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How To Play Guitar?

How do you play guitar?

  • I've owned a guitar for a few years now and I never learned how to really play. I can read tabs on ultimateguitar.com, play songs, and I know a few chords but other than that I don't have any knowledge on scales and all of the other stuff an experienced guitar player needs to know. So my real questions are, how do I learn? What should I study up on? And I know I can take guitar lessons but I have no job so paying for lessons is out of the question. I'm going to try and be self taught (with a little help from all of you, of course.) Send me a link possibly and give me some pointers. Also, I'd like some information on how to play the drums, too. Thanks ahead, I really appreciate it.

  • Answer:

    Focus on learning a particular technique. Do not just grab a solo and try to learn every technique in it at once. String bends, vibrato, hammer-ons and pull-offs should be the main focus initially. - Practice your first technique in the fifth fret box of the A minor pentatonic. The string tension and fret spacing for this scale box are fairly ideal for first learning most of these techniques. - Practice the technique in the 17th fret box of the A minor pentatonic. After you can competently do the technique, it is important to get used to using the technique on a less ideal part of the neck. - Learn to play a solo with that particular technique. The goal is to be able to proficiently use the technique at will in a song. If the solo has other techniques, it is fine to ignore them and focus on one technique at a time. - Learn to play a solo with that technique, while using other techniques. Ideally, try to find a solo that uses other techniques before and after the one you are practicing. If you are focusing on string bends, for example, try to find a solo that has hammer-ons and pull-off into and out of a bend. Good luck

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Apart from learning from others, buying song books and listenint to youtube you can also try listening to the songs you like, breaking, pausing them as necessary and learn to play them by listening to them. If you know the basic open chords and bar chords then you can play a lot of rock and punk style songs. Experiment on the pentatonic scale and you can start to play lead too.

Action

try the ebook and video lessons at http://guitarmanual.typepad.com it has lots of good lessons and a downloadable ebook 93 pages 8 chapters covering beginning to advanced lessons like open chords, barre chords, power chords, chord inversions, major minor and pentatonic scales and their modes, how to read tablature and chord charts, playing techniques, music theory lessons specific to guitar and much more, good luck !!

crashoverride

youtube has hundreds of lessons there. also, i would recommend that you learn the scales. that is like learning abcs for guitar playing.

Jacque C

Your best bet is to make friends with other guitar players. Then get together and learn from each other. Most players are willing to help those who are not as advanced.

Kab

If you are really looking to become knowledgeable on guitar and be able to do things such as play music by sight reading then you need to learn music notation and music theory. Notation and theory are not exactly the same thing. Learning at least the basics of music notation will help quite a bit with the theory. I suggest getting books on both. You could borrow books from the library as well. If you learn from the Web then make sure that your site or sites give you a fairly comprehensive overview of the subject or at least the topic you are looking for. That is why books are usually better than the Web for this type of thing as they will contain a lot of material in an organized presentation. One of the most important things to do is to practice what you learn. That applies to things like scales and rhythms. I have found that it is helpful to make up exercises on your own as well as practice those in the books or the Web as you will have your own things you need to practice more than others. So it you are bored of playing the same scale over and over again, mix it up with a different rhythm and maybe throw in some rests which are all part of it anyway. It has been said that "You should learn all the theory you can and then forget it." Some people might say this does not make sense or it is a waste of time. If you spend the time on it and get to know it that well then eventually you do not have to think about it anymore. At that point it becomes second nature. That can take a long time and parts of what you learn will happen that way as you practice it more and more. It might be worth getting something like what is offered at Guitar Principles. From what I have read of Jamie Andreas' books so far, a lot of it makes sense. Desire and patience. Desire is necessary to start learning something. Patience is for when you do not get it the first time, or the second, or the third, ...

playinmyblues

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