How about a learning guitar thread?
 

I'm just starting to learn how to play guitar, and won't be alone in doing so ;)

Anyway, I've been working on Wanted and been getting particularly frustrated with my inability to get the intro down every time, especially when I thought I had it sorted. I am practicing on a semi-acoustic and unless the note is played perfectly it sounds pants. So, I decided to plug my guitar into the amp to see what it sounded like and low and behold the sound is much better coming through the amp. Either my guitar performs much better through an amp, imperfections don't show as much through an amp or the intro to Wanted is much better through an amp - or maybe a combination of any of those!?

Point is I am much happier now I can get the intro sounding half-decent most of the time.

Now all I have to get past is the sore finger stage - the more I play the quicker they'll toughen up though, right?

Any tips from experienced players always welcomed by the way.

Never give up. I still kick myself that I must have picked up my dad's acoustic some twenty times before I actually stuck with it and I could have been about five years further on development-wise than I currently am if I had only had a little more perseverance the first time I sat down to learn.

Also, I found it best to find the chord progressions of songs I liked and try to strum my way through them.

Start with a single down-strum marking the change from chord to chord to begin with whilst you develop finger memory for the chord shapes. Then, later on, try to develop right hand technique by strumming along to the song by 'feeling' for the pattern that sounds best.

By the time you can do the above, you will have expanded your chord library, improved your right hand technique and developed good finger memory.

After that it might be worth delving into a bit of basic music theory to learn the fretboard and how the chord shapes you have been playing are made up. ;)

Good luck with it and yeah, the pain goes eventually - but not before you get some nasty blisters first! :lol:

They will. But if they bleed, stop. It won't matter if you don't play for a few days, but if you play with lacerated fingers, it will get worse.

As to practicing, there's only one way: repetition. Just play until you get it right. It might take a few tries, few hours or days or weeks, but you will get it. The key thing is not to give up.

And play with records. Doesn't matter if you don't get it right at first, it's important to get the feel of playing "live" and trying to play with a band. After you get better, try to figure out yourself what they're playing. You'll get better fast.

Ice

and that would be me :)
Thanks for the advise

I've been playing sice i was 12, and my main advice would be don't aim too high.

Don't learna few chords, the odd riff etc, and then sit down with Stairway To Heaven and expect to hit it. Build up through simpler songs, get used to a lot of chords including the less obviuos ones like Dsus4, F7#9. Once you can remember plenty of chords then you can start to learn songs with more than 10-15 chords in them. This variety will feel good.

After thet you can spread into lead stuff, like soloing, learning scales, hammer on and pull-offs, harmonics etc. But all the single note stuff is much hrader than rythm, so riffing and chord contsrtruction is what you should concentrate on in my opinion.

I still almost never, after 14 years, solo or improvise on a scale. I dont find it anything like as satisfying as holding up the structure of the songs with chords.

i can't think of any tune with over 15 chords on it especially not in a rock / pop genre....

but i digress.

i wouldn't start with the "fiddly" parts of songs 1st no matter how much you want to play that intro riff to wanted or play the solo to prayer.

learn all the major and minor chords and start playing the chords to the songs. once you get your rythmn and chord changes sorted you're fingers will be much stronger and your hand coordination will be better so moving onto riffs and solos will be easier.

i'd learn some theory too. i knew a shitload of theory in high school because of music classes and to be honest now i couldn't name you the notes in a D major scale without some serious effort :-(

If you play Say it Isn't So chords-wise, in the original key it has about 17-19.

G5
D5
C5
Dadd11
Cadd9
G
D
C
Am
C/E
D/F#
E5
Am/G
Cm
Em
Em7
Em6
G/C

You can play it with less of course :)

I say play what you want to play. It's much more satisfying to learn the stuff you want than the stuff you don't want. If you want to learn solos, start with them.

Basically all you need to know is the barré -shapes. Open chords will come.

Theory is nice to know, but you don't really need it. If you're "a reader", reading theory might help, but otherwise you'll learn as you go along.

Bullshit. Say It Isn't So has about 5 chords on guitar, G, Em, C, D and Am. THe chords you listed are from a piano conversion that tries to incorporate all the instruments into one. For example, the guitar never plays D/F#. It's a D-major on guitar and F# on the bass.

Don't make it sound harder than it is.

Guitar playing can be easy and fun when you don't listen to people who want to make it hard. You don't need to learn the "jazz" chords like F7#9 unless you play jazz. For anything else you'll get by with the basic chords.

Ice

Hmm. That was friendly. And btw, read the last line, you know where it says "You can play it with less of course". Theres nothing fundamentally wrong with playing it this way; if its you, the mp3 and a guitar, its nice to get the full feel of the song in the 1 guitar you have.

That post wasnt to intimidate SmirkSteve, or to make it sound hard, it was in response to Jim's commet about no songs having 15+ chords. SIIS ca have that many. Don't get so aggressive about it.

true ice you don't need to know scales inside out (though it does help with the soloing) and you most definetely don't need to know useless G#485th minor 27th chords but a little know how about the composition of chords, the fretboard and chord progressions makes learning alot easier than just going about it blindly.

my best mate picked up the guitar a while back and started writing songs straight away just putting his fingers in random places he thought made good looking shaped chords (i shit you not) he was quite content doing that but never really learned anything until he started looking at some radiohead chords and tabs and started to "get" what chords go with each other, what kind of sounds they make, how to actually play them properly etc...