Look at these bad motherfuckers. Chances are if you came in this thread, you know who most of these guys are. Upon diving into their musical catalog, these mortal men disguised themselves as gods by surrounding themselves with lush tones, nimble fingers and the ability to describe emotions through sound better than an eloquent speaker can with words. We idolized these greats upon discovering them, wondering how we could approach even a tiny fraction of their greatness. We put songs on repeat because we want to hear a certain riff 500 times in a day, while wishing the lead singer would just shut the fuck up and let the true talent shine. We save ticket stubs to prove our brush with greatness. Then one day, we find ourselves with our own guitars in our hands, plugging into an amplifier or maybe acoustic is our thing. We hold the pick between our fingers just like the image in our childhood poster and we can hear the crowd cheering us. We put our arm in the air, the anticipation building, and we strum, just like we have done a million times while playing air guitar.
Our dreams are dashed as horrible sounds erupt from the amp or the hollow body of our guitar. After a couple days, a large percentage of people will put that guitar and amp away and it will gather dust. I know I did. We wonder if our heroes secretly made deals with the devil. We want immediate results and we give up without acknowledging that these greats, too, once were at a point where they couldnt even strum a decent chord.
Im making this thread in the hopes of helping others take that initial step and realize success. Ive tried quite a few times to learn how to play guitar and have given up, only to try it again. Ive surrounded myself with enough tools and avenues of learning that I can finally (fucking finally) gotten over that initial hump of feeling like my hands were useless holding my guitar. Im going to describe what I use and where to find it. I have a routine now that is working for me and allows me to see results on a daily basis. What works for me, however, may not work for you. Im hoping that other guitar players will also share their routines in this thread. I pieced my process together from multiple sources so maybe someone reading here can borrow from my ideas, and mash some of it up with what another player is doing and achieve results. It goes without saying that the best way to learn is to have the time and money to pay someone really good to teach you how to play so this is the only time I will mention this. At anytime in your progress, it will benefit you to learn from a live teacher.
Starting out I firmly believe that unless we have fun and can document increases in skill, one loses interest. Rocksmith is the best way to achieve both. Buy this on your console or PC and spend a few weeks with it. This learning tool will not teach you how to play guitar so much as it will teach you how to play songs you like. To me, this was absolutely essential because as I tried to move beyond Rocksmith and into actual learning, my frustration with hitting walls was quelled when I could play a loud riff and it sounded like it was supposed to! My disappointment in fucking up moving from one chord to another vanished when I took a break from the failure and played the opening riff to Be Quiet and Drive or the main riff from Hash Pipe. I spent 60 days playing Rocksmith (the Rocksmith challenge) before moving on. l still had no idea what I was doing, but I could make some cool sounds.
The first thing I integrated into my routine was the Gibson Learn and Master courses. Its kind of pricy but I was able to snag it cheaply.
http://www.learnandmaster.com/guitar/
The instructor is very thorough and complete. He assumes you know nothing. If you do not want to pay for this, you can at least see the lesson book. I do not know if Gibson realizes this or not but you can download it off of their site for free. Im assuming they know, so feel free as its been downloadable for months now. Its 106 pages and very informative.
http://www.learnandmaster.com/resources/Learn-and-Master-Guitar-Lesson-Book.pdf
The Gibson courses are kind of stuffy and I wanted something a little looser. I stumbled upon Justin Guitar.
http://www.justinguitar.com/
I loved his site at first. Free youtube lessons and songs you can play along with. Hes also a very good teacher and makes it fun. He also will start you off from the very beginning. I probably spent a few weeks using his site but to be honest I dont like the layout and found myself wondering where to go instead of playing my guitar.
Thats when I started looking for other online lessons. I found an amazing site that has really helped me out a lot.
http://www.guitartricks.com/v2/index.php
This site rocks. It really rocks. The downfall? Its 15 bucks a month. Is that a lot? Its not when you realize that the level of tutoring is on par with professional tutors who charge up to 30 bucks for a half hour once a week. Its got a two week free trial I believe. Its also got a 60 day money back guarantee as well, I think. I read a lot of reviews of this site before I gave them my money and I only saw favorable comments. It tracks your progress and leads you step by step. There are a large group of tutors who cater to different musical styles. Basically you start at the beginning courses, move onto intermediate courses, and then branch off into whatever musical style suits you best. From there, they offer lessons on playing popular songs within many different genres. h also offer lessons in playing in th style of your favorite guitarists. Im on it everyday now.
While Im at work, I have a lot of time to listen to podcasts. How the hell can you learn to play guitar while at work, right? Well, this guy named Desi Serna has a podcast that is amazing.
https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/guitar-music-theory-lessons/id258401691
Its basically discussions on guitar theory. Most of it is over my head but I listen anyway because you do pick up stuff. However, podcast number 2 is a MUST LISTEN for anyone wanting to learn guitar. Its like 45 minutes long and without even needing a guitar to look at, after just listening to it, you will be able to identify any note on the fretboard by either memorization of string 5 and 6 or using octave shapes to identify notes on the other strings. Literally, you will know EVERY note or know how to find it in seconds just by putting your hands on the neck. This absolutely kicked down one of the walls I was hitting in regards to learning. The podcasts are free, and he has DVDs you can buy which are pretty favorably reviewed as well. I have not purchased anything from him.
I incorporate everything Ive listed above on a daily basis except for Justin Guitar. Ill go there to look at songs when Ive learned a new chord. I try to play at least a half hour everyday. Most days I have more time so Im learning by leaps and bounds now.
My daily routine is as follows.
1. Read the Gibson books at the appropriate spot where I am skill wise.
2. Warm up my fingers by playing the racing game in Rocksmith 2014. It will teach you finger dexterity and scales at the same time.
3. Play a few songs I like in Rocksmith. I play through the songs I can 100%.
4. Do the next lesson on Guitar Tricks. Practice what was taught for awhile.
5. Go back to Rocksmith and use the session mode to finish out my time. What is session mode? Watch this. Its like having your own band. I try to incorporate what Ive learned into this at the end.
Things a beginner needs but doesn't realize.
1. Buy a metronome
2. Buy stiff picks, imo. Softer picks are thought o be easier to learn with but every thing ive read says that you will graduate to stiff picks so you might as well use stiff ones.
3. Buy extra sets of good strings. You will break yours.
4. Buy some kind of string lubricant. Your fingers will thank you and its easier to move around the fretboard with slick strings.
5. Buy a capo.
6. Buy an adapter so you can plug your headphones into your amp so your spouse doesnt kill you when it sounds like youre strangling cats at first.
Anyway, I hope this information Ive gathered helps someone. I really hope maybe we can establish a small guitar playing community and others will share their tips, tricks and successes. Would be awesome to see some youtube videos of our better guitarists to motivate us to keep going.
