Electric Guitar

[psiclone]

So, my girlfriend and I gave each other our Christmas presents a little early this year, and she got me an electric guitar. I've only been saying that I wanted one for like, all this year.

Anyway, I wanted to ask if any of you know of any good websites that provide absolute beginner lessons? ie, notes, chords, parts of a guitar... etc. I've never bothered looking into guitars much because they were a little more expensive than I could afford at the time, so I know jack about them. Maybe some music sheets with the absolute most simple songs to start out with? Like, Mary Had a Little Lamb or something..

Or, if anyone just has their own inputs they could provide, that would be great. I can't really afford to go to get lessons atm, so I'm looking for the next best thing.

 

[moog]

so, im totally moving this to music (since it doesnt really have a point here)

heres a good site man: http://www.guitartricks.com/ also, mind telling what kind of guitar you have? If its like a First Act or something then you should return that shit.

The songs you want to learn vary by what you know. If you can read music, go for learning the notes and scales. If not, work on some chords and learn tabliture, its pretty simple once you can string out basic chords and harmonies.

 

[psiclone]

ty for the move. I totally forgot about the "arts" section.

I used to be able to read piano notes, so I'd have to just relearn that, I guess? How different are piano notes from guitar notes? I got a keyboard that can take an aux. input, so maybe I can help teach myself from that..

No, it's not a First Act, but that's what I was going to get for myself just to see if I liked actually playing the guitar or not since they were so cheap. My girlfriend got me a Spectrum.. idk anything about that brand. Came with a little amp that connects and sits on the guitar.

 

[DeM0nFiRe]

It would help to learn to read a real musical staff HOWEVER, it isn't necessary to start learning to play. Guitar songs these days are transcribed onto what are called guitar tabs. They show you a visual depiction of the 6 strings and what notes to hit as time passes on. For instance:

 

e|-------------------

B|-------------------

G|-------------------

D|5---5--------------

A|5-------4t---------

E|3------------------

 

is the tab for the main lick in the song "Black Sabbath". As you can see, you first hit 3rd fret on Low E, 5th fret on A and D at the same time for the first note, then you hit 5th fret on D for the second note, and then on the 3rd note it is 4th fret with a trill (Rapidly hammer the 5th fret and pull off repeatedly.

 

[JoshieBoy]

Sounds like someone is happy. Well, I have been playing for about 2-3 years now, and I have found a few really good ones:

http://justinguitar.com/

http://www.mastertheguitar.co.uk/mtr/

http://www.worldguitar.com/start.html

http://www.ultimate-guitar.com/

More than enough to get you started. I have been constantly practicing these and it already sounds like I have been playing for 10+ years. If you ever want to go for DVD Lessons, I would suggest this:

http://www.rockhousemethod.com/home.aspx

And if you want to do some shopping online, go here:

http://www.musiciansfriend.com/

Best prices around.

 

[DeM0nFiRe]

One of my guitars was a beginner's guitar that came with a rockhousemethod DVD and website subscription. In my opinion, they are totally useless. They give you some tabs to learn how to play some songs, but 90% of the tabs are wrong. The only lessons I saw that were accurate were like how to tune your guitar, but you can get that anywhere.

 

[JoshieBoy]

One of my guitars was a beginner's guitar that came with a rockhousemethod DVD and website subscription. In my opinion, they are totally useless. They give you some tabs to learn how to play some songs, but 90% of the tabs are wrong. The only lessons I saw that were accurate were like how to tune your guitar, but you can get that anywhere.

Which one did you get? It doesn't sound like you got a rock house method dvd. Either that or it was too hard for you.

 

[moog]

learning tabs wont get you anywhere honestly, unless you want to emulate rock bands. if you want to get good, just learn staff notation.

also yeah all those links joshua linked are p. good.

 

[DeM0nFiRe]

Too hard for me? o.0 How could they be hard? They are the stupidest little lessons, they take like a half an hour for something you can teach yourself in 5 minutes. It's a Burswood Guitar, and it is definitely a Rock House Method DVD.

Also, Atlet, you should learn both. I was saying that the tab notation is easier to learn at first, but you should learn both. If you want to stick your nose in the air and not touch tabs then you are missing out on a great compositional tool, because you can write a song on guitar in tab notation and then convert it to staff notation for other instruments.

Besides that, using the tabs to learn songs from other artists is a great way to learn the techniques they use. If you don't study the masters, there's very little chance you'll actually get good. The vast majority of the songs the original guitar masters (Hendrix, Iommi, Sanatana) played were never originally in either staff or tab notation, and any transcribed version of the songs you find at all are listener interpretations either way. Whether you are reading it on a staff or a tab means very little. If you can read a staff, that just means you can move it to other instruments, and you can also convert songs from other instruments to guitar.

 

[moog]

Also, Atlet, you should learn both. I was saying that the tab notation is easier to learn at first, but you should learn both. If you want to stick your nose in the air and not touch tabs then you are missing out on a great compositional tool, because you can write a song on guitar in tab notation and then convert it to staff notation for other instruments.

not really? I mean if you want to learn tabs yeah thats all fine and dandy but HONESTLY I wouldnt recommend it if you are trying to learn the guitar from the beginning, unless you just want to half-ass it and learn some famous songs.

also i can read notes brah so im not wasting my time learning tabs (im also not in middle school)

Whether you are reading it on a staff or a tab means very little. If you can read a staff, that just means you can move it to other instruments, and you can also convert songs from other instruments to guitar.

I lol'd. Learning staff notation isnt just for reading notes, its for learning the rest of its interface, therefore learning music in general.

Also, you can learn to play A PIANO and map it onto guitar; its the same general idea between both man. Playing complex rhythms and lines kind of defeats the purpose of tabs, but I have seen it done, but by that time everyone who is playing said line just reads the notes.

Learning tabliture is good to do, but I wouldnt compare it as the same as learning staff'd notes.

 

[JoshieBoy]

Too hard for me? o.0 How could they be hard? They are the stupidest little lessons, they take like a half an hour for something you can teach yourself in 5 minutes. It's a Burswood Guitar, and it is definitely a Rock House Method DVD.

Okay mr. pride. Tell that to Alexi Laiho of Children of Bodom, Rusty Cooley, John McCarthy, David Ellefson of Megadeth, Bobby Thompson and Ravi Bhadriraju of job for a cowboy, Gary Hoey, Alex Skolnick from Testament, Jim Rutkowski, Oli Herbert from All That Remains, Marc Rizzo from soulfly, Dan Jacobs from Atreyu, Micheal Paget from Bullet for My Valentine, Gus G., Will Adler of Lamb of God, Vernon Reid and Doug Wimbish of Living Colour, Leo Nocentelli, Alex Bach, Chris McCarvill of X Factor X, Rob Balducci, Kiko Loureiro from Angra, Mark Daniel, and Kevin McCreery. All legends at guitar and all instructors at the rock house.

 

[DeM0nFiRe]

@Atlet: Well, like I said you should learn both. You say you want to write on the piano and change it to guitar, and that's cool. I prefer to write it on guitar and change it to another instrument. Also, like I said, learning tabs makes it easier to learn songs from the masters of guitar. Learning how to play those songs isn't half-assing it. Learning those songs is part of what you do to get better. Learning just the tabs would be bad, but learning tabs first was better for me, because then I could learn the staff in relation to the tab in relation to the guitar. I agree with you that not learning the staff at all would be half assing it, but not using a tab at all just because it is easier is silly. Also, I am not talking about just reading tabs of other songs, I am talking about transcribing your own stuff on tabs too.

@joshua: Goodness gracious, if those guys are legends to you then maybe that's what the problem here is. Maybe it's a style preference thing, but those guys don't play in a style I can respect, let alone like. In any case, assuming they are fantastic guitar players you are missing a few things:

a) It doesn't matter who is teaching it, a lame lesson is still a lame lesson. I already quoted Tony Iommi as a great guitar player, and he is my favorite guitar player. I looked at a video lesson he taught and it still looked pretty lame to me. In my opinion, some lessons someone else taught about riffs Iommi wrote were better than the lesson Iommi himself taught. (Another case in point, Trickster and Sephiroth Spawn were teaching the scripting academy here, those still failed :D )

b) Go look at their play along tabs, I looked at about 10 of the tabs there and every single one I found was wrong. And they weren't hard songs either. (Oh, I'm sorry, they say "In The Style Of" But when you look at, say Iron Man, they have 4 and 6 string chords. That's so stupid because Iron Man is all 2 string power chords. 4 and 6 string chords are not in the same style as 2 string power chords. =If you are trying to make a tab that is "In the style of" of a Black Sabbath song, it doesn't help your case if you build your tab with chords that were *never* played by the band)

c) You can get any lesson they have their taught by someone else for free on youtube, and it will be basically the same content.

In any case, if you like it fine then use it. I said in my opinion they were pretty useless.

 

[JoshieBoy]

b) Go look at their play along tabs, I looked at about 10 of the tabs there and every single one I found was wrong. And they weren't hard songs either. (Oh, I'm sorry, they say "In The Style Of" But when you look at, say Iron Man, they have 4 and 6 string chords. That's so stupid because Iron Man is all 2 string power chords. 4 and 6 string chords are not in the same style as 2 string power chords. =If you are trying to make a tab that is "In the style of" of a Black Sabbath song, it doesn't help your case if you build your tab with chords that were *never* played by the band)

So the guy's that wrote the song or got the tab from the person/people who wrote the song are wrong? Fail. Your not helping. We are supposed to be helping psiclone and all you are doing is criticizing. I refuse to argue with you anymore demonfire. Keep your opinions to yourself. Rockhouse is the leading DVD method for teaching people how to play the guitar. Just because you couldn't use it, doesn't mean psiclone can't. It take a person who is really interested in music to learn music. Obviously, you are not very interested at all. Pearls before swine, my friend.

 

[DeM0nFiRe]

Umm, they don't talk to the people who wrote the songs for the songs I listed, I guaran-damn-tee that. Half of the people who wrote the ones I am talking about are dead, the other half haven't ever put those chords in a song. In any case, I just offered my opinion on the matter, you turned it into an argument.

 

[moog]

hi guys i like guitar its fun how about stop arguing on trivial shit

 

[JoshieBoy]

hi guys i like guitar its fun how about stop arguing on trivial shit

Agreed.

 

[moog]

Honestly Ive always wanted to pick up an acoustic guitar, what are the good ones to look for?

I can play some chords (i took 2 semesters of it but i didnt learn anything) but id prefer one with frets

 

[JoshieBoy]

Acoustic guitars are a little bit harder to play, but can sound lovely. :tongue: Really, the only best way to find one is to go to a local guitar shop and play a few. If they are too expensive for you there, remember what kind you like and any special things about it and go to a pawn shop or an online store, like:

http://www.musiciansfriend.com/

Or if you are really tight on money, you can always try to find treasure at places like:

http://www.shopgoodwill.com/listings/li ... ding=Items

http://instruments.shop.ebay.com/Acoust ... ?_catref=1

Here is some really good info about choosing a guitar.

Spoiler: What guitar should you buy?

http://justinguitar.com/en/BC-102-WhatGuitar.php

Spoiler: What guitar accessories do you need?

http://justinguitar.com/en/BC-103-BeginnersProducts.php

Spoiler: Equipment Reviews and Budget Guitars

http://justinguitar.com/en/RE-020-GuitarProducts.php