possible to learn guitar on own??
UsmanI
Posts: 72
I'm wondering how hard it is to pick up a guitar and learn how to play it without lessons. There's online tutorials and shit, and probably books as well, so I'm wondering if its possible.
I really want to buy a used electric guitar this summer and learn how to play.
Thanks, Gearheads!
I really want to buy a used electric guitar this summer and learn how to play.
Thanks, Gearheads!
Post edited by Unknown User on
0
Comments
1. You want to start taking lessons.
2. You want to keep doing what you are doing your own way.
3. Guitar just isn't for you.
Any which way it should make for an interesting summer.
Good Luck!
Years later I realized I wasn't going to lead a very good life if I didn't give guitar playing another shot. This time I tried something really radical... *Trying* the guitar before I bought it!!!!
Found an accoustic that my hand just wrapped right around. All of a sudden shapes I'd tried to make with my hand on the very terrible strat copy I'd picked up years before for $90 were a breeze.
Personally I'd also recommend trying to learn on an accoustic... but you'll get loads of different opinions about that in the posts to follow... Let the games begin!
If you are determiuned, "The Guitar Handbook" by Ralph someone is worrth every cents, god knows how good I might be iof i ha d it at 16.
Learing from a good teacher is fun, bad teachers are crap.
I suggest avoiding the two extremes of just learing songs, or just leaning theory and scales, and never learning someone elses sol for examople.
Evry lesson should ocntain these three elements.
A piece of theory
An exercise
A piece of music
insist on that, you can't go wrong, if you don't get it, move on !!!!!!!!!!!
I'd say you learn more on an accoustic. A couple of lame analogies came to my mind when I thought or replying. One is that it's like the difference between learning to drive with a stick shift vs. an automatic, and the other is that it's like learning to ride a bicycle before learning to ride a motorcycle. In both cases you learn more about driving, or handling the vehicle, and you depend less on the vehicle driving itself.
I guess the problem with those analogies is that they don't necessarily drive the point home... I mean... driving an automatic is easier so why *not* learn on an automatic? So I'd clarify those analogies by pointing out that driving and riding are often about practicality, getting from point A to point B. Playing guitar on the other hand is about artistry, it's about where you take the vehicle rather than where the vehicle takes you.
Learning on an acoustic means learning more. The volume of the amp won't be drowning out little nuances that you'll notice more on an accoustic, like how the wood vibrates in your hands. If you learn these things on an accoustic, you'll still know to look for them, and feel them on an electric IMO. If you learn on an electric you may know less about first and second gears, or changing lanes by subtly shifting your balance while riding with no hands.
Again, you'll probably get lots of different opinions on this. This one just happens to be mine.
easy enough
It can be done..but good luck. I've been taking lessons for over a year now. My friend has been learning on his own for 9 months. He still doesn't understand the CAGED system. I knew that after 2 lessons.
that being said, you need a good instructor. Mine is great, graduated from the Berklee School of music, played with Otis Rush, Danny Gatton...but the dude that teaches right next to him is an idiot.
Reading 2006 - WOOOOW!!!!!
Paris 2006 - Fucking amazing
Wembley 2007
Simple is only simple when you know how. Tying a shoelace could be a complete mystery to someone who does not know how to do it.
Granted, I'm not that great but I can def. play.
And, learning on an acoustic has been a great way to learn.
Anyway OP good luck and have fun with it definitly buy a guitar and try it out. ^_^
At this point, why not get an instructor? I couldn't imagine not having a weekly personal reference point. Mine is from the Berklee School of Music, played with countless people....any question I have is answered. And this idea of an instructor taking away your creativity is absolute BS. My creativity is expanding b/c of him. You should think about it. But get a good one.
that's a point, but remember that not all instructors come from a professional music school. the guy that taught me to play was very good and taught me a lot of stuff, and he worshipped Joe Walsh. so after a certain point, all I was doing was learning fucking Eagles songs which I couldn't have cared less about doing.
See that would suck. We don't learn songs at all. We practice incorporating certain licks into rhythm changes, voicing chords..things like that.
I would hate to sit there and just learn songs. I do that on my own. So I see what you're saying.
all i did was use tutorials and most important of all....pearl jam tabs! as i knew the songs i got tabs from giventowail.com and learnt songs. because of pearl jams style there are songs that will teach you everything from basic chords, to individual notes to power chords, barre chords scales and solos etc. ive can play guitar competently now, and i learnt from playing almost all pearl jam stuff!
check it out
http://www.giventowail.com/lessons/beginners.php
Even Flow Psycho Member #039
******Message Pit Australian Tour Members********
rumour starter President & Member #1
www.myspace.com/pappas99
2008: MSG 1, Hartford, Mansfield 2, Ed Solo NYC 1
2009: London (O2), Philly 1, 2, 3, & 4
2010: Hartford, Boston, MSG 1 & 2
2011: Ed Solo Hartford
2012: Philly (MIA Fest)
2013: Worcester 2, Brooklyn 1 & 2, Hartford
I agree with you..my thing about trying lessons first..if you don't like it..just stop! I've developed a friendship with my instructor. He has another student who he tells me is on the exact same path as me and at the exact same point as me and about the same age. We're about to get together and start jamming with a keyboard player and a drummer.
That wouldn't have happened if I had sat in front of books and nothing else.