Teach yourself guitar.

How many of you have tought your self how to play the guitar?
I'm pretty new to guitar, and i was wondering if any of you had any tips on how to teach yourself, I have tons of time on my hands so that is not to much of an issue.

I just do not know know where to start..

Cut your fingernails. Press hard (but not to hard) on the strings, so the sound is more clearer... and don't try to achieve Jimmy Hendrix in a year. It takes time to learn these things.. especially when you teach yourself.

Go online and watch vidoes... do some easy tabs and work yourself up.

Originally Posted by brokenjoker

Cut your fingernails. Press hard (but not to hard) on the strings, so the sound is more clearer... and don't try to achieve Jimmy Hendrix in a year. It takes time to learn these things.. especially when you teach yourself.

Go online and watch vidoes... do some easy tabs and work yourself up.

Should'nt I try to learn notes or anything?

Umm.. you mean chords? xD And tableture?

Yes... I would go with chords first. Just search up guitar chords in google or something.. and it should show you diagrams. Like where to put your fingers and all of that. I'd suggest purchasing a student guitar. They're cheap. And won't be too much of a loss if you decided to quit it.

Tableture is not that hard to understand, unless you're getting into pull offs and hammer ons. But... take it slow. Go with chords.. or try tabs if you don't like the feeling.

Originally Posted by Fooorkz

Should'nt I try to learn notes or anything?

i would say try learning a simple easy song first. you may not even end up enjoying the guitar.. and that's cool. so don't daunt yourself by trying to learn notes at first.


if you like that, I would learn the note "C". that is the 8th fret on your bottom (or top string) then figure out the C major scale (which is simply C D E F G A B C). just look up where those notes are on the neck. once you learn that you can learn anything ; almost all music theory is based on the C major scale, and it's a lot easier if you learn that..

i taught myself too by the way. never had a lesson and i could play anything by jimi hendrix with ease at this point. so it is possible without a teacher to get pretty decent . in fact, many of the world's best guitarists (notably yngwie malmsteen and jimi hendrix) never had lessons! my best advice would be never give up. work hard and play every day, and love it

bla, ranting. just pm me if you have any questions

Even if you're teaching yourself, I would get a beginners instruction book to at least get an idea of basic theory. Head down to your local music shop and pick one up.

After that, it's all up to practicing. Lots and lots of practicing.

I know I want to play guitar, i've been playing about 3 months now.
But all i know is Tab, and how to tune my guitar into drop tunings.
I only know one scale, which is the major pentatonic.
I don't know anything about, what to do with the scales.

I don't know what apreggios and modes are, And i know nothing about thoery...

I need to know where to start with that kind of stuff, tab is easy to read and play, but i wan't to understand the instument.

I also need exersizes for building finger dexterity.
Alternate picking exersizes, sweep picking, any kind of exersize to help out my movement.

If any of you knowany sites that hold this info please tell me.

I want to have enough knowledge to make my own stuff up.

Just Google for that stuff.

Tabs are a great place to start off, that's where I started for bass. Learn some scales, again find them on Google, and practice those for speed. Jamming helps a lot. Feel free to just listen to the radio or an album you really like and go crazy; solo up a storm. What you want to do first is get comfortable with your instrument. Naming it might help. My bass's name is Peter, though I never call him that. It just helps you get closer with it is all.

Yeah, I've been trying to self-teach myself for awhile now. For learning the formailities of playing, I mostly use Google.

Oh, and make sure that for the most part that your fingers are curved a decent bit. It's a good habit to get into.

And don't be afraid to screw around in your spare time, inventing new riffs and what-have-ya. It's a pretty good way to familiarize yourself with the thing.

Originally Posted by Fooorkz

I know I want to play guitar, i've been playing about 3 months now.
But all i know is Tab, and how to tune my guitar into drop tunings.
I only know one scale, which is the major pentatonic.
I don't know anything about, what to do with the scales.

I don't know what apreggios and modes are, And i know nothing about thoery...

I need to know where to start with that kind of stuff, tab is easy to read and play, but i wan't to understand the instument.

I also need exersizes for building finger dexterity.
Alternate picking exersizes, sweep picking, any kind of exersize to help out my movement.

If any of you knowany sites that hold this info please tell me.

I want to have enough knowledge to make my own stuff up.

well, technically you don't need ANY knowledge to make your own stuff up. ever heard metallica or megadeth? both their songwriters, know nothing about music theory. and listen to what they have created!


BUT.. in my opinion yeah, it is better to know theory.

i'll help you get started.. i'll give you some theory, scales, chords, and dexterity exercises all in one. just give me a minute and i'll post a lesson

Guitar lessons from trashbeast
Part 1 : Understanding the Music

Here will be my first lesson for you.

if there is one rule of thumb i'm going to lay out right now, it is.. make sure you have fun!

first we're going to learn what exactly a scale or a chord is. that's probably the first thing you should know.. wait a minute, first, shouldn't you know what a note is? It'll help you understand music just that much better.

So ,what is a note? It's simply a vibration at a certain frequency. The higher the note.. the higher frequency the vibration.. the higher the pitch your ears perceive.

Let's think about it even more. You may have heard of the note "Concert pitch A440hz". What that means is that the standard note which is considered the "A" note, is simply anything vibrating at 440hz, or 440 times a second. That is the standard which most instruments tune to.

So why does that matter? Bear with me here. I just want you to understand the deepest meanings of music before you go into the physical realm of it. There are two qualities called CONSANANCE, and DISSONANCE. consanance describes notes that when combined, have a pleasant sound. dissonance is the opposite.. the sound of dissonant notes is grating and awful to most people. It all has to do with the fact that the notes are vibrating at certain frequencies, and some frequencies blend together better then others scientifically. Sorry for being long winded here.. Basically my point is, it all has to do with vibrations!


IMPORTANT TIP

Something you NEED to know right away is something I simply call transposition.

what that means is that when you play 2 notes that are a certain distance from each other, that creates a certain sound. but you can also get that exact same sound by playing 2 other notes that are the same distance from each other. for example..

e-----3--7------------------
sounds a certain way.

but,

b------3-7-----

sounds the exact same. the are the same "interval". but transposed into a "lower key" (that will make sense later). I just want to give you an idea of the things that are possible when you take a look at the deeper science of music.

Ok, ok. So what are scales and chords then?

well a scale is nothing more then a sequence of notes played together to create a certain sound. that's all. To help understand scales, it's important to understand something called octaves, and another thing called intervals.

Octaves: You might have noticed there are over 100 frets, or notes, on your guitar. However, there are really only 12 notes in music. After every 12 notes, the 13th note is simply the same as the first note, but higher.

But that doesn't make sense! well, here's why: Invervals
The 12 notes on a guitar are all seperated equally. the distance between one note and another is called an "interval". Intervals are what scales and chords are based on, but that's not important just yet. What's important is that you know that every time you play one fret higher, you are playing a

"half-step interval". there's a more proper name for that, but you don't need to know it yet. we'll simply call it a half step for now. for example, playing this tab:

e---1-2-3-4-5-6-7--------------------------

Means you are playing a sequence of notes, going up a "half-step" each time. the distance between each note is the exact same. can you hear what i'm talking about? Good! you're one step closer to understanding music.

so how does this explain what an octave is?

now play this tab :

e - 0-1 -2 -3 -4 -5 -6 -7 -8 -9-10-11-12-

Now stop on the 12th fret. Notice anything? It's the same note as the 0 fret, only the frequency has doubled. that is called an octave! play 12, then 0, then 12, then 0, and see if you can hear that they are the same note.

The open E string is an E note. so is the 12th fret. it's simply an "octave" higher. You have also just played every single note there is on the guitar. like I said.. they just keep repeating higher and higher. Hopefully this knowledge will help you from getting discouraged.

also, if you play a note, then play the note that is the octave higher of it, like how you just did, that is called an "octave interval". a good example of this is the first few notes played in jimi hendrix's "purple haze".

This applies to all six strings, of course.


Let's learn a scale then!

Right. There's a lot more formalities you could learn, but you don't need to, and by now, you're probably saying "trashbeast, shut up! I just wanna rock out!"

Here is a tab for the C major scale. it's not the only way you can play the C major scale, just one place on the guitar where you can. I'll explain the theory later. for now, try and memorize this.

e-------------------------------------
b-------------------------------------
g-------------------------------------
d---------------7-8-10----------------
a-------7-8-10-------------------------
e--8-10----------------------------------

The notes you are playing are actually:
C D E F G A B C. the last note is the same as the first one, but an octave higher.

so therefore you could just keep playing it over and over. let's say you want a more grand, epic sequence. then you could play this.
You said you know the major pentatonic scale , right?

e------------------------------------7-8----
b-------------------------------8-10--------
g-----------------------7-9-10--------------
d---------------7-8-10----------------------
a-------7-8-10-------------------------------
e--8-10--------------------------------------

Now, you're playing the same thing twice, but in two octaves. so what you are playing now would be:

C D E F G A B C D E F G A B C


Well.. notice anything? This is the same thing, just with more notes!

Here's the C pentatonic major scale.

e----------------------------------8----
b----------------------------8-10--------
g-----------------------7-9-------------
d---------------7--10----------------
a-------7--10-------------------------
e--8-10----------------------------------

the "regular" major scale is the same thing, if you hadn't noticed, just with extra notes thrown in. that's because a diatonic scale uses every "letter note" and has 7 notes, where a pentatonic scale has just 5. that's why it has a Bouncier sound.. because the jumps between each note are higher. get it?


Now here is the great part. Let's say you want to play the D major scale instead of the C major. why not, right?

All you have to do, is play the exact same thing you just played, but shift each note up 2 frets, because D is 2 frets higher then C. if you closed your eyes, your hands would barely even notice the difference. Ok, so you want to play B major instead of C? Well, move everything DOWN , ONE fret from C major. because B is one fret lower then C. now i'll explain how to play the scale in EVERY key. see how much you're learning already?





Let's take the Bottom E string, and memorize each note on it. It might take a week or two before you REALLY memorize it, but i'll teach you some tricks. first, here's a "reference" card in tab, a cheat sheet of sorts.

E String:
0(E)-1(F)-2(F#)-3(G)-4(G#)-5(A)-6(A#)-7(B)-8(C)-9(C#)-10(D)-11(D#)-12(E again)

Well, let's say you wanted to play the G major scale. all you do to play the major scale in any key, is take the pattern I gave you ,and start on the note of the key you want to play on, instead of the C.

so for example, G major would be this.

e------------------------------------2-3----
b-------------------------------3-5-------
g-----------------------2-4-5--------------
d---------------2-3-5----------------------
a-------2-3-5-------------------------------
e--3-5--------------------------------------

Your hands are doing the exact same thing, but you're playing the G major scale now.

EXERCISE TIME

Try this before moving on:

Play the C major Scale
Play the D Major Scale
Play the G major Scale
Play the A# Major scale.



Don't worry about whether you're playing it good or bad. Relax, play a way that's comfortable for you, be yourself. Next lesson I will teach you some technique, for now, don't be concerned with it.

oh, and regarding sweep picking.. trust me, don't bother yourself with that yet. if you build your technique from the ground up like i'll teach you how, then sweeping will come easily in about a year's time. if you try learning it now, it'll only cause problems for you!

Good luck and i'll post another lesson if you liked that one

I learned everything by ear and tabs. I have no musical training and am able to write and compose songs completely on my own, which I do for my band Clairvoyance.

Originally Posted by ErosionOfSanity

I learned everything by ear and tabs. I have no musical training and am able to write and compose songs completely on my own, which I do for my band Clairvoyance.

you have no idea how much better your lead phrasing gets if you learn some advanced chords (like the 7th's and 9'ths) and a few scales


well at least, i noticed a huge improvement for me

Oh I know, I just don't care lol. The best part about guitar for me is using it as a second voice to convey meaning, not to show off how fast I can shred up and down scales; that's where it gets boring for me.

Theory is 100% useless without talent; it's too bad a lot of good guitar players know what they are doing theoretically, but can't write music to save their life.

Originally Posted by ErosionOfSanity

Oh I know, I just don't care lol. The best part about guitar for me is using it as a second voice to convey meaning, not to show off how fast I can shred up and down scales; that's where it gets boring for me.

Theory is 100% useless without talent; it's too bad a lot of good guitar players know what they are doing theoretically, but can't write music to save their life.

it's true though.. mustaine is one of the best songwriters ever and he claims to know no theory. although his music is usually all power chords (i prefer full chords in my solo music, and often play them in place of power chords in metal songs, lol) it still sounds good