5 Responses

1. Arthur H

   August 21st, 2010 at 2:36 am

   1

   Buy an essential elements book and go through it all the way to the end until you’ve basically mastered everything. I took a guitar class and the teacher made us get that book but he was crap so i basically self taught. Now i find that i can go on the internet and find chords or tabs for just about any song and be pretty proficient at it. The book just takes you through basic chords and notes and eventually gets you up to some pretty good stuff.

2. Jordan

   August 21st, 2010 at 2:36 am

   2

   lots of good youtube videos, ive found that they are better than a book. but nothing can top a good teacher. i’d find yourself a local guitar lesson teacher who specializes on beginners

3. blahbloh

   August 21st, 2010 at 2:36 am

   3

   I don’t have any musical training in guitar but i just look at tabs if i want to play a song.
   if you don’t know how to read tabs you can look it up on here.

4. Jerbear

   August 21st, 2010 at 2:36 am

   4

   Okay, usually I would recommend a teacher for at least a month but I can’t do that can I >.<"?

   Alright so by starting guitar you are entering a new musical category, and yes a level 1 book is your best bet, after that you can move on to a level 2 book but I wouldn’t suggest moving on to level 3. This is because you need to get comfortable with the guitar, and with your musical background hopefully in theory as well … you can easily figure out the rest of the notes and the structure of how the fretboard is formed, such as the standard tuning of guitars being in fifths, EADGBe…

   Now after level 2 you should look into online lessons from sites such as ultimate-guitar.com where they have tons of lessons from classical to acoustic to soloing and rhythms. On the site they have guitars tabs its basically arranged in this way…
   e ————————
   B——- 2—————
   G——-2——————
   D——–2—————-
   A———————–
   E———————-
   This shows a A major chord comprised of E, A and C#…

   Numbers will be in the corresponding lines and that number is the fret number which is the space between two frets (the bumps on the fretboard). E being your lowest, e being your highest string.
   An important note to take is that the fretboard goes up by semitones or half-steps so on the e string listing from fret 1 to 12 is….

   0 (no frets being held, called open string) – e
   1 – e#/f 4- g# 7- b 10 – d
   2- f# 5- a 8 – b#/c 11 – d#
   3 – g 6- a# 9 – c# 12 – e (an octave higher)

   Like the complete musical alphabet 12 half-steps equates to 1 octave in the guitar 12 frets higher than open string or fret 0 is an octave higher

   Sheet music can be found by searching google and such
   If you’re into video game music like me a site called gametabs.net is amazing…

   Moving on….

   Now you know how to play guitar and you’re comfortable now its time to develop your finger strength.

   In my opinion the best way to develop finger strength at first is through playing chords, so check up on the internet on your chords. Hopefully you will see a pattern where chords maintain the same shape throughout the fretboard when the root note is on a certain string. Now if you move down a string from (E to A) the shape will change but that new shape will remain when shifting from different positions on the A string.

   Here’s an overview of the different styles you can play….

   Solo/Rhythm – this is what I’d put under electric guitar where you’ll be using techniques such as alternate picking, economy picking, arpeggios, palm muting etc… so search it up and take it slow, it takes awhile to learn new techniques…

   Classical – this is where you use your fingers for both right and left and play songs like Canon etc,

   Acoustic – mostly chords and also finger picking like classical but just uses a different style of playing

   I would get more specific but I would need you to tell me if you like soloing, rhythm, classical or acoustic.
   Enjoy the guitar, don’t make it a chore by practicing for 6 hours straight, human brains can only handle so much before dismissing anything else that’s learned.
   Have fun~

   If you have any other questions feel free to message me~

   ::EDIT:: Any level 1 book that teaches you basic notes, techniques etc should be proficient…
   Always look through a book before buying~
   Make sure it goes through most notes from frets 1-5 on each string!…

5. Joseph Hawking

   August 21st, 2010 at 2:36 am

   5

   You don’t want to pay for lessons, which I can understand.

   I’d recommend searching around on the internet for some free lessons, which I know are available. I think Jamorama http://bit.ly/8Yg1Is offer a free course that you can take (and you’ll maybe want to sign up for the whole course at just $49.95). I’d say that would be money well spent. But take the free lessons frst to see whether you like their approach.