Need halp from Guitar Players

[Castaras]

I have a nice guitar which I have had sitting gathering dust in the corner of my room for the last few years. I want to teach myself to play it. So far, I can tune it, which is a good start, but nothing else.

Any good sites to look at for help on this? Any tips for a complete beginner?

[valadil]

Can you read tablature? It's pretty simple. You basically have 6 lines corresponding to the strings of the guitar. Numbers appear on those lines telling you which frets to hit. Tab is read from left to right. It doesn't tell you anything about timing, so you pretty much have to know the song before you begin playing.

Learn some open chords. Start with C, D, and G. Then add A, Am, E, and Em. Try F as well, but you'll probably hate it at first. A great many songs can be played with those first three chords.

I get most of my song tabs from http://ultimate-guitar.com. They have the biggest collection I've seen online.

YouTube is also surprisingly helpful for guitar lessons. It can be a little tricky to find a lesson that works for your skill level. Try searching it for intro guitar lesson. They'll show you posture and such, as well as the chords I mentioned.

[Xuc Xac]

I think guitar.about.com and nextlevelguitar.com are both good. The first one has a nice set of beginner lessons that will take you through all the basics. Nextlevel is a paid subscription site, but they have a LOT of free material and a lot of excellent video lessons on youtube.

My main tips for beginners (i.e. things that I learned the hard way and wished I had done right the first time):

1. When you fret the strings, try to put your finger as close to the fret as possible. When you're just beginning and don't have good accuracy in your fingers, it's tempting to just slam your fingers down in the space between the frets. Don't make a habit of that. It causes string buzzing or rattling when you start to build up speed.

2. Don't put your guitar away in a case if you aren't planning to take it somewhere. If it's sitting out, it's easy to grab it and play for a few minutes when you've got a little time. Having to take it out of a case can discourage practice and every little bit helps. 15 minutes a day every day is better than a single two-hour practice session once every week or two.

3. Tune it every time you play it. When you tune it, always tune up to the note. If you need to tune up, then tune up. If you need to tune down, then tune it below the target note and then go back up. If you just tune down and stop, you can leave too much slack in the string and it will go out of tune quickly.

4. Learn the notes on the fretboard. Don't just learn the shapes or voicings for the chords. That means that when you play a C major chord, you should be thinking "This is C, this is E, this is C" instead of "This finger goes here, this one goes here, and this one goes here." When you learn the notes that make up a chord, you'll be able to make use of alternate tunings later (tuning your strings to something other than EADGBe). Alternate tunings are really useful for playing certain chord combinations, so you don't want to make those harder to learn later.

5. When you play a barre chord, roll your finger and use the side of it. Don't try to squeeze really hard and crush the soft pads of your fingers into the strings.

6. When you practice, don't neglect anything. Practice strumming, chords, scales, everything. Don't just do the parts you like because you won't improve that way.

[Nameless]

Can you read tablature? It's pretty simple. You basically have 6 lines corresponding to the strings of the guitar. Numbers appear on those lines telling you which frets to hit. Tab is read from left to right. It doesn't tell you anything about timing, so you pretty much have to know the song before you begin playing.

A note about tabs; When you look at the guitar, the thickest string (E string) is the bottom string, not the top string. So when you look at tabs, the bottom line represents that thick E string. In other words, it's in reverse. The bottom line is the "top" string on your guitar.
Each number represents the fret. So "1" on the line right at the bottom would be the first fret on your thick E string.

Also, these are the names of your strings:

E (thickest string, bottom string)
A
D
G
B
E (thinnest string, top string)

[rakkoon]

I had a bass guitar for eleven years and played on it ten times. I suggest finding a friend who plays, it will keep ya motivated.

[pinwiz]

It's also very good to learn your favorite songs. It develops good listening skills and also can keep you interested in the material you're learning, rather than small simple beginner songs that are quickly forgettable and boring (i'm talking about the little 3 line "songs" in beginner books). Practice everyday, and if you have the motivation, patience, and resources i'd suggest learning to read music (more than tabs) because it will actually help your playing.

[LCR]

I've found this site (http://www.heartwoodguitar.com/) to be a great resource for beginners. Most songs are pretty easy to play and all the basics are explained.

[Dogmantra]

Learn C, D, G, Am, F and Em. Congratulations, now you can play 90% of all songs ever written. :smalltongue:

But seriously, practise. PRACTISE. A lot. When you're just starting an instrument is the most boring part, when you have to practise stupid amounts of chord changes and positioning. If you're like me, you need a goal to work towards. Try picking a relatively simple song (not Baa Baa Black Sheep or anything, but also not Through the Fire and the Flames either) and telling yourself that you want to be able to play it. Then there's a point to you learning the instrument. Of course, you don't want that to become the only reason to play the instrument, but it's a nice stepping stone, I've found.

[Castaras]

Thanks guys :smallsmile: Been pouring over those resources and bits of advice for the last few hours ^^.

[smellie_hippie]

I cannot stress enough the epicness of chordie.com (www.chordie.com) as a guitar website. Good amount of tablature, wide variety of musical styles and artists and a fairly decent forum of discussions. You can find subjects on theory, chord progressions and scales, best strings for metal or blue-grass, comments and criticisms on equipment.

You can also save tabs into your own personal songbook and edit them if you feel they are innacurate or need tweaking. they also have an "auto-scroll" function so you can play along and not have to turn pages.

[Weezer]

This won't be helpful but when I read the title of the thread I read it as "Need Hair from Guitar Players", needless to say I was confused. :smallamused:

[Zovc]

I like to consider myself a better guitarist than most people, but that's because I assume that most people don't play guitar. ;)

I started about four years ago by learning chords, I learned the chords to play David Bowie's Space Oddity, and that was a very good self-teaching crash course. The most important thing I learned from Space Oddity was when I discovered barre chords.

Without trying to confuse you, learn an E chord, then an F chord. If you know a little about theory, you should understand how to make a (likely) "new" G chord. This is the bread-and-butter of my current guitar skills--I've used this so much that it's practically become a crutch for me.

Once you figure out barre chords, you should definitely start trying to learn scales, before you become too dependent on chords.

[TheMightyBanjo]

Banjo received a Bass Guitar three years ago for Christmas, never touched it. Then Banjo was coerced in to serving as a Bassist in a religious band by one of his friends, Banjo picked up his bass and now loves it.

Best advice Banjo can give, find a way to play with other musicians. Books and Tabs are great, but hands on advice from other musicians and regular practice with them is the best.

[KoboldRevenge]

I can't give you any halp :smallsmile: