I like playing guitar in a non-technical way!

2-feign-reluctance

I've never had the patience, though believe wholly I have the ability, to learn all the scales and play with super technical finesse. If it sounds good to me that's all I care about really.

Stickman12

2-feign-reluctance said:

I've never had the patience, though believe wholly I have the ability, to learn all the scales and play with super technical finesse. If it sounds good to me that's all I care about really.

Can you give us a little background on how you learned to play guitar. Did you teach yourself, did you take lessons? What techniques did you find most helpful? Just curious, I have been teaching myself through youtube over the past few years and always like to pick the minds of guitarists.

xtremehardy388

I just play by ear

2-feign-reluctance

We didn't have YouTube when I started, so I sat in and watched and played with people that knew what they were doing. I learn better from watching and when I started college in 97' I'd been tinkering at best for about 3 years. I wasn't afraid or self-conscious to just try. Finger strengthening tools helped with dexterity. I took one with me to all my college courses for 3 years and when I wasn't writing, I was using that whilst listening. Totally made fretting much easier. Also, I didn't concern myself with learning how to play songs necessarily at the start. I just wanted to learn the basic chords like E,A,G,D, C Am, Em and then came strumming, then came picking, then came finding those chords on other places on the neck, then came learning how to play leads. By the time I got the basic chords down, strumming down, then I started learning songs. 'Cherub Rock' was the first song I learned to play. I remember seeing the Pumpkins live and being close enough I saw how it was played and because of all the work I'd done, it made sense! I was like, Oh, that's an E, that's a G chord barred. So, the short of it all was playing with others was the biggest, most effective learning for me at the start. Also having a very musically talented family didn't hurt (i.e. Grandpa and sister are amazing musicians).

tominzinga

I learned by ear and by watching the greats as well. All great advice above!

steeler4life

I learned in a sort of backwards way. I pretty much jumped straight into songs after I learned some basic chords. I taught myself / am still teaching myself with online guitar tabs (giventowail.com is great for PJ tabs). I started less than a year ago but I already feel pretty comfortable playing leads. Some of my first songs were Alive, Yellow Ledbetter, and Sirens. I have never taken a guitar lesson but I may start because taking them because I am really close to being able to play the Stairway to Heaven solo but can't quite get it.

On a separate note... How long does it normally take you to learn a new song?
I can normally learn a song in about an hour but it can take longer depending how long/complicated the solo is.

2-feign-reluctance

I can read chord charts, tab so it doesn't take long, but I learn faster watching someone play the song first. Solos are different. If I'm really motivated to learn a solo note for note, I'll go to tab. I usually have the song memorized in my head that I don't need to hear it whilst learning it.

tominzinga

i just improved over this a few hours ago! check it out its real sloppy, but i wasnt trying to achieve a note for note solo just improv

2-feign-reluctance

tominzinga said:

i just improved over this a few hours ago! check it out its real sloppy, but i wasnt trying to achieve a note for note solo just improv

Sounds like you had fun!