Learning to Play a Guitar, Best Ways to Learn?
 

I recently picked up an electric guitar cause I wanted to get into music, and I'm thinking about a professional career in music. Is there anything I should learn as early as possible, and is there any effective ways to learn it that anyone know of?

Currently I'm just doing chromatic exercises with my guitar, getting used to the instrument as I've not touched a guitar much since elementary school, and I barely played then.

In the future I'm thinking to pick up a drum set as I used to play the drums in middle school, and I did rather well considering that I did not try much, anyone got any tips for drum practice?

My first advice is to be patient, and play because you enjoy it, not because you want to be famous. But surely there have been plenty of famous musicians who started because they wanted to be a rock star.

I would say continue your chromatic exercises. Go up and down the neck, hitting every fret. Then after some time doing that start working on your alternate picking (if you use a pick). This exercise will do great things for your finger strength and coordination. I still do it sometimes and I know guitarists who are much more experienced than I am that still do it.

My next step would be to learn your basic major and minor triads. G major, D major, C major, A minor, etc... Work on forming those chords and changing from chord to chord. That can be a bit tricky at first. If you're ready to jump into lead guitar already, the obvious starting point would be to learn your basic pentatonic scale "boxes". YouTube will easily be able to assist you with this.

I generally find that placing your hand in the correct positions on the neck of the guitar whilst having your fingers positioned correctly on each string tends to help. Then the strumming hand timing down the strums or fingerpicking with impeccable timing and rhythm should get ya well on your way.

I teach guitar for a living. The first things you should be learning are chords and right hand strum and picking techniques.

(If you're right handed)

Your right hand is your "kick" and "snare" drum. The guitar is a percussive instrument almost as much as it is melodic.

Learn all of your base chords and study up on the CAGE system. You should be able to form chords instantly without even thinking about them. The way I teach is 3 chords at a time and you spend at least half an hour per day just switching between those 3. You need to develop muscle memory.

The lead guitar stuff...such as going through chromatic, pentatonic, and arpeggiated sequences shouldn't even be on your list yet.

Most of all, have fun! But also realize that guitar can be frustrating at times. You might hear the coolest solo you've ever heard and you instantly think, "I can do that!"...then you get home and quickly find out that you're not even close to that level. Inspiration is a two-headed dog. Learn to control it.

Lastly, if you don't have a metronome...get one.

I think learning the most simple songs you can even single plucked note songs and learning to play them slow as possible is important. It teaches you that playing things slowly gives your brain a chance process the physical position with the sound created by plucking because not all of your brain is being used up trying to play faster and more complex then you are capable of. Most importantly approaching guitar like this will increase the total net time that you are playing musically and not being frustrated which has countless benefits.This stuff to me is the essential part of learning guitar. You don't want to be struggling for too long or you will get demotivated, so start off as simply and slowly as possible. Its amazing how quickly you can pick stuff up when you approach guitar with the right mentality. When you start off from 0 you can only go up but if you think you are 5 when you are a 0 you have to go back down to 0 and then back up which wastes time and is painful. Socrates said he was wise because he didnt know anything and it drove him towards curiosity and knowledge.
Be wise with guitar.

Choose your favourite song and learn it, that way you can get closer to that song and it will push you aswell as seem like less of a chore

I took music lessons for 7+ months and didn't learn ****. I stopped and suddenly began playing every single day. Teach yourself.

I don't really find it that hard. First I learnt chords, practised connecting them. Then I learnt a few scales, practised combining both chords and scales together. That gave me a basic understanding about the formation of guitar playing. You have to really listen to what you're playing. Not just following a step by step book. I picked up a few techniques after that, pull-offs, bends, slides etc. then started learning songs. Do not overload yourself with chords and scales in the first go, just get the feel of it and learn the best way for you.

With the guitar Id suggest to try and get bar chords down once you get a feel for open chords. Once you learn the shapes for bar chords and get them to fully ring out you can play a whole lot of songs pretty easily.

But it also depends on the style you'd prefer to play. I play mostly reggae stuff so bar chords are an absolute must.

Blastingas makes a great point here, this is probably the most important step in learning the guitar and any other instrument for that matter. There are gonna be times when you are just about ready to pack your guitar away and give up, but if after those times you still can't resist playing then there's no doubt you'll be rocking out your favourite songs in no time.

I'm pretty much just seconding the advice already posted here but I'm self taught as well and this is how I learned. It's absolutely essential to learn your chords first, start with the open chords. Sometimes it can get monotonous just switching between chords over and over so think about learning some 3 chord songs (there's plenty of well known ones out there) doing it this way not only helps you get your chords down but helps build your repertoire for those nights around the campfire!

Once you feel comfortable with open chords you can move on to learning barre chords and scales. There are plenty of sources online where you can learn your scales. From here on it's just practice practice practice. Good luck and happy playin' :D

Some really good advice here.

I found Youtube to be a goldmine of great advice from people like Marty Swartz etc. Once you get the basic chords down I found it helpful to start playing some straight foward tunes so you feel like you've accomplished something and as BadAnimal says, its always good for round the campfire to have a couple of good uns in the bag!

It generally takes more than several weeks. It may take several weeks to switch between three chords, but getting strumming, memorization, singing along...that tends to take months.

If you are looking for help with intermediate guitar or beginner drumming, go to thefretlessmusician.webs.com, and Our Services. There is usually some free stuff there.

Try to learn diatonic music theory as well as you can and learn the proper scales and progressions so that you can improvise. On top of that, all you can really do is practice practice practice. Learning the guitar is lots of hard work and dedication, but if you're not having any fun with learning the guitar, there's no real point for doing it in the first place.

1. Learn alternate picking into the ground.
2.Know your modes.
3.Know some chords.
4.Practice muting techniques, mute when you can.
5.Play some acoustic for musicality sake, plus the ladies dig it.

Im by no means an expert at guitar but i learnt everything from tabs when i first started! just played songs i like! But also considering what and why/how im playing it! Take note of that coz its very frsutrating when you decide to write your own song and have no idea! lol

When you practice, do it slow. Slow = more accurate = you can be able to speed up without worrying about hitting wrong notes.
It takes patience too. A lot

Hey guys,

Sorry to hijack this post. I've been playing for a year or so and I'm just starting to get into some serious fingerpicking but I find it pretty hard on the guitar I have (Ibanez V205SECE).
I'm looking at getting a little martin or baby taylor. Do you think downsizing to either will help me learn and make it easier or am I forking out pointless money?

Cheers!

I posted something like this elsewhere, but it's worth restating

I'm a self-taught player. I learned by ear and by tablature. Listening carefully and trying to figure things out will benefit you in infinitely many ways during your musical development. There's also a lot of great learning software out there these days: Guitar Pro, Power Tab, and Sibelius, to name just a few.

A valuable piece of advice I learned from Paul Gilbert @ a clinic years ago is to be patient, realistic, and allow yourself small victories at every step. If you set the bar too high too fast you will likely lose confidence, get frustrated and disappointed, and potentially just abandon your pursuit all together. Playing guitar is such an enriching experience. You wouldn't want to miss out on it.

One more thing: NEVER STOP BEING A STUDENT!!!!!

Now is really a great time to learn. With the advent of technology, there have never been so many resources for students to learn! Back in the day, if you couldn't afford a teacher you were stuck trying to figure it out for yourself!