REAL tips for anyone learning guitar

Ok so Cloud City's thread has been a big waste and anyone trying to learn a thing or two about guitar has not been able to find any sort of help. This thread is for real tips not bogus asshole claims.

Tip #1: Learn how to read Tabs, they are very simple to read and much easier to read than sheet music. If you can read sheet music by all means do so, it gives you a better idea of how to play a song if you have never heard it before.
Check out www.ultimate-guitar.com they have all kinds of tabs, look for 5 star ratings.

Tip #2: Practice as often as you can, and always do some warm ups before playing/practicing. Warm ups are simple, like going up and down scales, using alternate picking, and stretching your fingers. Do stuff like this for about 15 minutes before really playing.

Tip #3: Don't limit yourself to 1 style of music. Yes it's great to master a style and by all means go for it, but the more styles of playing that you learn the more you can incorporate them with each other and make a more unique sound.

Tip #4: Learn as many chords and scales as you possibly can, chords are the foundation to a song, and don't need to be limited to just a strum of the strings, you can pattern pick the hell out of some chords and make a beautiful melody, and scales will help you with finding each note your looking for, and are great for creating lead riffs.

Tip #5: Never avoid using your pinkie.

Tip #6: If you're having trouble learning a new song or riff, try something a little more simple, and don't let yourself get frustrated. The day will come, just keep trying.

Tip #7: Change your strings as often as you can afford to, when using regular strings I like to change them bi-weekly, but when using Elixer coated strings you can go much longer.

Tip #8: Learn how to set up your guitar i.e. tuning, action, intonations, and pickup hight. A well maintained guitar will love you back.

Tip #9: Always keep your guitar in tune

Tip#10: Never allow an asshole to put you down for your style of playing, never listen to any bogus rules they make up, and remember if you have talent keep it up, nay sayers are just jealous.

Good luck to any guitar newbs out there, have fun with your art and great things will come from it.

If anyone else has real tips for beginners post away

there are some excellent lesson videos on youtube.

you mean i can call my guitar an ax and still know what i am doin.lol@ cloud city

lemonjellow said:

you mean i can call my guitar an ax and still know what i am doin.lol@ cloud city

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Of course you can, you can call it skoodilydoo and still be able to play, and play damn well.

sheskunk said:

there are some excellent lesson videos on youtube.

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True youtube has some pretty good stuff

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Lesson: There are two different types of acoustic guitar, classical, and steel string.

Classical guitars have a weaker fan shaped bracing on the inside of the sound board (face of guitar), this allows for more resonance of the wood. With the weaker bracing come lighter tension strings traditionally made from cat gut, but are more readily available in a nylon variety. These guitars have been traditionally finger picked.

Steel string guitars have a much stronger X shaped bracing on the inside of the sound board, to allow for much higher tension strings which gives a brighter and louder sound. An innovative luthier has found a way around this restrictive X brace to allow for even more resonance of the sound board and a natural reverberation. Jeff Babicz, of Babicz Guitars has changed the world of steel string acoustics.

Random Fact: Plectrums aka picks were traditionally made from tortoise shells, stone and wood. You can still find these varieties today as well as metal and felt picks, but most that you find today are made from nylon.

in the words of the master Frank Zappa, "shut up and play"

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trolls dont last too long around here


then again its pretty obvious who you are anyway

subscribed.....

way better thread than asswads up there lmfao. whats that 4th account now.

anyone notice how the old people dont reply just the new ones.. this guys sad got nothing better to do than fuck up other peoples threads.

simply put..... agreed

ATM = Always Think Melody. If you can hum a tune, you can learn to play it.

nobodies mentioned nothings set in stone.. your guitar isnt what makes the band when your playing with somewhat of a band its the drummer that everything rely's on really when push comes to shove. the drummer is your timing.. well in most cases

i know its not a guitar tip per say. but yeah it needed to be said.

its something downtown jesus may not ever get to know. remeber the thing i said about likable personalities bro. btw i got plenty of bad habits (i got a slack pinky finger...my middle ones stil good though )and i can still prolly play better than you.

Tip: Train your ears, with properly trained ears you will be able to differentiate between the different chords and notes. This will greatly improve your ability to learn new songs. You can easily find mistakes in internet tabs, and soon be able to pick up new songs just by listening to them.

Tip: Practice hammer ons and pull offs, these are a great tool for any guitarist. Someone with great skill with these can play a song without even strumming the guitar once.

Luthier Lesson: Pickups- There are many types of pickups out there, typically you will run into magnetic pickups. Aside from those there are piezoelectric and optical pickups.

Piezo pickups don't pick up any magnetic interference and are usually fixed to the bridge of acoustic instruments. These use vibrations of the sound board or bridge to pick up sound.

Optical pickups have no magnetic interference either, they pick up the sound by sensing disturbance of a beam of light, usually a LED. These pickups have a very wide flat frequency unlike magnetics.

Magnetics are what you usually will see, either single coil or humbucking (basically to single coils side by side, coils are in opposite directions). The benefit to humbuckers is the reduced humming sound that single coils can pick up. Aside from these two variations you can also find active and passive versions. Passive need no added power and completely rely on their magnet to power them. Actives need added power, typically a 9v battery. Active pickups also typically need a preamp to fully benefit from them, these will have a much higher output than your standard passive pickup.

All of these can produce very different sounds, for many different styles. So play around with different pickup configurations and find out what suits you best.

For those of you who have not yet had the chance to check this guy out, watch this you will be amazed. For those of you who have seen this, watch it again its that good.

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yaaay thread has been cleaned..

p.s
that videos siick some nice cool sounds, in a whole somewhat peaceful

Jester88 said:

yaaay thread has been cleaned..

p.s
that videos siick some nice cool sounds, in a whole somewhat peaceful

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Yea that dude is pretty sick nasty, hes gotta be one of the most innovative players out there. I think he uses an open tuning when he plays like that. I haven't really tried to figure it out yet, I don't know where to start to learn a technique like that.

i'm sooo over all this acoustic slapping nonsense. pick the thing up and just play it already.

with some goood hash bro
i still cant get over how peaceful yet happy it feels lol. the missus loved it too, i just showed her

Tip: Be inspired to play.

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Fact: You are thoroughly and properly inspired when the hair on the back of your neck is standing on end.

Tip: Higher quality cables are very much worth it.

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So true!!!

I Just put down 50 bucks on a high quality cable, and actually couldn't believe the difference in clairity.

-In jamming situations, think about what everybody else is playing, and make what you're doing part of the song, not just noodleing over top of it.

-Keep your 'axe' accessible, you're alot more likely to practice if it is a quick process to get going. A $10-$15 guitar stand can make all the difference in the world.

-Speed kills, there is nothing wrong with playing fast, just make sure you work on playing things cleanly at a slower pace and the speed will come with time.

Warren Haynes, probably my favorite living guitarist.
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or maybe its Derek Trucks. He is the perfect example showing that its not the amount of notes you hit, but how you hit them. The tone is all in how you play it.
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Just remember, letting yourself come through in your playing will get you alot farther than retardedly clean chops and no personality will.

I'd much rather listen to this.
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...than this.
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You could certainly argue that the goth guy with the insanely clean playing is a better guitarist, but Alvin Lee is way easier to listen to without wanting to kill myself.

Just to show that clean players can also be amazing.
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-Don't forget to make eye contact with the other musicians in your band, sometimes their eyes are just begging to end the song/go into a solo/whatever.