I'm going to start playing guitar, and I don't want to start lessons straight away, I want to pick up the basics by self teaching/looking online. Can this be done?
that's what i did. but i'm not that good for how long i've been playing, and it's easy to pick up bad habbits when self teaching.
yes, you can look up tablature to a song, i used to use ULTIMATE GUITAR TABS ARCHIVE | 300,000+ Guitar Tabs, Bass Tabs, Chords and Guitar Pro Tabs!, and self teach yourself that way. If you want to learn by videos or something I'm sure google could help with that, just search self teaching guitar videos, or something, good luck
yeah you can, a teacher can be a blessing or a curse, because if you use a teacher the whole time you kind of end up copying their style, as it's all you know. I personally used a teacher for a few years and taught myself for a few years, thus giving me the technique and theory benefits of having a teacher and allowing me to develop my own style... Either way, when it comes down to it it's about making music, and you can totally do that by yourself with practice and effort.
id say a majority of guitar players start off as self taught. If you really wanna get into it, take some lessons/classes. Reading music and music theory can only help you.
I taught myself If I were going to tell a beginner what to learn first I'd tell them to learn barre chords and the minor pentatonic scale, those helped me visualize the possibilities on the fret board way more than any of the other things I had absorbed to that point
Im self taught too, been playing 10 years now. Word of advice, make sure you learn good habits now because once you get more into it and want to improve, your going to have to fix them anyways, which is way harder than learning the right way from the start. Alternate picking and anchoring are the biggest things to learn about straight away. Learn basic chords and scales til you have them memorized, itll help you be able to improvise. Also the absolute biggest thing is practice and dedication. It takes a year or 2 before you go from sucking to being OK at best. The plus side is new players are deaf to how bad they sound, cuz if you knew how bad it was, youd probably quit lol. Just take it slow and learn the right way.
Ive played for 10 years now and im self taught.. mabs get someone to show u basic chords and how to tune it and stuff but other than that it can be done. lots of determiation and tender fingers..
Yeah, most definitely. Download PowerTab and/or Guitar Pro. They make learning new songs so much easier. Reading tablature is super easy... if you have any questions, it appears there are plenty of guitarists around here that'll help you out. One thing to keep in mind is to not give up too easily. Learning to play the guitar has it's ups a downs... kind of like levels. You'll improve rapidly then hit a wall where it seems like you aren't getting any better... but then you break through the wall. Good luck and have fun.
Hell yeah you can self teach yourself! Besides how to tune and restring correctly, obviously. Just practice practice practice and, to keep things fun, learn some songs or come up with your own shit. Ive been playing for 9 years and I taught myself everything. Although, it helps to know how to read, write, and completely understand music and theory...
Thanks for all the help guys, I know pretty much nothing, and will be getting a guitar within the next couple of days. What are the FIRST things I should do? Start to try and memorize the basic chords?
I taught myself. Started when i was 11 now im 17. 6 years down without a lesson in my life. Started out playing AC/DC, Led Zeppelin just chords and main riffs no solos on a Fender Strat. Now im doing whole songs, even writing my own songs. Trivium and Metallica are my favs. I now know some chords by name i can sweep pick(if you dont know what this is check it out its a metal thing and very very very very difficult!) I play solos and alot of advanced stuff now. The only downside of this is i can only read tabs and dont know notes well. Ive tried to learn the notes and which notes and chords are which frets. but tabs work just great for me. A good site is ULTIMATE GUITAR TABS ARCHIVE | 300,000+ Guitar Tabs, Bass Tabs, Chords and Guitar Pro Tabs! for tabs. It is possible but takes a long time to self teach yourself but if you can stick with it and have patience then its well worth it. Alot of famous guitarists never took lessons or if they did take lessons only few. Try to practice for an hour or more everyday. I was once at 5 hours or more a day practicing but that was during the school year and i was really bored haha. If you have any questions feel free to message me. Good Luck
For sure man I've been playing for 12 years totally self taught. If I were you I would pick up a beginners book...just so you learn the notes and basic chords. From there you can do anything. But basics are important...learn those first.
ultimate-guitar.com is must as mentioned before. but when looking up tabs, download the guitar pro versions and open the file in tuxguitar its a free reader and writer of guitar pro files
i started at 9 yrs old. i taught myself and decided i wanted to learn the harder stuff right away.when i heard slash play knockin on heavens door live at the ritz in 88, i knew thats how i want to play. that solo he does is just so raw and emotional. find it on youtube. 20 years later still never had a lesson and im quite good. i played blues/classic rock,then alt rock alt metal