Any guitar players on TW?

Im now 1.5 months in and it’s helping so far. I’m for sure practicing way more now that theres a financial commitment.

I had a laugh to myself when right after i finished telling him I've been playing for 2 years, the first thing we did was spider exercise.


I cant even remember the last time i did a spider exercise before that…..

 

Agreed, my old Guild D4 is normally my 'leave out' guitar. The little Taylor is just more comfy for such occasions. The 000-18 lives in the case, unless a jam is declared! I kinda gotta thing for 'hog' guitars (mahogany)...

 

I can’t play… I can put together some power chords and palm mute a bit. I kind of know some of the pentatonic scale…
Watching YouTube to learn is possible but, in person lessons are Way better. All the music stores closed down except for one where I live so, I guess I know where I’ll be calling lol

 

me when i switched to bass for the first few weeks.

 

So, I had my first in person lesson and I didn’t feel it was a good match. Granted, the guy who was teaching me plays very well and is nice….and I know I have SO Much to learn but, it wasn’t a good experience and I didn’t enjoy the way the guy taught. So, I guess it’s back to YouTube until I want to research a new person to give me lessons. How did you guys learn?

 

In person. I found a great instructor that is a retired college music professor specifically guitar.

 

I took in person lessons for about a year and a half but I found that it was too much coming at me too fast. I'm lucky if I can get an hour of free time in the evenings and I felt like I had to spend every free moment practicing. My teacher was great and I did get a lot out of it but I'm happier just going at my own pace.

 

Firstly, its your money; if you weren't satisfied with the experience, take your money elsewhere. OR, be open with the instructor and give it another shot. Theres absolutely zero harm in telling him that you greatly respect his talent and teaching, but that it didn't click with you; maybe explain how your learning style is better suited for a different style of teaching, and he can work with that. Or maybe he can't, and can refer you to someone really great who can with no hard feelings. My experience is music teachers of any instrument aren't in it for the money, and genuinely just love the art/love sharing it with others. At the very least, maybe have a conversation with him before the next lesson, and see what develops from there. He may or may not be the best teacher for you, and thats okay. Is he a reputable instructor at an established music store or just some random guy who plays guitar and happens to give lessons? Not everybody who plays makes a good "teacher."

Whether you continue lessons or not, learning on your own (and practicing) via youtube, friends, online resources, etc will be necessary to become better, so you can't rely on lessons alone anyways. I wouldn't be too discouraged after one failed lesson. Even those with simple natural talent don't pick it up overnight. I personally utilized youtube to learn chord shapes (G, C, Em, and D) to start out with. I then did nothing more than buy a capo, look up chord charts, transpose them to those exact chords, and play rhythm along with all of my favorite songs. As I got better doing that, I picked up new chord shapes and did the same thing. That progressed into being pretty proficient at playing along with 'most' any song on the radio. That progressed into learning inversions for those chord shapes and playing different voicings along with songs. Somewhere along the way, I learned the Nashville number system (as I was playing with a group at this point) to make playing in a live setting with different people/groups a whole lot easier. That progressed into learning the CAGED system, picking up a lot more theory, and gave me a much better understanding for trying to learn lead guitar. I still suck at lead, but learning rhythm first gave me a better foundation. Thats not to say the opposite can't be true, but thats just how I naturally progressed with no lessons. I had tried to learn lead/solo, scales, blues licks, all the basics, and just got too discouraged the first time I picked up a guitar. Having friends/community to play with is probably the only reason I exceled at picking it back up. It really helped having 2 other friends learning at the exact same progress point (from scratch) as me. We'd regularly meet up to just "jam," playing along through songs, and showing each other little things we'd learned. We all taught each other in a sense, but truthfully all the progress came from that time alone jamming to youtube tracks or playing along with songs.

Theres no "right" or "wrong" way. Just pick up the guitar as often as you can, even if you have to schedule it into your busy day. Consistency and constantly having that 'accomplished' feeling from learning new little things will propel you through the hard parts of just starting out.

 

Picked this up yesterday. I paid market price, certainly, but it was a piece I had been eying for awhile.

The irony is I hated this guitar when it came out (or at least the Gibson variant) in 2004. Blink was the silly fart joke band I loved in high school with pastel Strats and simple songs about girls. This guitar signified the end of all of that. The shows became less about comedy, more about the music and artsy visuals. Tom left Blink and went on a wild ego trip.

When he rejoined in 2023 and the silliness came back a bit I went back and reevaluated the whole thing and this guitar started to really appeal to me visually, so I said eff it (it was a bit of retail therapy as I didn't like how the bodywork on my Tacoma came out) and grabbed it.

Having played basically only Strats / strat necks for 90% of my life this neck is chonky and it's a little less loud than the Invaders I'm used to, but I do feel like I'll start to really enjoy it.

Now I just need to actually get into theory instead of power chord punk rock about girls.

 

NGD!
Caught the tele bug a little while ago so decided to get myself an early birthday present

 

Nice...I should introduce you to the PRS bug

 

Every guitar player should have at least one Tele! The Swiss Army Knife of guitardom! Enjoy!

 

Yep, seems like every guitar player i know has gone through the same phase at some point too.
Starting off hating them just for one day to realize how great they are for no particular reason.

 

I feel this.. I share a tiny studio space with a couple buddies near my house. Last year there was 4 of us covering the rent, now it's just me and my friend. I went from practicing 2-3 times a week to practicing/jamming at least every other day at a minimum. Getting more skin in the game money-wise has helped my playing absolutely..

I play the drums

 

Drums you say?...mine

 

So, I found this guy online who’s been playing since he was like 12 years old to teach me. He’s 49yo now and can really play! He loves playing metal and all that so…it’s a way better fit. I’m inspired to practice way more now and look forward to each lesson. I have organized a lesson every two weeks because I don’t really need extra expenses at the moment. Having said that, if you’re not actively planning or already making forward movement towards a goal….it most likely will not happen. So, onward I go down the rabbit hole of learning how to play guitar in hopes that one day I’ll be able to play whatever pops into my head.

 

Best advice i can give is keep a guitar close by sitting on a stand. Doesn't have to be an electric guitar that needs plugging in.. just a cheapie acoustic or something, I have a $200 Spanish guitar with nylon strings thats easy to pick up, drop, doesn't matter if it gets knocked over lol..

Get a stand and keep it in the living room, dining room, wherever is close.. pick it up every day and fiddle around

I started playing by hearing songs I wanted to learn and then go from there. Easy to play stuff like The Ramones, a cool intro, easy chords, etc. I learned some Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd. Not the hard parts but just chords that I could strum and sing along too.

 

I appreciate the advice.
I have my Schecter & a lower end Jackson that’s out on a stand right next to a practice amp & petal hooked up. I usually toot around with either one and do warm up exercises or go through parts of the scales I know so far. Then I default to trying to gallop quickly lol
I’m going to keep at it…I really want to be about to create music of my own one day. I know it’s a constant work in progress but, so is life so… eh

 

You just have to keep at it. Some days I don't really want to practice my drums but I force myself to sit down, put on the metronome and just get my hands moving. Even for 15 minutes

The single biggest thing that helped me was learning how to read sheet music. Not just the individual notes but the time signatures across the top. 1/4 notes, 16th notes, etc.. Its not so much telling me what drum to hit but how fast I'm going and how many notes are in a single note space..

I do understand that guitar/piano notes are different and much harder to read. Drum notation is much more simple.. but it really helped me even understand what I was doing with doubles, paradiddles, rolls, etc.
Forcing yourself to try and understand the notation will help you organize your brain.