N00b Usb Guitar for Mac?

Guitar Quest: Day 4 D chord sounding a lot sweeter now. I'm slowly getting my fingers curled up enough to not hit anything else but what they should. Still doing mostly scales, some chinzy rock phrase the Happy Kiwi taught me, and the A, D, and E chords. I'm starting to pull out some guitar songs from my music collection to see if I can figure out what sort of effects are used to make that sound. My amp (Fender Frontman 15 R) has overdrive and reverb, but those effects really only work at neighbor-annoying, bunny-terrifying noise levels.

Right, ludwig_van, that's why I didn't understand it when robocop_is_bleeding said he learned "the chop." I had never heard of an individual technique called "the chop."

Congrats on the guitar and amp purchase and on your first steps in guitar playing. You should set up a blog (a few free options: http://blogger.com, http://wordpress.com) and keep this journal going (maybe even add these first posts in retroactively). You're on the right track: learning those basic open chords is the best place to start. Then learning the minor pentatonic and blues scales will let you start playing bluesy melodies without too much pain. The step up from that is to learn the major scale and the [natural | pure] minor scale patterns. Learn songs you like and play along with them. That'll give it all a context.

Guitar Quest: Day 7, Morning Well, the Kiwi (who is probably not actually from New Zealand - I just have a dead ear for accents and imagine all New Zealanders to be that happy all the time) used the term 'chop' to describe the act of strumming while the side of your hand is on the strings. It was part of a lesson on up/down strumming (down, up, chop, down; repeat) and may have been a sneaky way of teaching rhythm. I saw Daniel Johnston perform last night and think there may be hope for me yet. I wonder if I can track down the tab for http://www.mystrands.com/track/3407941. Ah. http://www.rejectedunknown.com/tabs/daniel%20johnston%20-%20truelove.txt. http://www.rejectedunknown.com/lyrics/Song/dontletthesungodown.htm.

Not sure if you're being sarcastic ikkyu2, but "chops" is slang for technical proficiency. If you're doing picking exercises, you're working on your chops, a.k.a. woodshedding.

Yeah, get the distortion pedal, it makes hammerons and pulloffs easier. I've never heard of a chop. What is it? The blues scale is the minor pentatonic scale plus the flatted fifth "blue note."

Guitar Quest: Day 6 You're right about the G chord, ludwig_van. I get my fingers confused even when typing. ;) Today the Kiwi showed me a 'blues scale' which, according to the YouTube comments is actually a 'minor pent' and also ghey. I'll need to look that up more. The rest of the practice was taken up by chords and chops. I think I may get a pedal sooner rather than later as I'm not getting a whole lot of sustain (right word?) off of my set up at the moment and it looks like I'll need it when I start trying for Hammer Ons and Pull Offs.

The Happy Kiwi and the Rock Guitar for Dummies book disagree as to whether or not I have my fourth finger on the first string. One says yes, one says no. Confusion! There are two common voicings for an open G chord. Both of them include the 3rd fret on the 1st string, though. The difference is whether you're playing the 3rd fret on the 2nd string or the open second string -- one voicing is played 320033 and the other is 320003. A G major chord is made of the notes G, B, and D. The former voicing above goes (bottom to top) G B D G D G and the latter goes G B D G B G, so they both make the chord, but use a different arrangement of the notes for a slightly different sound.

Guitar Quest: Day 5 New chord! Hello, Mr. G. One problem. The Happy Kiwi and the Rock Guitar for Dummies book disagree as to whether or not I have my fourth finger on the first string. One says yes, one says no. Confusion! Also, the Happy Kiwi taught me the 'chop' today. That's a Big Leap Forward as I've always wondered what made that sort of noise. So now I'll work on the chop, plus actually changing chords in a semi-quick manner. Thanks for the Boss recommendation, ikkyu2. I was going to go for one of those little plastic 15 dollar pedals, but seeing as I can get Kurt's pedal for 40, I think I'll go there.