Guitar lessons

[Fhloston]

Hello BG,

I recently picked up an electric guitar and would love to learn to play. My question concerns my method of learning. I've heard that private lessons are the way to go, and that learning through tabs is a no-no. This would also be my first instrument.

I did a little looking and found a music school nearby that gives private lessons. I have also seen online sites that say they teach as well. Since everything is done on the internet these days, I'm wondering if learning music is something I can do there, or is best learned in person.

So I'm asking all BG guitar players, which route would you recommened. Also, how did you learn, and how long did it take? Thanks in advance.

[Wintermute]

Nothing wrong with learning through tabs and it's actually been around longer for string instruments than sheet music (Tablature - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia).

The only problem is you risk missing out on theory and such which could prove useful depending on why you want to learn to play the guitar and your preferred style of music.
Then again a lot of great musicians can't read sheet music.

Personally, one of the best ways to learn is to find friends around your level to jam and mess about with now and then.

[Royal]

I just started learning as well. I just went to youtube and put in songs I wanted to learn with "guitar lesson" at the end. There is usually a bunch of videos. I recommend starting with songs like Wonderwall, Time of your life, Stairway to Heaven songs like that. The beginning of Seven Nation Army is also probably the easiest part of a song I've ever seen. Good Luck!

[Jaybar]

A lot of stuff can be self taught (that's what I did). Theory was a big favorite of mine.

I first took a look at this site. It's extremely helpful in understanding music theory. The best way for me to memorize chords was to map out the guitar and try to identify different combinations (including barre chords, which I soon later realized how simple it was to name them).

I can link you the page from GuitarNoise about reading sheet music (which honestly isn't hard to understand, especially if you understand how a piano is planned out), but I have to get on my laptop later.

Once you get a good broad understanding of the subject matter, then I think the best thing you can do is get a very good instructor who can help you keep rhythm, play hard chords, run tough solos in different scales, etc.

EDIT: Ok, here's the link to better understand Standard Notatation. It's EXTREMELY helpful, and I strongly recommend anyone to understand it.

[Sanoske]

If its just a hobby, you'll be fine just teaching yourself. I have plenty of friends who play guitar, and I play myself, and we all taught ourselves. I'm not amazing by any means, since I play kind of infrequently, but I know some kids who are just sick.

More than anything, most of the people I know who are taking music lessons are those who have reached a certain point and are trying to taking their music up to a new level. (Mostly music majors and people who intend to make it a career)

Not saying lessons wouldn't be a good idea, because they definitely would be. I'm just saying that teaching yourself is definitely a viable route. It just depends on money and keeping a schedule, I suppose.

[Day]

I learned by teaching myself, but I would highly recommend lessons. I had friends that started a couple years behind me, that blew past me in terms of speed and skill because they were getting private lessons.

There's things a private instructor can show that will save you so much time in the learning process it's really a huge difference.

[Sol-Blackguy]

YouTube - Beginner Guitar Lesson. Holding the Guitar Properly

This guy is pretty good and most of his beginner-advanced lessons are all over YouTube. The best part is the lessons eventually teach you how to play by ear and general knowledge about writing music. Even though he's teaching with an Acoustic, it all carries over. I learned Acoustic first, but I've managed to do electric with little or no trouble.

[Marokko]

My brother is completely self-taught and started two years ago. He is now a guitar tutor at the local town music store I'll ask him what he thinks is best and come back to you.

[The_OG_Nelta]

I always learned from friends, face to face, and take your time, is definitely the best way to go.

[Moridam]

I'd advise against using random internet tabs, most of them are horrendously inaccurate. For self-teaching, I'd suggest just identifying a few songs you enjoy and try learning it by ear, and transcribe it as you go along.

As for the suitability of self-teaching, some people can do well with it, others tend to hit a wall. It all depends on how motivated you are, if you think (or demonstrate) you don't have the concentration/discipline to learn theory, go with lessons. For the vast majority of players who want to actually get somewhere with the instrument, this is going to be the way to go.

I'm self-taught and I'll be the first to tell you I fall squarely into that second category. In my early efforts, my technique developed incredibly quickly and in within 6 months, I had become a much better player (mechanically, at least) than my friends who had been at it for a few years.

There are tons of problems though. I lack versatility in both what little I can manage to write, and the styles I can play well. Those guys I blew past kept at their formal instruction, and absolutely shame me away in terms of variety of style and sound and technique. Ten years later and I'm good at tremolo-riffing and such, but not much else, heh. I'd like to start over and get some proper instruction at some point, but with all of the bad habits I've developed over the years, I'm not sure it would be worth the time and money at this point.

[Abraxas]

you'll find your rhythm. no pun intended. im self-taught, but i did have a friend who i could ask certain stuff (but that was basically for a certain genre). i started out playing Dave Matthews stuff. ppl said it was hard to start out on, but he was what inspired me to learn.

the best advice i can give is to have the guitar in your hands as much as you can. you can only get better. no matter how bad it sounds now, dont give it up!

[Boyiee]

Get a private teacher, it's important. You will learn more about music and theory and in turn making you a better player.

Nothing sucks more than someone thinking he knows how to play and trying to bust out solo's in the wrong scales. It's aweful. Learn your theory.

Get a private teacher, preferably one with his masters in music, and on the side use tablature to strengthen skills basics harmonics hand strength etc and to keep you interested and occupied with your instrument.

That way you get the best of both worlds, being taught by someone who knows their music, and learning on your own to get more than you would from just one or the other.

[Abraxas]

also, i know you got an electric, but starting out on acoustic isnt a bad idea either. going from acoustic -> electric is much easier than vice versa

[Jaybar]

You're also going to hate barring frets; just keep practicing it when you come around to learning that technique and you'll grow greater hand strength (I remember trying my first B chord and F chord, almost wish they weren't even used lol)

[Day]

Get a private teacher, it's important. You will learn more about music and theory and in turn making you a better player.

Nothing sucks more than someone thinking he knows how to play and trying to bust out solo's in the wrong scales. It's aweful. Learn your theory.

Get a private teacher, preferably one with his masters in music, and on the side use tablature to strengthen skills basics harmonics hand strength etc and to keep you interested and occupied with your instrument.

That way you get the best of both worlds, being taught by someone who knows their music, and learning on your own to get more than you would from just one or the other.

This is pretty dead on, and exactly what I was trying to say.

You can teach yourself sure, plenty of people do including myself, but in 100% honesty I wish I had taken lessons.

If you are serious about learning, and doing so quickly and properly I feel like you'd be doing yourself a big disservice by not taking lessons. 30 minutes a week with a professional that knows their theory and technique will probably teach you more than you'll learn all week by yourself.

[AoE]

What's the best way to tune your guitar. Call me lazy but that's really the biggest thing stopping me since I'm left-handed and most sites and books teach right-handed so trying to learn the reverse way of the strings turns me off since I don't really have the time to commit to it right now but I want to progress atleast a little bit. >_>

Edit: I have an acoustic.

[Talka]

Learn as much as you can online, and take lessons once every two weeks or so. That way, you can spend a lot of time learning on your own, and you can use the lessons to ask questions about what you've learned on your own (and to learn new stuff, of course).

I don't play guitar. I play piano. I'd say reading sheet music is essential, but then again, guitar is a very different instrument.
However, it doesn't hurt to be familiar with sheet music (makes it easy to say "yeah, I can learn this song by next week" if you can just read the sheet and play).

[Jaybar]

What's the best way to tune your guitar. Call me lazy but that's really the biggest thing stopping me since I'm left-handed and most sites and books teach right-handed so trying to learn the reverse way of the strings turns me off since I don't really have the time to commit to it right now but I want to progress atleast a little bit. >_>

Edit: I have an acoustic.

For the most part, I just use an electronic tuning device. The other method is by ear, which is probably a little more difficult for first timers, but very easy to pick up on.

So you use a right handed guitar but play lefty style? So the strings go eBGDAE instead of the other way around (i.e. the high e string is the closest to your face)? I don't understand how being lefty or righty changes tuning, though. If you had to, you could change the strings to make it a lefty guitar...I'm not sure exactly how you are playing it right now.

If your E string is tuned right, you can tune the ADGBe strings by ear from that. Each fret is a half step note [A - A# - B - C - C# - D - D# etc are all half steps], so the first fret on the E string is F (no sharp/flat between B/C and E/F, just look at a piano if you are confused), the 2nd fret is F#, the 3rd fret is G, the 4th fret is G#, and the 5th fret is A. By strumming the 5th fret on the E string, it acts like you are strumming the A string. This way you can tune the A string now by ear. Same goes for the rest of the strings.

I find using a combination of the electronic tuning and tuning by ear to be effective for me. It took a while to get the sensitivity down when using an electronic tuner.

[Bingbong]

To be honest, the theory isn't the important thing to learn, especially starting out.
I'm two months into self teaching. Now, I took some highschool classes a decade ago on theory, but if you can simply understand terms like chord, note, key and how to tap out whole, half, quarter, eighth etc notes and what they mean, then you are going to be ok.

Most of the time starting out, you're not going to give a crap about what notes make up a D major chord, you're just going to be swearing at your fingers for not getting to the right spots fast enough.

[Kerberoz]

YouTube - beginnerguitarlesson's Channel