Guitar anyone?

your a drummer? hey i started playing recently and im getting the hang of it but i was wondering, how long did it take you before you actually sounded decent
oh and sorry i dont play guitar

 

http://www.looknohands.com/chordhouse/
This site has every chord and scale you'll ever need to know

http://www.bluesblast.com/
This site has speed drills and backing tracks to practice your playing

All the good tablature sites have pretty much been shut down, but pretty much Googling a song you want will turn up something.

Once you're comfortable enough, try to learn barre chords (both E and A forms). They really open up the fretboard and with two simple shapes you've got all the major and minor chords covered. Saves a lot of time compared to cowboy chords (open chords).

 

1. Not sure about websites, but i'll offer a few tips I think would be helpful. The most important thing to do when first learning Guitar is to develop good dexterity on the instrument. The best exercise i've found for this is to strum open strings with a pick (using alternate picking; down stroke, up stroke, down stroke, etc...) with a metronome (which I know know you have, being a drummer). set it at a slower tempo at first and just do the above exercise on the high E string for starters. Then try doing it on other strings and ultimatley try doing it moving between strings. also mix up the rhythms you play (8th notes, triplets, etc) I think you will find this to be a huge help in the long run.

2. As far as songs go, I would start with simple rock and folk songs. You should learn basic open chords, bar chords and power chords so you have a vocabulary you can learn songs from. Just use google to learn the these basic chords or buy a book.

3. Always practice with a metronome. always. Also make sure to learn how to keep the guitar in tune and learn all the notes on the fretboard. lastly, play what you love and what makes you happy. Thats what it's really about, right?

 

Here's one of my personal beliefs for guitar. Chromatics are shit. Chromatics are boring exercises in which you do the same pattern on every string, faster and faster. 1234 1234 1234 on every string for example (the number represents frets). Then you would change it up a bit like: 1324 1324 etc.

A lot of guitarists use this technique to become fast. I think it's boring and takes the fun and creativity out of learning the instrument.

Learning certain relations between notes and chords is very important. You should learn triads and different harmonies eventually. This may come a bit later though.

Do you have an musical knowledge? Such as: an A minor chord is spelled A - C - E. If you do, I'll post a bunch more.



Good beginner songs:
House of the Rising Sun - The Animals
Black Sabbath - Sweet Leaf
Led Zeppelin - Tangerine
Metallica - Seek and Destroy


Oh and by the way, if you have the drive and develop a passion for the instrument, lessons are quite unecessary. I've never had a lesson in my life. It takes years to become good though, just remember that. You have to be patient.

 

Well the music alphabet is this: A A# B C C# D D# E F F# G G#

You'll find that normal triad chords will have the notes: the root, the major or minor third, and the perfect fifth.

If you're playing in C major, for example, which is an easy key to show you with as it has no sharps or flats (half steps between notes: A# is between A and B. The enharmonic spelling of A# is B flat, or Bb... they're the same exact notes). So the scale of C major is: C D E F G A B. Pretty easy to remember.

If you put any two notes together they make a harmony. A major third in C major is E.

C D E F G A B
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
To make a normal triad chord, you will need the third and the fifth. So to make a C major chord you will need C E G. It will sound pretty if you play it.
This is how you construct chords. Well triads at least. There are many other more complex chords out there. Now C doesn't always have to be a major key. Here are the rest of the intervals of C (m=minor, M=major, p=perfect, tri=tritone... a nasty interval):

C - 1 (Root)
C# - m2
D - M2
D# - m3
E - M3
F - p4
F# - tri
G - p5
G# - m6
A - M6
A# - m7
B - M7

So to construct a C minor chord, you would take the minor third instead of the major third. C D#(or Eb) G.
You can apply this knowledge for any key. The circle of fifths is a good way of memorizing which key has which sharps or flats. No two keys have the same number of sharps or flats.

What's interesting is that you can take a major key and change it to something totally different still using the same notes (not adding or removing sharps or flats). These are called modes. Very basically, these are variations on the major key. The variation is in the starting note. C Ionian (that's what the major key is called in mode form), like I said before is C D E F G A B. Easy. Now to change this to the equivilent minor key, A minor, all you need to do is begin with A. A B C D E F G. The mode of the minor key is called Aeolian. There are modes for every note in the scale. These are the two you should focus on for now though.

So onto minor (Aeolian) keys. To make an A minor chord, like the C major triad, you need the third and the fifth, but this time, obviously the minor third instead of the major. A C E is A minor.

EDIT: OH MY GOD!!! I just thought I acidentally deleted that... I'm soooo happy this post worked. I worked hard writing that haha.

That's a lot to take in for now, though. I can show you some more when you absorb that. If you have any questions, I'll check up on the thread.

 

if you want to learn speed and shredding, you need to learn how to alternate pick properly. It may sound easy, up down up down, what's so hard about that? The hard part is learning proper technique, from holding the pick, thumb positioning on the back of the neck, to how far your fingers come off of the strings before changing to the next note. if you aren't constantly paying attention and trying to use proper technique, you will soon fall into the trap of playing sloppy all the time because you just haven't practiced with proper technique and once that happens it is very hard to change. I recommend checking out Michael Angelo's Speed Kills DVD, he teaches you great technique while also helping you shred some monster licks. Great for a more intermediate player, but I am sure beginners can learn a lot as well.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hb5QaCfm7bg

 

the 1234 i think helped me out more than any other exercise. work that up, and also do variations, like 1 3 2 4 and even 1 4 3 2 and just give that like an half hour to an hour a day and also do some chord practice and you'll be on your way

 

Make sure not to neglect right hand technique. If you want to shred, proper picking is more important than left hand speed.

 

Someone should probably ask at some point...What style of guitar playing are you interested in learning? What type of stuff do you want to play?

 

Ha, different strokes for differents folks I suppose. I always found them really boring and tedious so I didn't do them and I turned out fine .

 

uh if u want to learn a particular song, like tabs chords and stuff. i reccomend www.fretplay.com but you're gonna want to get the hang of the guitar first, with knowin chords, picking techniques and all that jazz