!: Sep 29 2007, 07:05 PM

IMHO, playing the same thing over and over again is practicing..you play it so many times so that you can master it..and both practicing and jamming can improve your playing, at the same time its fun too..so playing the same power chords patterns for a billionth time is practicing, so that you can play it so accurately while looking at the sky or chatting with your friends.

thats my 0.03 cent

i think you got me wrong there, what i ment was that you continue playing powers after you can handle it properly. you know its like a guitarist who plays for sometime but cant do anything else then powers? i think you get that quite often.

i agree with the power chord thing. starting with power and continuing with power forever will get you no where. IMO, power comes after full chords, then you'll know why it is called power chords (honestly, people can be playing for years not knwing whre power chord comes from).

This post has been edited by zeroglyph: Sep 29 2007, 01:37 PM

ok, i'll continue on with my beginner lessons.

last week i touched on the chords you should learn, as a beginner. this week im goina touch on knowing the notes on the guitar and a about the minor scale



USE THE ABOVE PIX AS A GUIDE

-if we dont count the sharps and flats, our basic notes consists of ABCDEFG only. we never will see a H note or chord ever. if you look at the guitar neck, there is nothing thats after G only G#.

-half steps and full steps, simply put 3rd to 5th fret is a full step, 3rd to 4th a half step. get it? so F is actually a half step up from E. not a full step. simple?

-flats and sharps. a flat is you decrease a note by a half step, and a sharp increase by a half step. so if you want to play a note thats half step lower then an A its an Ab. if you want to play a note thats higher its an A#. see? only the special relationship between the B-C and the E-F, we dont have the sharps and flats. so there is no B#,Cb, E# and a Fb. these are the only exceptions. if you look at the guitar neck, you can clearly see the relationships.

ok, now most of us will go OMFG, i gotta memorize that whole thing? well im goina show you another way which is through scales.

what you should know for a start is the open notes on the guitar neck, as in which string is which note if played without pressing anything. we can see in the picture i posted which is which. EADGBE. you have to know those.

now how are we to get all the notes? simple. use the minor scale formula,

W,1/2,W,W,1/2,W,W

W= whole step/full step
1/2 = half step

based on this formula we first find all the basic notes, the ABCDEFG. because the ABCDEFG is a A minor scale, we start from a A. so find any A on the neck (preferred the second string) and start counting! with the minor scale formula. A full step up (W) from 'A' is B then a half step up (1/2) again is a C then a full step (W) a D and so on~! what we would come up is ABCDEFG.

so we now can find the basic notes, and now we just apply the #/b's into it~! since all except of B-C and E-F will have sharps and flats what we will get from the ABCDEFG wouuld be

A - A#/Bb - B - C- C#/Db -D- D#/Eb -E -F - F#/Gb - G - G#/Ab - A

so now you have all the notes~! now to find all the notes on the guitar, you just calculate. try it with the A on each string then later start with other notes, to get a A minor scale~! (all the basic notes) then put the sharps and flats and before you know it you will know where is what!

next weeks lesson: power/ barre chords

This post has been edited by +3kk!: Oct 7 2007, 12:18 AM

maybe a few basic technique points here (got it from playing bass, but i think some of them apply to guitar as well):

- sit up straight if you sit and practice, and if you stand, don't hunch. I know you have to look at the fretboard, but maintain consciousness over your posture all the time.

- hold your guitar in such a way that your wrists don't bend too much. If your fingertips hurt, it's usually perfectly fine. But if your wrists hurt, then something's wrong. Traditional classical position is the best way to hold your guitar.

- curl your fingers on your fretting hand to avoid unwanted accidental muting of strings and fret as near as possible to the frets for clean tone. Keep fingers as near as possible to the strings in a ready-to-press position. Alot of people don't believe in this "economy of motion crap" but i do and it does look better than fingers flying around and sticking out in every possible direction.

- picking hand: economy of motion applies here too, keep your pick/fingers as close as possible to the strings. For sweep techniques, ask some other sifu

Playing strength and stamina comes from playing alot. So although you won't get better in your technique by playing the same things you have already perfected over and over again, i believe you will definitely improve your dexterity and stamina.

nice thread babe. nice thread!!