Any advice for learning to play guitar

Gabriel2k

I'm finally caving in and buying an acoustic guitar after weeks of randomly thinking about wanting to learn to play one.

I'll be doing my own research to teach myself but if anyone here has any suggestion or advice from first hand experience I'd really like to hear from you.

PeopleLikeUs

Marcos Mena - His band is called Standards. He'll teach you online at any level.

CuddleDuncan

Good! You did the right thing.

Playing the guitar badly is really easy. I know that because I learnt to play the guitar in one afternoon. Well, the chords for one song. There are millions of people out there giving the guitar a bad name.

Don't do that. Demand the very highest standards from yourself from the very start.

There are a million "teach yourself guitar" gurus/delusional idiots on YouTube. Be fussy, very fussy.

I would recommend at least just a couple of lessons from a real teacher. Music lessons aren't expensive and there is no substitute for an actual person helping you.

Jubal

Get it tuned properly. Then practice your scales for awhile before trying to learn chords. Many blues rythyms come straight from practice scales.

CambridgeGuy

Find others, beginners like yourself, to jam along with. Nothing better than playing music with other people. 🙂

czechsmix86

Hey Gabriel -

What are some of your reasons for wanting to play the guitar? Do you want to play solo/picking style? Rhythm/strumming? Write originals? Be able to play some of your favorite songs/covers? Is one of your main goals to be able to sing along with the guitar live or do you only want to play the instrument? What skill level would you like to get to? Good enough to play at a campfire or in a coffee shop? Or to play along with a full band?

KB62

All good answers here! I just want to add that practicing every day is key, even if some days it’s just 30 minutes.

cuddles_ndream

Paying close attention to this thread 🧵 would love love to learn the guitar 1 day 🎸

CuddleBarista1

I received a lot of helpful advice on where to get started on playing the guitar in this fourm that I hosted: https://www.cuddlecomfort.com/forum/discussion/15613/what-instrument-s-do-you-play/p1

I recently bought an acoustic guitar and also asked the same question.

Gabriel2k

Thank you all for the suggestions so far.
@czechsmix86 I'm just doing this for myself, too introverted to put myself out in public. I would like to build this up as a hobby. Ideally, I'd like to get proficient with it to the point I could pick up a guitar and be able to play random tunes or songs I like.

FragileRock

Learn chords first. G C D. If you can learn those chords and then strum in rhythm you can play about 20,000 songs which are all based on G C D

ManOutdoors

Chords are a little harder than individual notes but they teach you good form in keeping your fingers arched. So learn chords first. G C D E A and Em (E minor) are all pretty easy, and that will cover you for about 325,583,287 songs.

Most important is to have fun and play a little every day, just 15 minutes is fine. I started with a lot of Johnny Cash and old 50's songs. That's still pretty much all I do but it's a lot of fun. Keep playing and let us know how it is going. Tell us about any obstacles you run into and we might be able to help.

Originalirish

When I started, I found a book that showed the chords needed to play each song in it. I found a song I liked and practiced switching between the two hardest chords. I practiced for hours. once the muscle memory was down it was so much easier. I play everything by ear though so that kinda helps. I also suggest a capo.

Gabriel2k

@Originalirish the guitar I bought came with a capo. That was a fun Google search, I had no idea what that thing was 😅.

Originalirish

@Gabriel2k I feel that! There's a few kinds actually too. I have a standard (I love a brand called Shubb), I have a rolling capo for fast transitioning, and then I have what's called a cut capo...it only covers a few strings at a time and really gives some cool chording. I had a buddy once that could play with multiple capos at once and find chording's in-between them. the man was a machine, lol.

1. Always tune up, never down.
2. It's okay to begin with just downstrokes.
3. Press firmly behind the frets, not between them.
4. Eventually learn how to intonate your guitar.
5. Don't neglect your pinky.
6. Hold your pick properly.

I have a guitar that is collecting dust. Bought it with every intention of learning and practicing. I even bought a PlayStation game that uses your real guitar to teach you via games. Signed up for a paid online course, followed a free online teacher. All that, and here I am years later and all I can play is the radio. I think you just need to do something, anything, regularly and consistently. Keep yourself interested and use the guitar everyday. Good luck and remember, it will take effort and some discipline, but it should be fun.

czechsmix86

@Gabriel2k cool. Download the ultimate guitar app. (or Ultimateguitar.com), choose three simple songs you like and practice the hell out of them. Some will have chord tabs to follow and some will have complete tabs with picking and riffs etc. Both strumming and picking will take time to learn. Just start as simple as possible. Focus on rhythm and tempo later after a month or two when your fingers are starting to build muscle memory and you’ve formed scabs. Play every day.

The rest of the advice is pretty solid, except for always tuning up but not down. Not sure what was meant by that. Some songs are in dropped tuning but don’t mess with that for a while. Just keep it in standard tuning and make sure the songs you’re learning specify standard tuning at the top of the page. The ultimate guitar app has a built in tuner along with other helpful tools and videos of people playing most songs.

Tuning up: https://fatsound.wordpress.com/2011/04/11/tune-up-not-down/#:~:text=Over the years you pick,not tuning your guitar correctly.
👍

CuddleDuncan

Part of learning to play any instrument is training your ear. Tuning apps interfere with that and should never be used, except at the very, very beginning (i.e. the first half dozen sessions, at which point they can be useful if you're teaching yourself) when you are still learning how to tune the instrument. (Or once you're an experienced professional.) Much better to buy a tuning fork and learn how to use it. Tuning is the difference between beautiful music and two cats having a yowl-off.

If a string is not in tune it must be, by a process of elimination, out of tune. And therefore be tuned by adjusting its tension. Tuning up not down is basic advice for any stringed instrument, because it gives a higher chance that the string will stay in tune.

To tune up, slacken off the out-of-tune string until the note it produces is flat. (It may be flat already.) That is, the pitch of the note actually made by the string is lower than the pitch you want it to make. Now tighten the string until it reaches the correct pitch. Job done.

If you do it the other way around, starting with a sharp string (i.e. the note is too high) this will work fine at first, but gives a significantly greater risk of the string losing its tuning quickly. This is because the friction in the tuning peg can play tricks on you while you are slackening it off.

Forget the capo until you can play three properly different tunes well. (Vast numbers of songs use the same or very similar chords and chord sequences, so once you can play a few, you can play a lot.)

czechsmix86

Ah that’s what was meant by tuning up. All good advice. Trying to keep it super simple for him and anyone else reading that wants to learn. Most people get overwhelmed and give up after the first couple of weeks before they make it over that hump and start enjoying the process more.

CuddleDuncan

@czechsmix86 exactly. The beginning of learning any instrument is hard and it's easy to get downhearted. You've got to push through until you can actually play something that sounds nice, and that takes more than a couple of weeks.