I've decided to learn something new this summer and over the course of two months I'm going to try and learn how to play guitar to some extent. I don't have much only an acoustic guitar, a beginners book of songs, tuner and plenty of guitar picks. I won't be able to take guitar lessons from a teacher so I need to do some lessons through videos etc. Can anyone recommend me a good site or series of videos that I can follow to help me learn the basics as well as progress?

you cant learn it in 2 months, believe me i tried, im 3 months into it and its rough. You might be able to learn a song in a month if its not too difficult.

first songs i started learning were: house of the rising sun-animals, 1979-S&P, Luna-S&P, Rose Parade-ES, My Drug Buddy-LH.

theres are all pretty easy songs, and in a month if you played nothign but one of these songs you would probably be able to play them if u spend 1+ hour a day(wouldnt play them well though). This would be assuming that your fingers are adjusted enough that you can practice for 1 hour a day without issues.

The good news is, after you learn the basic music theory like chord progressions, pentatonic scales, blues scales, and a few songs. youll hvae plenty of stuff to practice for a full year or more. I learned pentatonic and blues scales about a month ago, and im sure ill be practicing them for YEARS to come. Same thing goes with common progressions in different keys.

one way or the other though, there is alot of weird stuff like this song i was playign with: Sway-R.S., its in drop d tuning. and 90% of the song is bar chords, since your playing acoustic, bar chords will be tough at first, especially strange ones like Bb, or Eb, and even worse if you have a shitty guitar with thick strings and a high action like mine. Lots of songs include bar chords, and they take 2 weeks + to get the finger strength for regardless of who you are or what you do.

Even after all this, there is speed to get down(which takes a long time since your starting), and if your goign to sing along, thats not easy either. Its not easy to do, or to do well(as in pitch)

This is not meant to be discourging, just letting you know if your going to start playing, need to try to play as often as possible. Also, its not easy, it will take time and you should know in advance that even to learn one song very well(if its not super easy), it will probably 2-4 months+ even if you play alot.

I have the Gibson something Learn and Master guitar series. It comes with a year + worth of book lessons, and DVD lessons. This is pretty much anything an instructor would cover. It starts with paltry music theory stuff like rests/notes timing etc. Then it covers All the notes in first position E on the 6th string - G on the first string. Then it covers basic open chords, then 7th chords, Then 6th string bar chords(movable chords), then 5th string bar chords(movable chords). Then it covers fingerpicking, pentatonics, blues scales, then there this is some stuff on strumming, jazz, power chords, and a few other things. Each one of these lessons is meant to take a week+ to cover so you do the math.

You can jump right into songs like i did but, it will only get you so far. I struggle with every song I try to learn, even the easiest of them. The chord changes are very big if you want to play an acoustic guitar.

so i seriously recomend spending a few days learning all of the chords youll need, then finding the chart with the roman numerals that describes progressions. Most songs use 4-8 chords? maybe less maybe more. The point is it will take some time to do all of this.

If your goign to jump right into songs, say the song asks for these chords: A -> D -> E. this is a I-IV-V progression but it doesnt amtter. When you first try to play it you will struggle with either speed or clarity. The best way to fix this ive found is just to play it over and over again (obviously), so if you have a problem going from D -> E, you just go back and forth from D to E over and over again. Play it as fast as you can without making mistakes, and after you do it 500 times or so( do it front of the tv or whatever, its more about muscle memory than anything else), you will see that you can do it quicker d-e-d-e-d-e-de like that. I cant help you with any singing issues because im not good at it, i tried.

This post was edited by blunderwonder2 on Jul 2 2011 04:46pm

also, the basic stuff is very important. i played for 3 weeks to a month before learning how to hold the pick correctly. There is differnt ways to do it, but obviously some work better. Basic stuff like this is very important because you dont want to have to go back and relearn it later. Things like where to put your thumb on the neck when your doing bar chords, how to hold the guitar etc. youtube is very good for lessons like these.

also i cant stress this enough. GO SLOW! if you try to play something very quickly and it always sounds bad, your only going to get worse at it if you keep playing it like that. Go as slow as you need, and gradually go faster. a metronome is a good way to do this, there is a free one online the link is stickied.

if your looking for a structured approach, then id recommend a guitar learning system like gibsons learn and master guitar series. If your comfortable just playing songs, then you only need to learn tableture, but youll need to do alot more sifting through junk because lots of times the tabs or wrong, or they write them out in chords, and youll have to go find out what the chords.

if you really are serious abuot learning, you can pm me or just post. i guess im like 3 months ahead of you, and i probably will be especially helpful if you have beginner questions.

the time spent is worth it though, i dont think anyone ever regrets learning to play an instrument.

Also i should note that songs are the reason people play. Its nice to learn the blues scale, but in all honesty, i dont see myself soloing over anything, or playing with a band. So while im really only intrested in getting better at playing chords and theory, and maybe the picking parts that go with the songs i like, I am learning the blues scale anyway, because it cant hurt and it will only help your fingers. When looking for lessons though, there is almost always a structured approach and it gets boring, so the best advice i think i can give you is to get a course book, and work through it, and when you get bored, start on some songs, then go back to the lesson book, then to the songs etc. beleive me there is plenty of stuff to practice so dont worry about that.


This post was edited by blunderwonder2 on Jul 2 2011 04:57pm

House of the rising sun is an amazing song to start out learning...helps with chord progressions etc.

Thank you so much I really appreciate it and my goal for this summer is really to just learn the basics and hopefully work my way up to learning a song like this [YOUTUBE]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XvyMG0z0FZY[/YOUTUBE] with that being said I know I'll probably have a lot of practice a head of me. Thanks again for the song suggestions, I appreciate that along with all the information given :)

Thats a neat song you psoted up there, its all in french obviously, but its fingerpicked, so if your going to start working on it soon, you dont need the pick. If that is really the first song youd like to learn, its doable. fingerpicking is not so bad, its just chord shapes and you pick string by string with your fingers. All you really need to know is the thumb plays the top 3 strings, and then your index plays the the g string, middle plays the b string, and ring finger plays the high e string.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zfQirxASTmk

ive wanted to learn this song for some time now. I dont know any french but its a very pretty song though. Im not even a james taylor fan but french sounds very cool to us americans ^ ^ Also id like to learn the feliciano version of light my fire, but its ALOT harder than this song lol

/e actually this is the song im talkign about but i cant find the link i wanted to. Ive seen a cover of it by someoen i assume is canadien or french native, and they sound alot more authentic than that guy.


je sais, je sais, me je sais

something somethign lol

This post was edited by blunderwonder2 on Jul 3 2011 02:19am