Guitar

Its best to go through the rigorous "begginer training" such as chords and those shitty chord songs that sounds cheesy and unimpressive. Trying to learn riffs and stuff right off the bat is a quick fix, but tends to teach you very bad habits, and can potentially hurt you very bad in the long run. There are many things you don't learn from tab.
One other thing I want to recommend: if you want to progress very fast and be a really good guitarist, never use tab. As far as I have seen, this just leads to self-destruction at some point or another. If you stick to lessons and learning songs by ear, you will progress so much faster than almost everybody else. And yes, it sounds horrible right now, but it will really help later on.
I am sorry to say that many of these tips wont give you quick-fix instant results, but in a couple years, you will be thanking me if you take me advice.

 

yeah man, don't try to rush into anything. take it slow at first and just learn the basics, don't try to jump into complex guitar solos and fingerpcking patterns and what not. some things that will help are, of course, scales. research the Pentatonic scale, very standard and good to know for anything blues/rock related. there's also major and minor scales to go through. learn your basic chords and try to pick up bar chords as well, because those are great practice for your hand.

 

begin by learning the open chords A B C D E F G, then start learning the fret board on the E and A strings so you can start playing barre chords.

then start some basic theory. learn what notes and chords go with what and why, and start jamming your own tunes.


its alot of fun, just dedicate an hour or so a day and youll progress fine. ive been playing for 3 years and am writing my own songs and playing in a band thats played a few local venus now. totally self taught, and ive been told im not bad. hahaha.


good luck man, have fun. dont try to rush yourself, and dont get discouraged.

 

yeah, defs learn all the basic chords, it seems dumb but they help alot with finger coordination
learn some scales too
start off slow and gradually build speed, there's no reason to play something fast if sounds horrible

 

awesome, i've had some questions for awhile that i could really use some help on.

one is, how do I go about training my ear? is there a program I can use to help, or some tips on this?

and two, I've been ready to start learning about music theory, but I can't find a good place to start. Like, "learn what notes and chords go with what and why".. i can do the 'oh, this chord progression sounds aright', but can't just write notes down and know what it'll sound like, or hear something in my head and play in on my guitar.

tips ?

danke!

 

Hey,

Most of the advice I'd give you has already been stated, but here's something. Just get to know your fretboard, make it your friend. When you get further down the road and are doing barre's, learn all the different chord patterns for each major and minor chord. Break them down into arpeggios, and you'll be surprised. Peace.

-Timmy
"Making music is a virus, fortunately there is no cure."

 

Many good things have already been said... all I have to say is;

There's no such thing as natural talent in music. Everything is what you make it. So never give yourself credit for things you didn't earn by practicing, and never discredit yourself by thinking you weren't born with the same two ears as every one else that plays an instrument.

Unless you're one of the lucky 1/10000 people, statistically, who have 'perfect pitch'... then you're one lucky bastard lol.

 

Yep. What everyone said about learning chords, and also learn ALL of the pentatonic minor scale in E and/or A, up and down the fret board. Walk it up and down until it becomes second nature. That'll take you a long way.

EDIT: And what floydian said too. Before I learned to play guitar, I couldn't sing for shit and I had no ear for tone. I'd always loved music, but I wasn't exposed to a lot of intrument playing or singing lessons or any sort of formal music education. Not sure how that happened...lol.

But anyway, after a few weeks with the (acoustic) guitar and a pitch-pipe, and learning to tune one string and then tune the rest of the strings off that one, well, now I have a great ear. Not perfect pitch, but if I have one known tone, I'm good-to-go. And I still have a shitty Tom Petty-esque voice, but at least I can keep it in key and even hit specific notes with accompaniment. That was totally learned. Nothing innate about it for me. Unfortunately!

 

OK, for the ear part: The ABSOLUTE best way to train is pull out a relatively simple song, and learn it by ear. Have your guitar on your lap and just keep trying stuff until you think you have it perfect.
However, I would suggest learning chords and notes before you do this, because then it will make a lot more sense.

http://www.zentao.com/guitar/guitar-lessons.html

^^Those are absolutely awesome begginer lessons that will keep you occupied for a while at the very least.

http://www.zentao.com/guitar/theory/

^^Advanced music theory for when you finish with the begginer lessons. Trust me, once you learn music theory, you have a whole new world open to you on guitar.


And finally: NEVER USE TAB!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

I can't say I agree entirely with that advice. It is wise to learn good aural skills, especially early on in playing, as guitarists are notorious for having fairly bad aural skills, well below what should be the 'standard' for their instrument. But, once you have a fair level of tonal recognition with your ears, etc... I think tabs are wonderful. I never would recommend learning an entire song via tab, unless it's an emergency situation, but it can make the process of learning a song 5 times faster still.

Even now, I still look at a tab once in awhile (well, mostly for solos... but never the less,) just to get an idea for the general structure of how the song, or the songs riff, or whatever is made, and maybe just to tell me the basic key right away.

If you already have an idea of how the song is structured, then you can go and figure it out in detail/the parts you didn't look at for a tab, and I gaurentee you that you'll be accomplishing the same stuff as figuring it with your ear, AND you'll figure it out a lot faster. Then once you're even more confident in your ability, you can start learning songs entirely by ear. No matter what, I do agree that you should never sit down at a computer with your guitar and learn every portion of a song, note for note, via tab.

Just my opinion, it's always worked for me though...

 

right right. don't learn entire songs by tab, but if you just wanna pick up the intro riff to a song or a solo or what not like floydian said, by all means go ahead, but just keep in mind that like 99% of all tabs out there are wrong.

 

I've been playing for years now, I teach guitar professionally for a living and I'm doing a bachelor of music majoring in guitar performance at the moment.

After all the playing, learning and teaching I've done I can tell you one thing that is the most important: PLAY PLAY PLAY.......everything you can get your hands on, turn on the radio and try on work out the main riff or chord progression to every song you hear. All the bands and artists you like? Look at the tabs for ALL of their stuff and don't stop until you've learnt it all.

And there's nothing wrong with tab. It's easily accessible, helps you tackle songs you would never dream of tackling, and helps develop your ear to higher points. Soon enough (and trust me it does happen if you continue to play) tabs will only become a rarely-used reference for that one lick or riff you just can't get.

If you've got any general questions about specific songs let me know, I went through a SHITLOAD of songs when i was starting out and chances are I've at least skimmed over (or if not I always can have a look) most mainstream songs.

Hope thats some good advice! Keep playing!

 

I have a friend who has perfect pitch. Hes been playing since he was 6 years old, never took a lesson, never looked at a book, never needed a tuner to tune his guitar. He can listen to anything you play him, and play the exact song back to you, its pretty amazing.

Best advice I can give you is simply stick with it. Guitar is one of the most frustrating things to pick up simply because the finger positions are so unnatural for your hands to do. I remember when I first started, I literally had to pick up one of my fingers with my other hand and place it where it needed to be just to teach my muscles.

 

Thats true, but if you rely on tab, then you are screwed. I mean don't use tab when you are starting. Many use tab right off the bat, and their ear for music is shit because of it. However, YMMV.
Theres nothing wrong with looking at tabs for hints and stuff like that, but I do feel there is a better way:
Become familiar with the main and primary scales at least. Then once you figure out the key of a song and whether its major or minor, you have a pretty good idea of what is being played and where it is being played. Say, for example, when I learned Comfortably Numb. I figured out it was in B right off the bat. After a little expirimentation, a figured out it was B-minor. Then it was very easy from there.