Guitar suggestions and tricks of the trade

**zach** · 02-13-2010, 12:29 PM

This week I started playing guitar. For those of you that play guitar, I'd appreciate any insight on your experience such as with equipment, web sites for tabs or chords, best songs to start with...anything applicable.

Z

**Clones21** · 02-13-2010, 12:32 PM

Go with a Line 6 Amp. Cant get anything better for the price.

**ChrisMWilliams** · 02-13-2010, 12:34 PM

I like this site for chords.

E-Chords.com - Guitar Chords and tabs with key variations

**cyrocksmypants** · 02-13-2010, 12:39 PM

I use e-chords.com for my tabs and chords. Has a pretty substantial library, is free and easy to navigate. It also allowsa you to scroll over the chord and it will show you how to play it.

I'm a big fan of The Beatles, but they're pretty easy to start with. Most of their songs are your main, basic chords and not too tricky.

I'm self-taught, never taken a lesson in my life. My advice is not to get frustrated, and just play what you love.

Also, expect your fingertips to hurt for a while until they callous over (I used to play till mine bled). Also, it would be advantageous to learn how to re-string your guitar. Beginners tend to strum too hard and can snap a string pretty easily.

As for equiptment, just make sure to get an electronic tuner. New strings need to be tuned often.

Is it accoustic or electric? What brand?

**nb06** · 02-13-2010, 12:59 PM

I really like ULTIMATE GUITAR TABS ARCHIVE | 300,000+ Guitar Tabs, Bass Tabs, Chords and Guitar Pro Tabs!. It has an EXTENSIVE collection of almost every song you could think of as tabs and chords. Really easy to use as well, just type the name of the song in at the top and it will direct you to a whole list of them. It's free too.

Here is a list of every single chord variation and finger positions. This really helped me out as I started learning.
All The Chords Chords by Misc @ Ultimate-Guitar.Com

There are lots of good video lessons on youtube as well.

As someone mentioned above, the strings will really tear up your fingers to start with. If you want to avoid this, you can put on some Elixir (sp?) strings. They are coated in wax and much easier on your fingers. They are much smoother but you do give up a little tone clarity.

**zepfan4isu** · 02-13-2010, 01:09 PM

What style do you want to play? If you want to play rhythm (Chords) you should start by learning the proper way to strum so you develop good habits early. If you want to play lead (solos and stuff like that) you should learn scales and scale patterns. My guess is that like most people you will want to learn how do do both, but I would start our learning proper strumming and picking techniques and learn to play a few simple chords to practice strumming with. Most importantly have fun.

**cyfan964** · 02-13-2010, 01:09 PM

I use e-chords as well. Before you start trying to learn songs learn the major chords and how to transition between them. It will take a lot of practice, but once you get better at the chords it's a lot easier to play songs - obviously.

**bringmagicback** · 02-13-2010, 01:13 PM

Online guitar tuner - E A D G B E

I use this site for tuning, there is also some useful items that can be found in the forums ect.

**zach** · 02-13-2010, 01:29 PM

Currently I am borrowing one of my neigbors accoustic guitars (Gretsch beginner I believe). I will probably buy one down the road once I see some improvement. Never fast enough I can say. Currently working on string and reading music as well learning chords. Trying to play Horse with No Name by America...however, I can quite figure out the rhythm for it.

Z

Originally Posted by cyrocksmypants

I use e-chords.com for my tabs and chords. Has a pretty substantial library, is free and easy to navigate. It also allowsa you to scroll over the chord and it will show you how to play it.

I'm a big fan of The Beatles, but they're pretty easy to start with. Most of their songs are your main, basic chords and not too tricky.

I'm self-taught, never taken a lesson in my life. My advice is not to get frustrated, and just play what you love.

Also, expect your fingertips to hurt for a while until they callous over (I used to play till mine bled). Also, it would be advantageous to learn how to re-string your guitar. Beginners tend to strum too hard and can snap a string pretty easily.

As for equiptment, just make sure to get an electronic tuner. New strings need to be tuned often.

Is it accoustic or electric? What brand?

**marothisu** · 02-13-2010, 01:42 PM

How much music theory do you already know?

**zach** · 02-13-2010, 01:49 PM

0

:)

Z

**marothisu** · 02-13-2010, 01:53 PM

Also here's my experience. I've been playing for 15 years, before I had the internet so looking up videos for free wasn't exactly an option. I started on classical acoustic (which has a wider neck than normal acoustic) and then moved to electric. I'm a blues/jazz/rock lead guitar player now mainly.

First, what type of guitar you get will depend on what style you want to play. If you want to play blues, you probably aren't going to buy an Ibanez.

Here's my suggestions really:
1) Practice, practice practice -- obviously
2) Learn basic chords first even if you only want to play solos and learn to switch between them.
3) Learn how to strum the chords properly
4) Get accustomed to picking the individual notes in the chord and changing -- starter song? Dust in the Wind by Kansas.

5) Use ALL of your fingers. I know you might not use your pinky a lot in everyday life, but get used to it for guitar. use all fingers...

6) Watch videos of GOOD guitarists play. I can't tell you how much stuff I picked up by just watching Jimi Hendrix.

7) When you practice, don't be afraid if it sounds like ****. It's a long process. Nobody gets good right away.

8) After you learn basic chords and stuff like that, learn how to do bends, hammer ons/pull offs, and after awhile especially on acoustic learn how to play harmonics :D

**Clones21** · 02-13-2010, 01:55 PM

Another good note:

If your playing eletric, tune it to Drop D

**flinkpoyd01** · 02-13-2010, 03:00 PM

Originally Posted by Clones21

Another good note:

If your playing eletric, tune it to Drop D

I disagree with this. For a beginner, learning to play using a more standard EADGBE tuning is much more useful. The majority of songs he'll begin learning should be in standard tuning and it will help him develop an ear for these notes much better so that after enough experience he won't need tabs and can play by hearing and feel. Starting with a non-standard tune is introducing more variables than a person in his first week of learning needs.

**geburgess** · 02-13-2010, 03:05 PM

This.... Haha.

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FgQyeyRidfk]YouTube - Through The Fire and Flames 100% Expert FC Screen + Hands[/ame]

But for real, stick to songs with basic chord progressions (I, I, VI, V, I) so basically old blues songs to learn with. Will help develop rhythm and then you can progress from there... At least that's my experience.