Want to learn to play guitar

[jchasse]

When my daughter wanted to play the guitar a few years back (she was 8 or so), I bought decent starter acoustic guitars for each of us. Fast forward: she almost immediately decided to play violin (which she's getting pretty good at). And when she lost interest, my guitar moved into the closet.

Now with the fun advent of sheltering in place, I'd like to give it another go. I played drums for 15 years, but never read sheet music. Got any suggestions for a good self-lead program or books to get me going?

[justinrchan]

Try Fender Play. They are offering 3 free months, no strings attached. I have been using it on and off since last summer but really started hunkering down since the shelter in place started. It’s been great!

[uber]

Check out Marty Music (Marty Schwartz) on youtube.

[ultraman6970]

you tube

[Blown Reek]

Find a song you dig, and then get the tab from ultimate-guitar.com, and take it from there.

[schwa86]

I like the Justin guitar stuff on the internet, there are some companion books that are pretty good.

[OtayBW]

What kind of music do you want to play?? Seems like that would provide some direction.

[Chris]

I’ve been playing around with the Simply Guitar app

[Peter P.]

Try Fender Play. They are offering 3 free months, no strings attached.

How are you gonna play the guitar without strings?;)

[martl]

When my daughter wanted to play the guitar a few years back (she was 8 or so), I bought decent starter acoustic guitars for each of us. Fast forward: she almost immediately decided to play violin (which she's getting pretty good at). And when she lost interest, my guitar moved into the closet.

Now with the fun advent of sheltering in place, I'd like to give it another go. I played drums for 15 years, but never read sheet music. Got any suggestions for a good self-lead program or books to get me going?

There is a gamificated way to learn some guitar called "rocksmith 2014" which is available for Consoles or PC on Steam. You plug your guitar to the computer or use a microfone, so the program will "hear" which tone you're hitting :)
Theres a basic beginners tutorial that will walk you through the basic steps like tuning, single notes, chords, downstroke, upstroke etc.., there's a freeplay mode, it will emulate a variety of amps and pedals too.
It has a song library for you to play along with, with some nice features - for example, you can pick a part of a song and learn it by slowing it down etc. all with instant fedback.
Also some "minigames" to train certain techniques are included.

It will not 100% replace a teacher or a more academic training program, but i'm having a lot of fun with it.

Note: It will require the generig input cable and will sadly not work with third party guitar-to-computer interfaces sadly, and the one you get in the boxed version has a tiny bit of a delay trhat some people don't like.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mJ8-XzahW1E

[benb]

Justin Guitar
Marty Music

They both have weaknesses in their programs but are about the best for free online videos. Otherwise the thing with online stuff is to bounce around. For a given thing there will be 50 videos on YouTube aid you watch 5 videos you’ll pick up something from each. The problem is it’s really hard at first to figure out what material is okay for your current level. Videos take a long time to watch.

Fender Play is definitely worth what it costs. I have a membership but use it more for looking up songs as if been taking lessons a while before it came out. The biggest annoyance with Fender Play is you can’t print the sheet music. Really annoying. It means you need a 12” iPad or Windows tablet that can go on your music stand to get the most out of it.

If you really want to learn see if you can find a local teacher who can do Zoom right now who can switch to in person later. No online resources can correct the little micro mistakes you’re making as a beginner that make everything seem super hard. Especially if you’re learning as an adult some of those things can hurt you if you try too hard with bad technique. Most guitars even if they are expensive need a “set up” as well. Beginner technique plus a guitar that needs a setup makes things really hard/painful.

My understanding is Rocksmith is unusable on modern consoles FWIW. Too much latency on Xbox One and PS4. PC for sure for that.

[ultraman6970]

Simple... air guitar! :D

How are you gonna play the guitar without strings?;)

[tbike4]

I have a guitar in the closet, probably been there for 15 years and I think it's missing a string.
You can play like 300 popular songs with 3 chords- D,C & G. Add A minor & F and you're Jimi Hendrix. :cool:

[benb]

Definitely you can hold out for a sweetheart deal for Fender Play.

I have it for a year for like $20 or something absurd. I had tried the free Trial, paid for it for a couple months, then cancelled.

They kept sending me sweeter and sweeter deals till I signed back up for a year just to have it available.

Mostly their weakness is once you get better they generally don't have particularly complete versions of songs if you really want to go deep on a song. E.x. they might have a song but have a simplified rhythm and/or offer nothing on the solos or fills or something.

[mflaherty37]

I play over 30 years. It’s amazing what we can get on the internet now but I still believe you need private instruction to get your finger posture and stuff. You need to arch the fingers and other stuff someone highly skilled needs to poke a pencil at your hands. If you go down the path with out that you’ll be limited.

[verbs4us]

The best way to learn depends on ... what's best for your way of learning. Some people can learn from YouTube or apps. Some just play the same song over and over and figure it out. Some put the music on and try to play along. And some need teachers. If you go the latter, most music music teachers I know have transitioned to online lessons. You miss some nuainces of tone (since acoustical quality of computers is usually dreadful) but it pretty closely approximates sitting together.

[redir]

What kind of music do you want to play?? Seems like that would provide some direction.

This is really the first step.

Do you want to play Music from the Spanish Romantic period written in the early 19th century or Simon and Garfunkel tunes written with our life time? Or do you want to be creative and make your own songs up?

[Mattre]

When you're ready for some theory, I've had good luck using this alongside some of the YouTube lessons already mentioned:

https://www.ultimate-guitar.com/lessons/for_beginners/learning_music_theory_the_beginning.html

Something I wish I'd done sooner is to start learning where the notes are on the fretboard.

[rounder]

I was in college when I started learning to play guitar. Hung out with friends, listened to records. read song books. I could play but not pro. The progression was slow but fun.

All of that helped, but tended to plateau. Lately (about 30 years later), you can watch youtube, do searches for guitar tab for pretty much any song, etc., and it is so much easier to learn a new song.

I am still not pro, but the music at least sounds ok and is fun to play.

[jchasse]

I play over 30 years. It’s amazing what we can get on the internet now but I still believe you need private instruction to get your finger posture and stuff. You need to arch the fingers and other stuff someone highly skilled needs to poke a pencil at your hands. If you go down the path with out that you’ll be limited.

I believe you. But there's the COVID thing. Nobody that I don't live with is poking me for a while. :cool:

[OtayBW]

This is really the first step.

Do you want to play Music from the Spanish Romantic period written in the early 19th century or Simon and Garfunkel tunes written with our life time? Or do you want to be creative and make your own songs up?
Absolutely. ~10 years ago, I took an 8-week internet course on electric blues guitar from Berklee School of Music. It was outstanding, and not easy, for that matter. Covered everything from the styles of T-Bone Walker to BB King, to Freddie King, Albert King, the West Side Sound (Magic Sam, Otis Rush, Buddy Guy) - a full curriculum. If you know what you're looking for, there might be something really good out there that has some focus behind it.

[benb]

This site is great for theory.

https://www.oolimo.com/

[Saxon]

Get a Beatles song book with chord diagrams. Tune the guitar. Play the guitar.

[Hikyle2]

I'm in the same boat, I got bored so picked up a guitar recently. I have been using fender-play until it runs out and then ultimate-guitar was only $24 for the year. It's really fun looking up everything song I can think of, even if I can't even come close to playing it.

[redir]

Absolutely. ~10 years ago, I took an 8-week internet course on electric blues guitar from Berklee School of Music. It was outstanding, and not easy, for that matter. Covered everything from the styles of T-Bone Walker to BB King, to Freddie King, Albert King, the West Side Sound (Magic Sam, Otis Rush, Buddy Guy) - a full curriculum. If you know what you're looking for, there might be something really good out there that has some focus behind it.

The blues always gets that sort of beginner treatment. Like when you want to learn to play guitar start off with the blues. Sure in general it's technically simple but that's what makes it hard. Albert King was a master of tone. It's not just a matter of playing the notes but playing them with feeling and intent. It requires primal instincts to get right. I could never truly get it.

I say that as I am listening to Junior Wells now :)

[OtayBW]

The blues always gets that sort of beginner treatment. Like when you want to learn to play guitar start off with the blues. Sure in general it's technically simple but that's what makes it hard. Albert King was a master of tone. It's not just a matter of playing the notes but playing them with feeling and intent. It requires primal instincts to get right. I could never truly get it.

I say that as I am listening to Junior Wells now :)
Haha! I've always loved T-Bone Walker, and he was probably among the most simplistic of all. And yet, to me, the extent of his influence was astounding....

[redir]

Haha! I've always loved T-Bone Walker, and he was probably among the most simplistic of all. And yet, to me, the extent of his influence was astounding....

Now on the blues Spotify list listening to The "5" Royales and the guitar tone is glorious :D

Yeah T-Bone too, another great.

And BTW I'm more of a classical guitarist but I love this stuff.

[benb]

If you're going with old/simple blues you should include Jimmy Reed..

A lot of this stuff seems simpler than it is I guess at first.

Not hard to play a blue shuffle.. a little harder to play the swing correctly with the metronome and/or drums.

A little harder to start mixing in triplets in the turnarounds, etc..

And then you could start doing Muddy Waters type stuff where you have to learn the slide.

Almost everything has layers of "actually being able to play it correctly."

I guess I'm echoing redir here.. the beginner can play all the right notes but it won't sound the same.

Freddy King is still probably my favorite though. In the last couple years I learned San Jose, Hideway, and Heads up... heads up is for some reason the only one that "stuck" that I permanently memorized.. Hideway seems to be the hardest to memorize and the most important to remember it correctly.

[Fixed]

My survivor kit
I have played since I was five
Bikes and guitar shops ,I hope they can survive these times
Cheers to all

[redir]

Rig pics are always fun :D

This is my practice set up. With the band I play through a Fender Twin.

https://i.imgur.com/HN9rgkxh.jpg