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Learn how to play the guitar?
Chiba
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
So I just bought an electric guitar, and want to learn how to play.
What are some programs (free/not free) that I can use to help me learn how to play?
Alternatively any websites/books you've used/heard of that would be good for me to learn from.
Also, my friend has shown me on his mac the program "garage band", which, once hooked into the computer, allowed the guitar to sound like a bunch of different kinds of electric guitars/different effects. Is there a similar program for windows?
What are some programs (free/not free) that I can use to help me learn how to play?
Alternatively any websites/books you've used/heard of that would be good for me to learn from.
Also, my friend has shown me on his mac the program "garage band", which, once hooked into the computer, allowed the guitar to sound like a bunch of different kinds of electric guitars/different effects. Is there a similar program for windows?
Chiba on
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Here's a completely free website you can check out:
Check the links within the doc and the ones at the bottom for what you're looking for.
I've only casually browsed the site, so I don't know how good it is. Still, could be useful.
really awesome site with tons of lessons all done with video, and the forums are good to if you need a little more hep.
Wow Foomy, that site is awesome. ctrl + d
You can also get standalone amps and audio interfaces where you plug in your guitar and they can output to headphones or a computer that do this.
Freewise, Google shows this: http://www.acmebargig.com/, but I've never used them either. Line 6 makes POD Farm, which is designed to use either one of their USB inputs or a dongle to validate the software. Personally, I'm a L6 whore, so take what I say with a grain of salt. For a software solution, I really liked the farm, but I ended up buying a pair of their hardware modelers: a pocket pod for traveling and a podxt live for everything else.
Wii U NNID: MegaSpooky
With that being said, I haven't made much progress. Learning via internet has proved to be difficult.
I just need to get my shit together and purchase a few lessons.
The feeling on the tip of my index finger has started to come back, however.
Learn your chords, Majors then Minors and Sevenths. Find some beginner songs in the style that you like to listen too. (That's actually really easy.) Get the tabs for them and play along with the song. run scales for accuracy, not worrying about speed.
Playing along with songs will force you to play at the proper speed, and to play through mistakes. The main thing about learning guitar is learning the neck, to know where your fingers are without looking. Forming chords without looking. There is nothing that will replace diligent practice. There is no program to make it easier, nothing. You have to put the time in, and develop the feel for the instrument. It's an art, after all.
That said, some lessons are in order. There's nothing like talking to an expert to get you going in the right direction. Some online resources can fill that role. I like this guy http://www.archive.org/details/folk.guitar it's folk music, which may not be what you want to play, but he will start you on a path that allows a lot more improvisation, the ability to make music on the fly, as it were. Rather than playing songs by rote.
Don't worry about this until you've actually learned how to play a bit. It's far too easy to spend all your practice time fiddling with settings trying to get the 'perfect' tone instead of actually playing, and believe me, that's a huge time-sink.
Justin Sandercoe is one of the best internet guitar teachers. He really takes the time to explain things in their entirety instead of glossing over certain things.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TSrfB7JIzxY
This guy also has a lot of very good free lessons, over at http://www.guitarlessons365.com/
Hopeless Gamer
Since you're asking how different it is from guitar: if you can pay the guitar with open G tuning (& fingerstyle), then you can play banjo. Me, I can't really do either, so I got nothing else to say.
Creative Guitar I: Cutting Edge Technique
They just want you to buy tabs. Which is another argument altogether. They aren't that expensive though, and at least some part of it goes to the artists.
Banjo is simultaneously super, super easy to learn if you play guitar and nothing at all like it. The right hand technique for old time banjo, also known as Frailing or Clawhammer(this is not entirely accurate, there are slight differences, but close enough), is pretty much like nothing you've played on guitar.
However, bluegrass 3-finger banjo is pretty much exactly the same right hand technique as rolls on guitar, though the rolls are a bit different, and Dixieland banjo is, like, the exact same as strummed guitar with a pick.
For the left hand, the way I initially thought of it, after learning the basics like G, C, and F chords, was that it was essentially guitar but 2 frets up on the 1st string. After that, though, when I started playing more, for chords I thought of C and F in the same way I think of E and A on guitar... that is, I think of them as movable anywhere in exactly the same position, spread out between a fourth so you don't have to go up too high to loop around. But yeah, while you have that open G string to deal with which fucks up a lot, you almost never finger it, so you don't really have to worry about it, and strings 1-4 are almost the same.
I'll third POD Farm. I have a TonePort DI and recently upgraded to POD Farm 2 and I love it. I seriously haven't turned on an amp since I bought the thing almost 2 years ago. And it makes recording a breeze.
I started off with a little book called "Mel Bay's Guitar Chords" It's old, and cheap, and it has detailed pics of all the chords, and a lot of good informative information. Then I picked up a basic intro to guitar dvd, but that's not really necessary now that youtube is around.
I just started by learning A, E, D, G, C, and the dreaded F and practiced by playing each chord 20 to 50 times, first playing the chord, then playing an open strum, then the chord, then open strum, etc. Once I got used to the basic chords I started learning to switch between them.
Once I got the basics down, I just started using tab to learn some basic songs. Later down the road I used Justin Guitar and a few other youtube lessons to be able to play some party favorites.
Tabulature is great for learning how to play songs, but learning theory and practice is a completely different ballgame. Try and learn songs by ear.