guitar…..?

Ms. Witaker: guitar…..?
I bought a guitar because I’ve always wanted to learn and very dedicated to following this through. I can’t seem to understand the finger positioning or exactly how it all comes together. I have a book “idiots guide to playing guitar” but I’m wondering if i should take a couple “in person” lessons with a teacher. Has anyone actually learned on their own? How long until you got the hang of it? I’m not expecting a fast transition into being amazing, just some helpful thoughts. Is it too hard once you get the hang of it? Lessons?

Answers and Views:

Answer by WhatIf
All I needed was about 2 lessons with a real teacher.

Once I figured out how to play my first few chords well, I was set to continue learning on my own.

Answer by zorewingzz
well you can ask your Friend to teach you some basic cords, but it would really help if you would take up some guitar lessons

Answer by PRS TruckIN
Ive been lucky. My dad who has played professionally ( a couple times lol) taught me most of the chords. To me a chord isnt just a soloing tool but it is the body and shell of the song.

Learn as many chords as you can first. If it takes a Teacher to show you how then go for it. But learn how to read music. Once you learn it you wont ever forget it.

Good luck

Answer by Jason
Hi there,

I started learning guitar in Feburary 2006 and I started with an acoustic. I was self taught pretty much until I started taking lessons in May. First, I learned the basic chords (can be found at . ) Then I found this great website, www.nextlevelguitar.com , They taught me popular songs but they got shut down from teaching people songs due to copyright reasons. They have a youtube page too where they teach songs inspired by popular artists. That page is . .

A site that I use ALL the time is www.ultimate-guitar.com , this is a website that provides tabulatures (tabs ) and chords for popular songs ABSOLUTELY free. I got a lot better once I started playing popular songs.

At first my fingers hurt SO BAD but once you play for a month or too, you will start to notice that you’re developing callouses on your fingers (hard patches of skin) you won’t feel it at all. If you don’t practice for a week or so the callouses will go away then you’re back to square one.

Once I started playing, I thought it was really hard. As rediculous as it sounds, I started playing pieces like “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star”, “Mary Had a Little Lamb” etc. after a few weeks, I advanced to playing popular songs

Once my playing started to get better, in June, I bought a Squier Beginner pack, it’s a package that is made by Fender (Squier is a lower end of Fender guitars) that comes with an electric guitar (the quality isn’t so great but its good for beginners), an amp, picks, straps, cables, tuner etc. I got it for a great price, about $ 230 dollars.

I have to admit electric guitar is more fun than acoustic but you’re supposed to start with acoustic. If you keep practicing your acoustic, after a while, you could get an electric. In my opinion, electric guitars are more versitile because you could play softer stuff on it, as well as rock stuff like AC/DC, soloing etc.

I started out with an Ibanez acoustic guitar (Feburary 2006)
In late June I purchased the Squier Beginner Pack ( . )
Then in Late October I bought an Ibanez bass guitar (it plays great and it was really cheap)
Then in Feburary 2007 I purchased a Epiphone Les Paul.

As for some guitars you could start with, here are some models that are great beginner acoustic guitars for affordable prices:

Yamaha F310
Seagull S6
Takamine G-240
Fender DG-7
Epiphone DR-100
Washburn D10S
Blueridge BR-40
Ibanez AC100NT
Taylor Baby Taylor
Martin LXI

And here are some good beginner electric guitars:

Squier Stratocaster
Epiphone G-310 SG
Yamaha Pacifica 112
Epiphone Les Paul Special II
Danelectro 56-U2

After you become good and you love guitar, here are a couple nice guitars (expensive though) :

Gibson SG
Gibson Les Paul
Fender Telecaster
Fender Stratocaster

If you have any further questions, by all means email me at [email protected]

I hope that helps you out,
Jason

P.S. – I know you asked less than what I answered but I just thought it would be helpful to you.

Answer by dansinger61
I never took professional lessons, but I did benefit greatly from one-on-one contact with other guitar players. I struggled for about a year just getting basic chords down from the books (and I already had 6 years of music behind me, so reading the music was not a problem). Two weeks at camp with two other guitar players made all the difference — it showed me what the chord positions REALLY look like and how to make the changes in tempo with the music.

However, I think that my playing has suffered for not having ever had formal lessons — especially my classical playing. My position is not ideal, and my finger strokes are probably not correct. I get the job done, but I’m sure I’d be much better if I had had a few lessons early on.

The bottom line — get as many lessons as you can afford. If it’s just two or three, that’s a start. If it’s a whole semester, that’s great. Lessons with a professional will ALWAYS improve your playing. (Most professional musicians continue to study and take coaching sessions ALL THROUGH THEIR CAREERS!)

Answer by cconsaul
Almost nobody learns all on their own. We all have teachers, informal mentors, heroes that we listen to and copy until we get that lick just right. It is perfectly acceptable to get a teacher and shows excellent judgment on your part. Remember that the a plagiarist copies from one person while a genius copies from thousands of people. Truly wise people understand that by giving others credit for your accomplishments, you add their expertise to your own. I would get as many teachers as you can get, and I would make them as prominent as possible. In the meantime, a teacher is a shortcut to the basics. You would never think of letting a brain surgeon operate on you if he or she had not been actually shown how to do it by a mentor surgeon. You would never learn to “DRIVE” all on your own. You would usually be glad to have someone riding shotgun, watching out for that one crucial thing you forgot to do because it was your first time. (Look both ways. Check the mirror before you change lanes, use the turn signal)

I really don’t understand this do it yourself attitude when it comes to guitar. I want to be able to tell my audience that I was worthy enough to sit at the feet of the masters. When I say that I did it myself, I am really admitting that no one believed enough in me to spend time, and to make sure I had those extremely important basics under my belt before I displayed either my talent or ignorance to the world.

I wish you well, no matter what you decide, but at least try the teacher route. Who knows, you may end up like me, being a teacher, wanting to share what you know with students who seem to think it is better to do it themselves!

Answer by risingguitarhero
Lessons are fine, if that’s what you want. The best thing however, is to find someone who plays a style you like really well and get them to teach you. If you have a friend, for example, who’s really good, what they show you could be more useful than a whole bunch of lessons with a teacher you don’t like.

Another thing- listen to the guitar music you like to play. Play along however you can. This helps me a lot.

Answer by chessmaster1018
If you have that book and still are not getting it maybe it would pay to have a few in person lessons so that you could have the things that you don’t understand be explained to you !!! Maybe looking at a few guitar sites would help, here are a few, see what you can pick up from these !
https://www.guitarchordsmagic.com/

https://www.8notes.com (click on the guitar)

https://www.guitarforbeginners.com/
https://chordfind.com/
https://www.worldguitar.com/
https://www.guitartutoronline.com/

If these fail to give you what your looking for try youtube and type in learn to play guitar, I know that they have some sites about learning guitar, good luck, hope these help, bye !

Answer by Scyfer
Hi there. I bought a guitar too not too long ago, and i want to learn too. I took about 12 or so lessons and learned my finger positioning and some useful chords. After I finished with my lessons i started to play guitar tabs that i found online (I was taught how to read tabs). Today i just find good guitar tabs of songs i want to play and i practice them, so my suggestion would be to practice and not to lose determination because that is what you really need. So good luck with your guitar and yes it does get easier as you go along. Have Fun! Contact me for some good tab sites.

😀

Answer by Jimmy Page
I’m Jimmy Page of Led Zeppelin. I learned on my own. It wasnt easy but if you work hard enough you’ll get it eventually. Try getting some lessons if you dont pick it up on your own. I started on my own in a situation much like yours and here I am now, a famous guitarist. Hope I helped e-mail me with any questions.

Answer by Patrick W
It is very possible to teach yourself. Don’t believe me? Jimi Hendrix and many other guitarist taught themselves. Here’s how I taught myself. I bought a book to teach me chords and learned all the diferent chords. Then I looked up guitar tabs for some relatively easy songs (like Iron Man and Smoke on the Water, as for the website www.ultimate-guitar.com is THE place to go for tabs) and learned them, gradually learning more difficult songs. The trick is to learn something new every day and the internet is great (if you don’t know a technique youtube is great). A really good thing is to have a friend that is better at guitar then you, because then if you don’t know something, they can help you learn it. Once you get the hang of the basics, you really take off. Honestly, if you practice a bit every day, you should be playin songs within the first few weeks. I really hope this helped and if you have anymore questions, email me at [email protected]

Answer by saint dani.
u should just learn basic power cords and palm muting then learn to play some green day or nirvana somethign thats easy than once u get used to that u can start looking at chord charts and get used to the positions. and ur pretty much set. some lessons wouldn’t hurt tho.

Answer by Matty 2 Tears
well i tought myself and really i think that that is the way to go in the begining because you have to push past all of the obstacles yourself and in the end you will see if your a true musician at heart if when the dust settles you’re still holding your axe. ok maybe that was way to poetic for this circumstance but really its true. i mean i started on a crappy classical guitar and i pushed passed the quality and all of my family telling me to stop playing because i was sooo bad. however now im better than some people i know who have been playing as long as i am with lessons. anywho i didnt mean to brag so here is my advice:

i have been playing for 3 years now and now im considering lessons because there is a point where you get stuck because you have discovered all you can by yourself. however, i would like to think at least, that i am a pretty smart kid and reading books watching videos and such just made sense to me. i got waaaay better from chilling with other musicians. i dont even have to know what they are playing; but for me just seeing what they are playing and looking at the patterns of their wrist and hands make me think differently. but you may not be the same way. some people need to have someone there to show them exactly what they are doing. also the good thing about having a teacher is that if you ever loose sight of guitar you know that you have to practice because if you dont then you are just waisting money on an instructor.

but really in the end, no matter what ANYONE says, guitar is not that hard to get a hang of once you change your mindset and your fingers are ready to cooperate. it only took me a year and a half to really understand what that instrument was about. everything after that, for me, has been learning to play the kind of music i like and creating my own style of playing.

i hope this helps. i really honestly do because with the very deepest parts of my soul i know that the world NEEDS more musicians and i hope that you choose to make the steps required to join! good luck!!

Answer by jhbates3
i learned on my own, and it only took about a year. my best teacher was youtube.com. just visit the site and type in beginner guitar lesson.

Answer by Aspailin
At the beginning I learn myself. If you wanna play for fun. There is not really needed to have a teacher. Here is the way how to get fun with guitar.

1. Tune up your guitar in standard tunning. You need to have a chromatic tuner which is very easy to work with. Its important to make your guitar stays in tune !

2. Buy a chord chart and put it on the wall.

3. Try the easy chords like C , Em , Am , D7 , F ( try to strum down-down-up-up-down-up-down-down-up and change chord)

4. Look for somesong you like. Download the chord and lets play.

One day you get serious with guitar then go to school to have teacher, but for fun I think there is no need.