I want to stop screwing around and actually learn to play the guitar

I can play your basic chords and mostly figure stuff out from tabs but I since I don't have to play every day I never get any further than this. I want to play more but it just feels so daunting.

Any advice or system to start actually learning to play the guitar instead of crudely copying other people's stuff? Is it just a matter of discipline and playing scales until something clicks?

Crudely copying stuff will get you pretty damn far, actually! I could never do well with scales, but basic music theory, understanding chord progressions helped me a lot. Though I'm curious to what people who are actually disciplined at guitar would say.

so funny you should start this thread. i've been taking classical guitar lessons for about four years now; just had another lesson tonight. but i still sputter through so much of it, i feel like i know next to nothing, and certainly nothing about how to play rock, jazz, or other (tr: non classical) styles.

I'm not the chops-iest dude around, but I taught full-time for a couple of years. I think you need to come up with some specific goals, find the right teacher, and communicate those goals to your teacher. Also, learning some basic music theory and really understanding it and working to apply it to the fretboard goes a very long way to opening up your playing. All the scales and licks in the world don't matter if you don't understand how to use them. Start off with the lessons at http://musictheory.net to get some basics.

Feel like I should be doing this too. I've been playing guitar for 13 years but never seriously I just strum absent-mindedly on it every day or 2 for a bit. By this point I'm pretty comfortable playing chords/rhythm but I can't play solos/notes very well. In fact I never even learned to use a pick which probably doesn't help.

Just another personal observation from an amateur undisciplined guy, but deciding on a specific technique (fingerstyle) has given me some impetus that I didn't have before. Still copycatting/learning from tabs but I feel I'm actually getting somewhere now, like being able to play actual songs, instead of just bashing out chords to no real effect.

*watching this thread closely*

i'm bouncing around from book to book to website right now- playing with a few groups but i feel like the little kid who pretends to read a book out loud(play guitar) but is actually only reciting from memory...

best thing that recently happened to my guitar quest was Xmas- got pushed into learning songs everybody knows, so i actually had to run some specific chords and move my fingers around in new ways.

also, keeping the guitar out of the case was pretty crucial; if its locked up, i keep on paaassing it byyyyy (*pharcyde)- if its out, i pick it up

I have the opposite problem! I will see/hear some crazy guitar trick and wonder how they do that. I had like three actual guitar lessons ever and managed to coax the guy into showing me pinch harmonics on the second lesson and I could tell he felt he was doing me a great disservice.

What is it exactly that you want to be able to do? It seems to me that regular playing stuff seems way more figure-out-a-ble than the stupid screwing around guitar tricks. One thing I'd recommend over playing scales is learning a favorite song, then playing that song in different keys or on as many different starting notes as possible.

going to go with the totally pedantic answer here and say go get lessons. i mean take the time to find the right instructor, but it sounds like part of what you need here is the motivation to get disciplined about playing every day, and for most folks the only way that happens is if they have to go back and face somebody once a week and show "progress".

I am not an amazing guitarist but what I would recommend is: 1) play guitar as often as you can, and 2) try to play with other people, even if they play other instruments.

huge OTM to #2 there

I keep my acoustic in the living room just hoping it'll force me to pick it up more but man it's hard sometimes especially when I don't feel like everything is ever improving.

The "pretend to read" think is pretty spot on - when I was playing a lot I never felt like I was doing anything other than that, like an actor "speaking" a foreign language in a movie by learning a phrase phonetically. I want to know why certain things sound good together, how to play in a particular key, what notes you can and can't play at certain times and so on. I want to know a little bit of theory, but I don't care about being able to site read or anything.

Playing with other people seems like it would be really helpful but it's hard for me to pull off - I know actually hardcore PhD music professors (oboe, cello, composition, etc) but no good guitar players. The cellist actually played bass in a crappy band we had a couple years ago (I faked the drums) and she was crazy - her pop music knowledge was slim but you could play her a song one time and she'd just play it back to you verbatim. She says that since she was a kid she's just "seen" music when she hears it and instantly knows everything about it. It's kind of amazing.

"I want to know why certain things sound good together, how to play in a particular key, what notes you can and can't play at certain times and so on."

I have basically zero knowledge of music theory, but from this tabula rasa POV, you can figure out that what sounds "good" is a pattern, and so long as the notes follow a discernible pattern, they will sound "good"
For example, the basic "Louie Louie" chords sound "good" because there's both an ascending and descending pattern of notes that occur simultaneously, and they happen to occur in such a way that they harmonize, so it's a music equivalent of a pun.

"Louie Louie" is GGG CC DDD CC (repeat). Basically a 1-4-5 chord progression that then goes back on itself to get to the beginning again.

What I started off doing was learning the I-IV-V chords for several different keys (C, G, D, A, and E), and then gradually over time I (terrible phrase coming up) extended my dominion over the fretboard, by learning the chords in between.

Oh, and gradually patterns, particularly movable chord shapes, will begin to emerge. So instead of thinking "index finger on 1st fret of 1st and 2nd strings, ring finger on 2nd fret of 3rd string, little finger on 3rd fret of 4th string" you'll automatically think "that's F Major", then pretty soon you'll starting thinking things like "if I move that F Major up one fret, that's F#".

This might also help, as it can be printed out on a single sheet of paper instead of spread over dozens of page of a chord book.
http://www.castaliapub.com/guitar-keys.html

"Louie Louie" is GGG CC DDD CC
If you take the notes the chords are named after, that forms the ascending part of the pattern, but if you look at the other notes in the same chords,
there's also a descending DDD CC GGG CC. You can play those notes on a bass while someone plays guitar and they will sound "good" together.
These are also the opening chords for Sesame Street and Beat on the Brat I think, so it's extra good times?

I don't know when I started recognizing what specific notes I was playing and all that. Never had a lesson, but just knowing, like, this string is E, and if I put my finger here to tune it, that's A, and so on, I just gradually figured it out.

I'm considering paying for lessons lessons for the first time in my life* because I wanna get real about chicken pickin', and I do not know a single person who does that (i.e. the find a friend to play with technique is somewhat out--plus I moved away from my friends I play with). That and I need to learn to play lead shit over chord changes, I have never, never done that.

*(But LATER in life, when job+money happens)

Another interesting song to unravel is Link Wray's "Rumble", especially the little descending twelve solo which is (fanfare) the pentatonic scale in E.

Yeah IIRC you just start at G on the high E and do pulloffs straight down the scale until you hit bottom.

Not sure if this will format correctly but here goes...

-3-0---------------------
-----3-0-----------------
---------2-0-------------
-------------2-0---------
-----------------2-0-----
---------------------3-0-

Under the same principle as the ascending/descending patterns in louie louie, I bet you could reverse the direction of that solo so that it is ascending and it would sound OK.
(You'd have to start on a different note though.)
It seems to me that solo'ing is just a matter of getting from note a to note b, and there's a lot of wiggle room for you to do it -- as long as you hit those 'key frame' notes, the listener's brain will accept that it's conforming to some kind of pattern, even if it's a jumbled mess in between.
Take the one-note solo for "I Want to Be Sedated"
I bet you could improvise a credible solo variation using almost random notes so long as you returned to that one note periodically.
(Obviously, the more you can make it conform to a credible pattern, the "better" it will sound)

if you can't find other people, what i enjoy and think helps is having a multi track recorder (they are ridic cheap nowadays) that you can strum a chord progression onto and then play notes over top of that on another track trying to come up with what you might be hearing your head

in your head

lol Rumble is one of the songs I'm always playing on my guitar. I probably just need to learn some different songs, I'm always playing the same ones which is probably why I'm so slow to improve.

Hey, do both!

joygoat- totally with you there, i've started to stop screwing around and actually learn as well!

many of these tips focus on the work the left hand is doing. what fascinates me is the work the right hand is doing in terms of strumming technique, e.g., is the pattern all downstrums; how many strings are being struck on each pass (power-chords, for instance, only allow you to strum three strings, and sometimes you can't start on the low E, which sounds very hard!); the notion of palming or muting the strings; when do you alternate between full strums and picking individual notes; performing those precussive-knocks on the body of the guitar that's done in many latin-styles.

Sometimes I make the same vow as in the thread title. But sometimes I've worked at playing something from tab or whatever, and eventually I've got so I'm, you know, pretty sloppy but at least hitting most of the right notes. And I've felt proud, and I've moved on to a different song or just had a day off, and 2 days later I can't seem to play the first one at all. Muscle memory completely gone already.

Is this a normal stage which can be overcome, or is it a sign that guitars/music are not for me?

(I also totally can't recall how to play a song or even what it sounds like if a different song is in my head, so that's a big sign that playing live is always going to be out of the question, I think, but maybe someone else here can go "I used to be like that and now I am rocking stadia nightly")

My current guitar-improvement strategy is to learn Slayer songs from online tabs. I can't seem to get my head round solos from tabs though, not that I could play Slayer solos anyway.

play w/ a drummmmmer. or someone singing or anything, I just know a drummer. I keep my guitar by the computer and pick it up when I get bored/internet crashes. also benefit from paying close attention to good guitar playing, youtube to infinity. I think focusing on little things and messing around w/ & enjoying things I've already learned, esp changing the rhythm, are key for me. playing everything extremely slowly&excellently.

learn the pentatonic scale. practice it over and over and over and over until your fingers move smoothly and you can do it without looking at the fret board. speed up and try alternating the note order. listen to your favourite song, find the root key, and jam along

Is this a normal stage which can be overcome

Yes, it's a normal phase that nearly everyone who plays an instrument has to go through. For me, the key was practising the instrument (keyboard) every day. Also the skill of remembering which notes/chords to play is transferable between instruments. When I started being more serious about playing guitar, I found that the practice I'd put in memorising songs on keyboards meant that I found learning guitar chord progressions straightforward.

find the root key, and jam along

I guess to me this is where "learning to play the guitar" has actually already happened. Like if a song is just D, G, and C, what key is it in? will any note that's part of these chords or part of the D, G, and C major scales sound "good" if played at any particular point while these three chords are being played by another guitar?

Working out the key a song is in is usually a matter of looking at the chords and figuring out which key fits best. A song that uses just D, G, and C is probably going to be G Major, because those three chords are the Dominant (V), Sub-dominant (IV), and Tonic (I) chords of that key. Improvising a solo on top of those chords means playing notes that are in that key, which for G Major are G, A, B , C, D, E, and F#.

^^^ whoops my grammar is a bit off there.
Also these things are not really strict rules, although they can get you in the ballpark. You can throw in notes that are not in that key. It's a matter of taste and personal preference.

im going to be mr broken record here and say again - get lessons. i know its cooler to teach yerself, but thats what i did, and you know what? i regret not taking lessons at some point, a lot.

fwiw, learning music theory will likely be very helpful for figuring out which notes not in the key you can throw in where without being unnecessarily jarring, or conversely to be purposefully jarring

(xxxpost) arghhh made a mistake!
In G Major, D is the Dominant (V), G is the Tonic (I), and C is the Sub-dominant (IV).

(xpost) I agree with the need for lessons. It's a lot less frustrating to be able to ask a guitar tutor "hey what about this?" and get an answer in a couple of minutes, rather than search on the internet for hours and still not find out. Also having someone who'll give you an objective opinion of your playing is good - your own opinion will vary widely between "I'm great" and "I suck" to be any use.

i will seek lessons... AND SCOTCH.

"I've moved on to a different song or just had a day off, and 2 days later I can't seem to play the first one at all. Muscle memory completely gone already."
How different are these songs? I think there's a certain frame of mind where you notice you're doing the same thing in one song as in another song that really helps you remember how to do that part, and I think it's largely unconscious, so if you're very attentively following a tab, it might not stick?

http://www.halfjapanese.co.uk/how-to-play-guitar.php

but tabs are only good for strumming the basic melody of a rock song, right? they're almost never giving you the individual notes played by the guitarist, or the solo patterns, and so forth . . .

http://www.beefheart.com/datharp/10com.htm

no that is wrong, tabs show finger placement in respect to string and fret instead of musical notation.

I've got a really really shit Yamaha acoustic guitar which is nigh-on impossible to play, which I keep around all the time. It's great. I can barely hold a chord on it and now if I pick up a half-decent guitar I'm always amazed at how fluidly I can play.

Like if a song is just D, G, and C, what key is it in? will any note that's part of these chords or part of the D, G, and C major scales sound "good" if played at any particular point while these three chords are being played by another guitar?

As explained above, this particular example is easy as these three chords all fit into the key of G major. To answer a little more broadly, the way to figure this stuff out is to first learn what notes are in all of the major scales. I can explain that in detail if anyone is interested but it's pretty easy to find lessons on how it works.

Then to figure out which chords correspond to that major scale, you need to harmonize the scale; i.e., stack the notes of the scale on top of each other in thirds. The result is the same for every major scale, and it looks like this: I ii iii IV V vi viidim. So I IV and V are major, ii iii and vi are minor, and vi is diminished. Now you know all of the triads (three-note chords) that can be built using *only* the notes of a given key. These are the chords that are used most often in simple pieces of music.

So for instance, the A major scale goes A B C# D E F# G#. Applying the formula to that scale we get A Bm C#m D E F#m G#dim. Those are all the triads we can make in the key of A major that don't require borrowing any outside notes, aka accidentals. So if a chord progression goes e.g. A F#m Bm E, we could analyze that as a I vi ii V in the key of A.

In terms of playing a solo or writing a melody to fit those chords, the simplest thing to do is just think "I'm in A major" and use those notes in whatever way sounds good. But again to look at it a little more broadly, with any type of chord and melody note, there are two possibilities: the melody is a chord tone, meaning it's one of the notes that's also being played in the chord, or it's a non-chord tone. Chord tones will always be safe to use, generally sound solid and "inside," and can be held out. Non-chord tones are necessary to provide a sense of movement or tension, but generally have to resolve to chord tones.

So for instance, if I'm improvising over the above chord progression, and the current chord is A, C# is a chord tone, so I could hold that note over the chord. D, though, is not a chord tone, despite being a part of the scale. So if I'm playing a D over the A chord, it's not going to sound wrong, but if I hold that D out over the whole chord, as opposed to e.g. moving down to C# or up to E (both of which are in the A chord), it's going to sound dissonant and maybe wrong.

So it's all well and good to just take a scale and play it kind of randomly when you're starting out with improvising. But if you listen to a guitar solo by somebody like David Gilmour, the notes are chosen carefully to go with the chords -- he's moving through non-chord tones, but he lands on the chord tones on certain strong beats, providing resolution and dramatic effect. The solo in "Mother" is a great example of this.

no that is wrong, tabs show finger placement in respect to string and fret instead of musical notation.

yeah, i actually knew that. i meant more along the lines of the tabs you see on websites diagraming rock songs, which seem to me -- like the chords above the lyrics -- more about the basic sound of the song, not the intricate notes being played by the guitarist

The result is the same for every major scale, and it looks like this: I ii iii IV V vi viidim. So I IV and V are major, ii iii and vi are minor, and vi is diminished.

Whoops, I meant vii is diminished. And if it wasn't clear I'm using roman numerals to correspond to each note in the scale, and major/minor scales have 7 notes.

Daniel: You're right, a lot of tabs are just the chords, but there are also some that do give you "the intricate notes being played by the guitarist."

yeah, i actually knew that. i meant more along the lines of the tabs you see on websites diagraming rock songs, which seem to me -- like the chords above the lyrics -- more about the basic sound of the song, not the intricate notes being played by the guitarist

Technically those aren't tabs, just chord charts, although they're sometimes colloquially referred to by the same name. Guitar tablature is when you have six lines with numbers on them corresponding to the frets. It's just more economical to write out the chord symbols above the lyrics if you can assume your reader knows how to execute the chords or you provide chord fingerings at the bottom or something.

rt. i'm fascinated by what you say above, but i'm having trouble grasping this part of it:

Then to figure out which chords correspond to that major scale, you need to harmonize the scale; i.e., stack the notes of the scale on top of each other in thirds. The result is the same for every major scale, and it looks like this: I ii iii IV V vi viidim. So I IV and V are major, ii iii and vi are minor, and vi is diminished. Now you know all of the triads (three-note chords) that can be built using *only* the notes of a given key. These are the chords that are used most often in simple pieces of music.

So for instance, the A major scale goes A B C# D E F# G#. Applying the formula to that scale we get A Bm C#m D E F#m G#dim. Those are all the triads we can make in the key of A major that don't require borrowing any outside notes, aka accidentals. So if a chord progression goes e.g. A F#m Bm E, we could analyze that as a I vi ii V in the key of A.

i feel like it represents the key to unlocking the door i want to unlock, but i can't quite figure out how to use the key.

This is all new to me (I'm music theory illiterate), but I think he's saying:
A major = A B C# D E F# G#

first chord is
A = A C# D (i.e. every other note for three notes)

2nd is
Bm = B D F# (every other note for three notes)

etc...

er A = A C# E i mean

Do you know about triads and major/minor keys/scales? That is the piece of knowledge that will help explain that bit.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Major_and_minor

xp: Philip is correct in what is being explained here. The next step is learning a notation convention, where Roman numerals are used to represent the 7 notes in a major scale; the uppercase ones represent a major triad and the lowercase ones represent a minor triad. The triad built off the 7th tone in the scale is special; that is a diminished triad because the interval between the first and second notes is a minor third and the interval between the second and third notes is a minor third. (Note that in major triads, the interval between the first and second notes is a major third and the interval between the second and third notes is a minor third. In minor triads, the interval between the first and second note is a minor third and between the second and third notes is a major third. The interval between the first and third notes for both major and minor triads is a perfect fifth; in diminished triads, that interval is a diminished fifth.)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interval_%28music%29

this should also help

Yeah, it can be tough to explain this stuff in enough detail to be clear but without droning on forever. I left out the explanation of why certain chords are major and others are minor or diminished, but you don't really have to know that in order to understand which chords fit into a certain key.

But like Philip is saying, you build triads by starting on any note in a scale, going up two notes in the scale (we call this interval a third) and adding that note, then going up two more notes (another third) and adding that one as well. If you do this with each note in the major scale you end up with seven different triads. We can then look at the thirds in each triad and decide whether the triad is major, minor, augmented, or diminished by looking at which thirds are major (four half-steps apart) and which are minor (three half-steps apart).

But for every major scale it works out the same way. So to give another example the Eb major scale goes Eb F G Ab Bb C D, and so the chords go Eb Fm Gm Ab Bb Cm Ddim.

If we continue adding thirds we can build chords with four notes in them, which gives us 7th chords. That would look like this: IM7 iim7 iiim7 IVM7 V7 vim7 viim7b5. So I and IV are major 7th chords, ii iii and vi are minor 7th chords, V is a dominant seventh chord, and vii is a half-diminished or minor-7-flat-5 chord. Again, this is what happens when you use only the notes that existed in the original major scale. Additional chords can be generated by borrowing notes from other keys or by utilizing the minor scales.

oh man, this is why i'm music theory illiterate!
(I think you can get by just thinking of music as variable patterns -- things will sound OK so long as you've got patterns that harmonize on occasion)

i know much of that already. this may be a very stupid question (i'm a bit distracted ATM), but why is the second note you mention Bm, instead of B (as B is roman ii in the key of A)?

used here:

first chord is
A = A C# D (i.e. every other note for three notes)

2nd is
Bm = B D F# (every other note for three notes)

i know much of that already.

sorry if that sounded prick-ish. it wasn't meant to.

B major? i think would be B D# F#, which isn't in the Amajor scale? The D# part i mean

It's standard notation when using notes to name chords. If the chord is major, you just use the note represented in uppercase (eg, A). In order to distinguish minor chords, you put an 'm' after them (eg, Bm). An alternate way of doing this is via upper and lowercase (eg, A, b), which is most often used with Roman numeral notation (eg, I, ii).

theory will help you analyze what you or someone else is doing and definitely get yr mind wrapped around what music 'should' be. but i think training yr ear is mad important too. if yr a guitar player the piano is also a chording instrument and has the benefit of music theory making perfect sense on it. i think the guitar can seem strange sometimes in this sense. i would find a piano you can screw around on and try to play a song you know on it.

As explained above, this particular example is easy as these three chords all fit into the key of G major. To answer a little more broadly, the way to figure this stuff out is to first learn what notes are in all of the major scales. I can explain that in detail if anyone is interested but it's pretty easy to find lessons on how it works.

Then to figure out which chords correspond to that major scale, you need to harmonize the scale; i.e., stack the notes of the scale on top of each other in thirds. The result is the same for every major scale, and it looks like this: I ii iii IV V vi viidim. So I IV and V are major, ii iii and vi are minor, and vi is diminished. Now you know all of the triads (three-note chords) that can be built using *only* the notes of a given key. These are the chords that are used most often in simple pieces of music.

So for instance, the A major scale goes A B C# D E F# G#. Applying the formula to that scale we get A Bm C#m D E F#m G#dim. Those are all the triads we can make in the key of A major that don't require borrowing any outside notes, aka accidentals. So if a chord progression goes e.g. A F#m Bm E, we could analyze that as a I vi ii V in the key of A.

In terms of playing a solo or writing a melody to fit those chords, the simplest thing to do is just think "I'm in A major" and use those notes in whatever way sounds good. But again to look at it a little more broadly, with any type of chord and melody note, there are two possibilities: the melody is a chord tone, meaning it's one of the notes that's also being played in the chord, or it's a non-chord tone. Chord tones will always be safe to use, generally sound solid and "inside," and can be held out. Non-chord tones are necessary to provide a sense of movement or tension, but generally have to resolve to chord tones.

So for instance, if I'm improvising over the above chord progression, and the current chord is A, C# is a chord tone, so I could hold that note over the chord. D, though, is not a chord tone, despite being a part of the scale. So if I'm playing a D over the A chord, it's not going to sound wrong, but if I hold that D out over the whole chord, as opposed to e.g. moving down to C# or up to E (both of which are in the A chord), it's going to sound dissonant and maybe wrong.

So it's all well and good to just take a scale and play it kind of randomly when you're starting out with improvising. But if you listen to a guitar solo by somebody like David Gilmour, the notes are chosen carefully to go with the chords -- he's moving through non-chord tones, but he lands on the chord tones on certain strong beats, providing resolution and dramatic effect. The solo in "Mother" is a great example of this.

― St3ve Go1db3rg, Thursday, February 4, 2010 12:38 PM (57 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

this was really helpful! i've got a pretty heady jazz piano book at home that i've struggled with on and off for years, and this actually made a ton more sense.

I've read enough to make sense of the above and feel like I know it in theory, but learning what notes are in what keys and and what their associated triads are, so i know them automatically instead of painstakingly working it out every time, seems like a hell of a task.

This is why it helps to have a piano/keyboard. Learning this stuff on that instrument first makes translating the concept to others so much easier.

I have to admit if I didn't take a beginner's music theory class in high school it would've been incredibly difficult for me to piece it all together - and that was after having played music for years and years for school, barely understanding what I was looking at sheet music but able to read and play it.

I have to admit if I didn't take a beginner's music theory class in high school it would've been incredibly difficult for me to piece it all together - and that was after having played music for years and years for school, barely understanding what I was looking at sheet music but able to read and play it.

see, i never learned, and i really think it held me back as a musician, in a big way. in HS i was a pretty good horn player (1st chair from 9th-12th grade yall) but suuuuucked at soloing in jazz band. and while i don't play much anymore, i still played some in college and i was always embarrassed to have played for basically ten years and still not know shit.

Heh. I still feel similarly... like for the amount of time I've been playing music and practicing guitar my general chops and musical knowledge should be way higher than it is. I bet everybody in this thread feels that way to some degree. But you know, the cost of private lessons...

learning what notes are in what keys and and what their associated triads are, so i know them automatically instead of painstakingly working it out every time, seems like a hell of a task.

It is a hell of a task, but don't let that stop you. Take your time and work on it gradually. The more you expose yourself to this stuff the more it starts to sink in and become second nature. In addition to the piano recommendation, I think it can sometimes be very helpful to write things out on staff paper, as old-fashioned as that might sound. Just like on the guitar, lots of musical constructions form visual patterns on the staff. Which makes sense of course, as the staff and musical notation is designed to be clear and easy to read. I used to make my students write out a major scale or two every week, and then when they were done with those I'd have that write out different triads. The more you do this stuff the more you start to see the patterns and connections between them and how simple it really is fundamentally.

Approach it a little like learning a foreign language

Makes sense. I still say there's a big difference between playing this

http://g.sheetmusicplus.com/Look-Inside/large/MB-95689bcdpg98.gif

and playing, say, Rock of Ages or a song by The Clientele.

"I want to know why certain things sound good together, how to play in a particular key, what notes you can and can't play at certain times and so on."

I'm not a great guitar player, or anything, but I can tell you that the bulk of what I do know about answering those questions comes from this:

- find the root key, and jam along
- gradually patterns, particularly movable chord shapes, will begin to emerge

This is really the majority of how I learned guitar: pick it up while listening to music, find an entry point to play along (a root note, the key, a chord), and just work from there. Not necessarily trying to learn the song itself -- just learning what shapes, patterns, and chords fit into the song. It's surely not the best or most efficient way to learn (that'll always be good lessons, right?), but you can't do it for long without starting to sort out what other guitar players are doing, what patterns/shapes on the fretboard you can use to move around the chords and notes you know, which little habits and tricks work for what kinds of songs, etc.

(And -- to be clear -- I'm certainly not suggesting that as a great alternative or substitute to actually learning the basic music-theory stuff that's being advised here! But improvising-along is useful, I think, and if you don't have other people around, doing it a few times with a song you're liking ... well, it always teaches me stuff, anyway.)

^pretty much how i picked up guitar, though i was (even more) terrible until i started playing with others

i got fairly good fast when i started out. began like most people playing "smoke on the water" on top E, then learnt chords, a couple of songs, then the pentatonic scale. then i became obsessed with the smiths and got really good at learning johnny marr's guitar riffs by ear (this is that time at like 14 when all you do is play guitar). then discovered television and started doing the same. i think this is where my problems began because my favourite guitarist was tom verlaine obvs and though it was alot harder to learn his solos note for note, timbre for timbre, it was also alot easier to improvise solos in a similar manner

(my brothers followed a similar path except instead of the smiths and television, they were copying slayer and pantera. needless to say, they are much better guitarists)

so now i'm at this point where i'm really good at improvising, and really good at creating weird chords and phrases, but my technique is seriously lacking. i'd love to be able to finger pick or play interesting chord sequences and the relevant scales. i've considered lessons but a few people have warned me off, plus i can't afford them anyway. what would you guys recommend for a guitar player who's already competent but wishes to step his game up? is there one good book for example? is there any exercises i should be practicing daily? or should i go the music theory route and learn some shit on piano?

then i became obsessed with the smiths and got really good at learning johnny marr's guitar riffs by ear (this is that time at like 14 when all you do is play guitar)

Oh man: DITTO, and ditto to the rest of it, too. Last year I actually signed up for these cheesy Line 6 guitar-lesson modules, because I felt like I hadn't learned anything new in too long (the fun part is that they all come with guitar-tone patches for whatever you're learning), but I've just wound up going back and forth between relearning simple stuff (fixing bad self-taught technique) and learning tricks of doubtful usefulness (like sweep arpeggios).

^^ hopefully I will soon use some rad sweep arpeggios in an indiepop song and have to eat my words about usefulness

please do!

Good thread and some good advice.

I'd say, if you really want to do it properly get lessons, or at least have a enough lessons to get the basics of the theory and develop some good habits. I never bothered with lessons and as a result have some bad habits that are fairly ingrained. Definitely play along with as much stuff as you can - you can learn so much that way. Try and work out stuff by ear rather than using tabs - loads of online tabs are absolute garbage anyway. The trick is just to get the key and/or mode and it's surprising how fast a lot of songs become easy. For soloing just learn the pentatonics in a couple of positions and you can do loads.

One of the best tips though is to play with a drummer.

Louie Louie is A D Emin D. Whatever key you do it in the 5th is minor to make it sound exactly right.

i think this is where my problems began because my favourite guitarist was tom verlaine obvs and though it was alot harder to learn his solos note for note, timbre for timbre, it was also alot easier to improvise solos in a similar manner

I have worked out quite a lot of the Television songs by ear and the Verlaine solos are real bastards because they don't follow 'normal' rock patterns and rote licks. The Richard Lloyd ones are a bit more linear but the are some fast bits that I just can't get right.

It's all about the Sonics' take on Louie Louie.

I prefer playing it in G, particularly on keyboards, because the F# on the D Major gives it a little extra lift and keeps the song motoring along. It's like climbing a peak, and the top is just a little bit higher than you thought, which is exciting.
Also in G it's the same progression as Hendrix's version of Wild Thing.

it has to be a d minor though otherwise it's wild thing, surely?
G major C major, D minor.
of course you can do what you like....
only thing wrong with black flag's louie louie was that major d !

It's entirely down to personal taste. In a band with a keyboard player, the D Maj sounds better to me somehow. Without keyboards, just guitars, I think it depends on how fast it's played. Faster than Motorhead's version, I'd opt for the D Maj, slower than Motorhead and I'd go for the D minor.

Actually this thread reminds me that I haven't picked up a guitar for three days.

For more than a couple minutes, neither have I. Working always keeps me from playing :\ Especially when the work I do dries out my hands and makes my fingers crack under the nails.

The time has come. I even dragged it out of storage. I have some books. Wish me luck.

i am left handed and while fretting is fine i have always struggled with the picking side of things. i want to pick up another guitar and finally fuckin learn how to work it this time, is it worth getting a backwards guitar or is it better just to power thru and figure it out?

also affordable acoustic recommendations welcome.

i learnt to pick on an acoustic, but moving to a nylon string was like taking the sandbags off.

been learning guitar for some comedy stuff i want to do later this year - it's going very well so far. i can play a few neil young songs and some willie nelson. i think it's a bit easier when you're older, you know the music you like more and maybe the simple joy of playing an instrument is stronger when you have faced more of the banality of daily life.

there are great tutorials on youtube. i guess my only issue now is whether teaching myself hits a wall - i don't have a lot of structure to what i'm doing, i'm kind of just moving along and picking easy songs to start with.

sounds like the right thing to do. i only had one year of lessons back when i was 15, just to learn the basics, but by 18 I'd let my playing fall by the wayside.
Picked it up again in my mid-20s and found I was able to progress quite quickly into new areas. There's always new stuff to learn and technique to improve on.
One of the best things I did was pick up a bunch of those lyrics and chords books with songs from specific decades that I knew and just learned to play them while singing along. You get used to the chord changes pretty quickly and discover new chords you'd never seen before. Improves your singing ability too.
I really want to know more about scales and soloing now. Not being a trained musician, I feel that it's the theory stuff that lets me down. I can play a pentatonic scale or 'feel out' a lead solo over a bunch of chords, but the stuff we're doing in our band can involve some quite complicated chord progressions and it's getting to the point where I'd like to be able to improvise without hitting duff notes on occasion.

the simple joy of playing an instrument is stronger when you have faced more of the banality of daily life

this is exactly what i am going for

yeahhhh that sounds ridiculous.

I really want to know more about scales and soloing now. Not being a trained musician, I feel that it's the theory stuff that lets me down. I can play a pentatonic scale or 'feel out' a lead solo over a bunch of chords, but the stuff we're doing in our band can involve some quite complicated chord progressions and it's getting to the point where I'd like to be able to improvise without hitting duff notes on occasion.

This is the kind of thing either a good teacher or at least a more formal "guitar method" book can help with (I don't have a specific one to recommend off the top of my head). It also can help if you have any kind of keyboard or piano in the house to help understand the relationships between notes or intervals or chords. But even if you don't, the guitar actually has a beautiful logic to it when it comes to music theory, much moreso than I'd imagine a wind or brass instrument does (although I don't actually know if this is true since I've never played one).

For scale exercises, Sal Salvador's Single String Studies is good (it's not really all exercises played on a single string, it's just single-note picking)

For theory, it can be a long road, but you really need to start with the basics if you don't have them. Learn the notes on a treble staff, learn basic musical notation symbols, and learn how the notes correspond to the guitar (start in first-position -- the position you play basic chords in).

From there I'd suggest learning intervals -- halfstep, wholestep, minor third, major third, perfect fourth, perfect fifth, etc. These are the building blocks of chords, and understanding chords is one of the keys to understanding how not to play "duff notes."

A lot of this stuff is probably available free on the internet, on youtube, etc.

thanks man alive, i'll see if i can't dig some of those out.

as a lefty who plays drums right-handed, my advice is to develop a style based on having a shitty right hand.

I'm not the most chop-heavy player, but one thing I can always impress people with is my ability to improvise over pretty much anything, and to learn things easily by ear. I attribute this to having developed my ear and to working on the boring theory stuff that most guitarists skip.

Oh btw I think Single String Studies is all written on staff, so you need to learn how to read notes on a staff before you can use it.

or just get one of these, picking problem solved.

http://www.stick.com/instruments/stick/stick.jpg

is that a chapman stick?

oh sweet, my main problem with regular guitars is that they're not quite phallic _enough_ yknow

have I got a guitar for you

http://cdn.mos.musicradar.com/images/features/outrageous-guitars/penisguitar-630-80.jpg

Dan!!!

when HR takes me away, I will shout over my shoulder "IT WAS WORTH IT" as they lead me from the building

Mods, seize him!

thanks dan that's exactly what i was looking for!

Can anyone recommend a book that is a good beginner's tutorial for playing electric guitar? I've read this thread and I'm not really serious enough to start taking lessons at the moment but a good book would be invaluable. Thanks.

What would you want such a book to have ideally? (All I wanted from a book was to reveal how to make wheedleywoo sounds, which no one has written a good book for)

I think that's what I want to be able to do as well. But if there's no book for it...

Mel Bay's Shredding for Beginners is somewhere in Borges library

What sort of wheedleywoo sounds? Like shreddy metal? Noise?

All of it -- guitar center hero to Glenn Branca

Those are two very divergent paths. Guitar Center Hero = learn scales and modes, work on your tapping, bends, hammer-ons, pull-offs, etc. Branca = buy a lot of pedals and spend a lot of time fucking around, and if you learned scales try not to think about them.

Just find a song that you love and learn how to play it. Then repeat

^ buy the $5 songsterr app for you phone. It plays through the tab and you can slow it down or loop sections. Pick a favorite section of a favorite song. Set it to slow speed. Play along. Ramp up the speed.

the only thing wrong w/ something like this is that it plays all notes at equal volume. So you do eventually need to learn to play it like chet atkins after you learn to play like robot chet atkins.

I want to write an instructional book called "Start Screwing Around and Learn to Play the Guitar"

Troy Stetina's books were recommended to me for teaching hard rock/heavy metal guitar technique and I found them to be successful. The metal lead guitar and rhythm guitar books are the core of the method, although Total Rock Guitar works well for students who are not very advanced. That one assumes that you can fret notes and count a beat and starts you out on power chords. (He uses an 80s definition of 'metal', even including Slash and Hendrix.) Like a good snob, I had my reservations about the reliance on tab and the total absence of standard notation in the metal books but I doubt most people would mind. The metal books might be one side of what you're looking for, Philip?

Branca = buy a lot of pedals and spend a lot of time fucking around, and if you learned scales try not to think about them.

I don't think Branca ever used pedals very much, actually. He has worked a lot with customized instruments and alternate tuning systems (particularly just intonation).

i'll check it out, thanks! (but basically less interested in learning to play all along the watchtower than how to make a guitar sound interesting while it is on fire)

Well, there's always this: http://users.wfu.edu/breckers/howtoplayguitar.htm

Still recommend Arnie Berle's Chords and Progressions for Jazz and Popular Guitar for learning, um, chords and progressions. That and Rikky Rooksby's books, particular the Beatle Chord Songbook and How to Write Songs on Guitar.

But really came to post that FB is recommending me to get a Danelectro 12SDC 12-String Electric Guitar Black at Musician's Friend for $399.99, but I don't play electric or with a pick so...

xp or this:
Captain Beefheart's 10 Commandments of Guitar Playing

Richard Lloyd had some good lessons on his site, I heard, but I believe he took them down.

What would you want such a book to have ideally? (All I wanted from a book was to reveal how to make wheedleywoo sounds, which no one has written a good book for)

― Philip Nunez, Friday, 22 January 2016 14:24 (2 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

'Play In A Day' by Bert Wheedlon

^Worked for Steve Jones.

I bought an acoustic a few weeks ago, been playing around with a few random shapes that I like the sound of, including 000220, which apparently is E13sus4. Can I start a song with this chord or do you have to start with the tonic chord?

Can I start a song with this chord

Yes. You can start a song with any chord you want. Joe Meek said it best: "If it sounds right, then it is right."

all songs need to start with a b-minor chord iirc, it's the law

Chuck Berry to thread.

Because each one of songs usually started with a particular "fanfare," as somebody said, such as the augmented chord at the beginning of "School Days."

I came across this cheat sheet to help me with chord progressions, and am a bit confused...
https://www.adsrsounds.com/music-theory-tutorials/music-theory-cheat-sheet/

Question: My verse is in C Major. It says that I can write my chorus in a different key, and that I can use one of C Majors 'neighbours' in the circle of fifths, so F or G. If I take F, and use the same I - IV - V - V progression, I get F Bb C C. Bb isn't part of the C Major scale is it, so if I use a Bb chord in my chorus, won't that sound 'wrong'?

Sorry this probably should have gone in the music theory thread.

No such thing as wrong though, surely?

I thought that but then wondered if I was reading the circle incorrectly.

You seem to be over-thinking this guitar playing thing. Are you a keyboard player by any chance?

Anyway, everyone has their own approach, I don't understand anything about music theory beyond the names of the notes on the fret.

Having the chorus in a different key than the verse is not common practice. But hey you can do what you want

Using a Bb chord (or Major VII) does sound weird since you would expect a diminished 7 chord (B-D-F) but I've seen it used like that in pop music for sure. calstars and Tom are both right, basically

McCartney does this for the middle 8 in Two of Us iirc (altho I guess that's in G?)

That modulates to Bb major from G major, so that's a bit farther. Three of the seven notes are different, whereas in Chris' example - C major modulating to F major - Bb is the only note that's different.

Modulating to a key a fourth away or a fifth away is pretty common, I would say. And as soon as Bb is used, the song will start to suggest that the modulation has occurred, so that is something you can play with.

I should say - once Bb is used, it CAN sound like SOME modulation has taken place. That could be to any key that includes that note.

The other possibility is that Bb can be used as a modal variant. That's also pretty common and can be done without ever really straying from C as the key center.

Like here's a four-chord song in G and they're using F natural all the time. It never sounds like it's in any key other than G.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=apGvd765dmk

the F sounds like a power chord w/just two notes (F/C) though which makes it a little easier to get away with

The Beatles' "You've Got to Hide Your Love Away" is also in G. All kinds of F major chords in that and it's the full triad.

The note A shouldn't create a problem, I don't think. It's part of the G major scale and part of three diatonic chords in G major (A minor, D major, and F# diminished).

Tim is correct. If the chorus is in F, you don't need to use the C major collection, even in the strictest 18th century diatonic harmony exercise. b^7 is a common borrowed pitch (modal variant) in any case, even in classical music, let alone 20th century popular music. (Nearly every blues song includes it over the tonic.) "God Only Knows" begins on b^7!

Sund4r (or anyone), you ever hear anyone talk about a "multi-plagal progression" or "secondary plagal progression?" I think that's a pretty common use of the bVII chord, to go from bVII to IV, and that would be a secondary plagal progression.

Similar of course to how we talk about secondary dominants.

Feel like somebody, like me, mentioned that on the theory thread.

Here: Rolling Music Theory Thread

This guy calls it (chorus of the Kinks' "Celluloid Heroes") a IV/IV chord.

http://johndorhauer.com/4-for-iv-part-i-secondary-plagal-progressions/

xp oh nice!

Better yet he calls the C chord in "Hey Joe" (key of E) a IV/IV/IV/IV chord!

I'm pretty sure there was an MTO article about this. I'll look for it.

Sorry, the paper on the other thread I was referring to was first linked here: Rolling Music Theory Thread
and is Rolling Music Theory Thread. I believe you are quite familiar with the author's work.

Aarrgh: http://www.academia.edu/1435121/Triadic_Modal_and_Pentatonic_Patterns_in_Rock_Music

Ah, those are good. It is also touched on Moore, Allan. "The So-Called 'Flattened Seventh' in Rock". Popular Music. Vol. 14, No. 2 (May, 1995), pp. 185-201. Cambridge University Press.

Ha, I bought his book during the heyday of those discussions and he mentions that paper several times.

You seem to be over-thinking this guitar playing thing. Are you a keyboard player by any chance?
Ha yes, how did you guess.

Which one of his books, Blecchs? Analysing Popular Music?

Think the proper title is Song Means, but yeah, that one.

Those are different books - the one Sund4r mentions is a collection with numerous authors.

Okay, start again. Not that one, but the other one whose subtitle is similar to that one's title.

Trying to learn "never going back again". The guy in the video tutorial says it's fairly advanced fingerpicking, well I have a few fingerpicking tunes under my belt and I'm not finding it a problem. Then he says the saving grace is that the left hand is pretty easy. Damn, is my left hand that bad? I can't even make the shapes cleanly,

... let alone have any hope of switching between them quickly enough. Posting this not out of any vain hope for magic hints & tips, but if I do manage to crack it, as proof that persistence pays off.

When I first started learning about bar chords, I thought for sure I would never be able to play something like 'Wave of Mutilation' but the more I tried it, the easier it got. It doesn't happen in the span of one or two practice sessions, but it'll come to you the more you familiarize yourself with the tune.

A smarter man than myself once said, "If you think you've gone too far, just keep going." And I find that's usually a good rule of thumb.

"Never Going Back Again" is fairly challenging, I'd say. Definitely a few notches up from "Blackbird" or "Freight Train". I don't know why he'd say that the left hand part is easy; it's less intuitive than e.g. Zeppelin's acoustic songs. I recommend using a metronome really strictly and slowing it way the fuck down, maybe starting at less than half the original tempo.

Sorry if that's the kind of hint you weren't looking for. It's just the only I was able to learn or teach it.

yeah I do take it slow, although not with a metronome.

my barres are ok for chugging out chords but show their limitations when it comes to fingerstyle. hardest thing in ngba though is one that stretches over four frets, even with a capo on 4 that's ahem a stretch.

damn this flagging app keeps posting too early.

... & the one where I have to fret the top two strings with my little finger, which is apparently too puny and weak.

Pretty difficult tune tbh.

Pretty difficult tune tbh

Aye but I think if I can't get it now I never will. (Where "now' is a period of weeks, probably months.)

A smarter man than myself once said, "If you think you've gone too far, just keep going." And I find that's usually a good rule of thumb

True, I would add "until you know you've gone too far", you can bite off more than you can chew.

So did you stop screwing around and really learn to play the guitar?

If the answer is yes, be sure to come over to Fingerstyle Guitar: Can You Do It?

I quit screwing around and very slowly learnt to actually play the guitar to a standard where I'm happy to play by myself in front of the TV, still terrified to play in front of anyone else. Now I have a kid and very little time to actually learn to play the guitar.

xp I will, shortly. or longly.

maybe it's an unhelpful or self-deprecating distinction but I feel like I learnt to play songs on the guitar rather than actually learning to play the guitar? e.g. I don't do scales.

Same here.

The 13th chord shape is tough, yeah, but I don't recall if this is ever actually necessary?:

... & the one where I have to fret the top two strings with my little finger, which is apparently too puny and weak.

Are you thinking of the chorus? Is it not possible to use the 3rd finger for the B string and the 4th finger for the high E string?

I never paid a lot of attention to that tune, but there are two guitar tracks right?

xp that's slower for me to make but yeah definitely cleaner once I have. might be easier for me to work on the speed than idk lifting tiny dumbells with my little finger.

might be two on the record idk but you can do a v passable imitation with one.

what guide/tab sheet are you using? or none lol

https://youtu.be/_rLZ-LIx09I

I think I just hear one? Buckingham played it solo when I saw them. (Fairly close to this, and similarly, disappointingly slowed down). Based on a scan of Youtube live clips, he's been playing it with one guitar (using the same fingerings that I think ledge and I are using) since at least '92. This live version from '77 seems to be accompanied with acoustic bass, though, but I think it's actually a little fuller-sounding than the record.

2xp

According to recording assistant Cris Morris, this song took a while to record. Said Morris: "It was Lindsey's pet project, just two guitar tracks but he did it over and over again. In the end his vocal didn't quite match the guitar tracks so we had to slow them down a little."

http://www.songfacts.com/detail.php?id=15497

Bit weird though, why wouldn't the tracks be recorded at the same speed?

Key was too high for his voice?

he seems to manage when he's doing it live!

Interesting. I had assumed they just stereoized one guitar track on the album.

ahh drop d, no wonder i could never sound it out in standard tuning

Started using a metronome. Good tip! Feels like I'm screwing around just that little bit less.

Glad to hear it!

Are you barreling through the whole tune from beginning to end or looping little sections?

Bit of both, more of the latter. It's good to get a feel for how it all goes together but I know time is better spent focusing on the trickier parts.

I want to stop screwing around and actually learn to play the bass guitar. is it a really bad idea to start with fretless? y/n

it's the style i eventually want to play so in my mind it makes sense to just go for it. i'm quite good at guitar and my playing tends to be more rhythmic than melodic. so even though they're completely different beasts, i'm not going to be a complete n00b when it comes to mechanical fundamentals.

any fretless players here? tips, tricks?

I'm not a bass player, but why fretless? Just because I associate it with more melodic, floaty styles and fretted with more rhythmic bass playing.

idk it's really the only style i've connected with? i really like the long slides and its "round" sound

Seems like you could go a lot faster with a fretted bass, but if you really prefer that sound....

i say go for the fretless if that's what you really want to play.

Just get one of these

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oJDXxKP6Qxk

is there a less cool musical instrument on earth than the chapman stick

the slide whistle maybe? i'm not sure tbh

the master of the chapman stick

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xc__38ryzZo

hey at least it sounds cool