How did all you new guitarists get on then?
Discussion
There's lots of threads started by folk seeking advice on starting to learn the guitar.
Lot's of great posts in reply, but very few OPs have ever got back to say what sort of progress (if any) they'd made.
I'm presently in the process of trawling ebay for an electric guitar and amp with the intention of using my retirement to become a wrinkly rock legend!
How did you all get on then chaps?
Lot's of great posts in reply, but very few OPs have ever got back to say what sort of progress (if any) they'd made.
I'm presently in the process of trawling ebay for an electric guitar and amp with the intention of using my retirement to become a wrinkly rock legend!
How did you all get on then chaps?
Some days I'm improving
Some days I think my limited talent is dwindling......
Had to move my two guitars to the play room upstairs which means it's a little bit further to go and practice which shouldn't make any difference but it does. Can't just pop to the next room for 10 minutes while I'm waiting for something.
Anyway, over the last couple of days I've been trying to play alongside youtube versions of a few songs I am trying to learn and what I'm finding is that I cannot keep to the songs time. I'm either fast or slow. Strange thing was, when I play without the you tube track, I have the song in my head and it seems spot on.
Rome wasn't built in a day though...........
Some days I think my limited talent is dwindling......
Had to move my two guitars to the play room upstairs which means it's a little bit further to go and practice which shouldn't make any difference but it does. Can't just pop to the next room for 10 minutes while I'm waiting for something.
Anyway, over the last couple of days I've been trying to play alongside youtube versions of a few songs I am trying to learn and what I'm finding is that I cannot keep to the songs time. I'm either fast or slow. Strange thing was, when I play without the you tube track, I have the song in my head and it seems spot on.
Rome wasn't built in a day though...........
Even though I've been playing for 30-odd years, I consider myself a "new" guitarist.
See, most of my formative guitar years were spent playing either Chicago blues stuff, or tunes I wanted to play. Of course, that's fine for me but it didn't exactly expand my technique nor style and I suppose I ended up in my own little echo-chamber of blues / rock / grunge.
Three years ago, whilst playing at the time a PRS through a Vox amp, I bought an Ibanez I'd always fancied. Lovely thing it is, but didn't sound "right" through the Vox so I bought an amp that suited the Ibanez's "strat" sound. This is the rig that changed my guitar life : an Ibanez SA360 through a Fender Princeton Chorus.
PRS and Vox sold, the journey since then has been nothing less than transformative. The playability of the guitar, and it's sound through the amp has led me to learning proper music theory, playing major and minor pentatonic scales interchangeably for given tunes, improvising leads using minor scales, and discovering that I have a knack of easily fretting jazz chords. Playing a given maj7 chord with the root on either the low E or low A string these days is second nature. Half diminished chords? Not a problem. It's also opened the doors to overall music appreciation as well.
I still don't like Beatles tunes, but can now appreciate how well they were crafted. I'm currently ploughing through Pretzel Logic by Steely Dan, and learning to solo over a J.J. Cale tune (chords for the former, lead solo for the latter). Last New Year's Eve, I did a solo guitar piece front of house where I just introduced it as, "an old Doris Day tune". Shortly after, the whole pub was singing along to Dream a Little Dream of Me.
In short, buying that Fender amp changed everything. I didn't expect that.
See, most of my formative guitar years were spent playing either Chicago blues stuff, or tunes I wanted to play. Of course, that's fine for me but it didn't exactly expand my technique nor style and I suppose I ended up in my own little echo-chamber of blues / rock / grunge.
Three years ago, whilst playing at the time a PRS through a Vox amp, I bought an Ibanez I'd always fancied. Lovely thing it is, but didn't sound "right" through the Vox so I bought an amp that suited the Ibanez's "strat" sound. This is the rig that changed my guitar life : an Ibanez SA360 through a Fender Princeton Chorus.
PRS and Vox sold, the journey since then has been nothing less than transformative. The playability of the guitar, and it's sound through the amp has led me to learning proper music theory, playing major and minor pentatonic scales interchangeably for given tunes, improvising leads using minor scales, and discovering that I have a knack of easily fretting jazz chords. Playing a given maj7 chord with the root on either the low E or low A string these days is second nature. Half diminished chords? Not a problem. It's also opened the doors to overall music appreciation as well.
I still don't like Beatles tunes, but can now appreciate how well they were crafted. I'm currently ploughing through Pretzel Logic by Steely Dan, and learning to solo over a J.J. Cale tune (chords for the former, lead solo for the latter). Last New Year's Eve, I did a solo guitar piece front of house where I just introduced it as, "an old Doris Day tune". Shortly after, the whole pub was singing along to Dream a Little Dream of Me.
In short, buying that Fender amp changed everything. I didn't expect that.
I'd recommend it. I started about sept 2018. I had played a bit as kid but never practiced so i'd say i started from pretty much nothing. I certainly surpassed anything i knew in a week or two when I could play the C chord.
Where I find myself now is working on a rock school piece called base jumper which has the need to solo in it for a few bars. That's side tracked me into a lot of music theory stuff about 'keys', scales, the CAGED system of bar chords (I used to think that there were only A and E shape and that was it). At the same time I'm trying to get my alternate picking speed up buy learning the sweet child of mine second solo with a very fast run.
It's really fun and has surprised me as to how quickly the technical aspects can come. I need to work on stretchyness a bit as a 4 fret reach can still be a bit much especially keeping fingers on.
If your in two minds ...do it. As soon as you learn all the basic chords and can change fast enough you can do most pop stuff. I started with some Tom Petty stuff there's a few nuances but its broadly 4 chords. Get lessons though it has really helped identify and correct weaknesses for me. The youtube stuff works to a point.
Where I find myself now is working on a rock school piece called base jumper which has the need to solo in it for a few bars. That's side tracked me into a lot of music theory stuff about 'keys', scales, the CAGED system of bar chords (I used to think that there were only A and E shape and that was it). At the same time I'm trying to get my alternate picking speed up buy learning the sweet child of mine second solo with a very fast run.
It's really fun and has surprised me as to how quickly the technical aspects can come. I need to work on stretchyness a bit as a 4 fret reach can still be a bit much especially keeping fingers on.
If your in two minds ...do it. As soon as you learn all the basic chords and can change fast enough you can do most pop stuff. I started with some Tom Petty stuff there's a few nuances but its broadly 4 chords. Get lessons though it has really helped identify and correct weaknesses for me. The youtube stuff works to a point.
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