Wednesday, February 9, 2011

Guitar

I picked up learning to play the guitar about a year ago and for Christmas I decided to get a little more serious about it and get the guitar pictured above. It's not too expensive or flashy, but really nice quality as far as I can tell. My first guitar had tape holding a pickup in place and tin foil holding the inner wires together so... this was quite a step up.

But anyway, learning to play has been pretty difficult for me. I mean, I can play some scales, some chords (including a few barre chords), and some snippets of songs, but nothing that would really impress anyone. More often than not I still accidentally hit the wrong string with the pick or I finger the wrong fret or something stupid. My friend tells me to practice really slowly and build up to playing normal speed, which makes sense, but ironically I seem to play even worse if I slow it down. It's really frustrating.

Anyone out there play guitar that would have some tips for me? I really want to learn to play well, but as I said, it's really frustrating at times.

9 comments:

  1. Did you start with Guitar Hero? Just curious :p

    ReplyDelete
  2. learning guitar took me AGES, and I'm still pretty bad. Just keep going. When learning a song, take the first like 10 seconds, play that until its perfect. Then play the first 20 until its perfect, and so on.

    ReplyDelete
  3. My recommendation is just play songs that you like so practicing becomes fun and not a chore. Stick with it and you'll get it! Look forward to seeing your progress!

    ReplyDelete
  4. @Daniel Ha, well I did play GH first, but it's my roommate from last year that got me into it. He introduced me to a lot of Metallica and Steve Vai songs and that got me into guitar.

    ReplyDelete
  5. I am self-taught with playing the keyboard and I like to think I'm pretty damn good at it after a few years. My technique was to just start off learning simple songs and just build off of that! After a while finger placement will be in your muscle memory. Cheers!

    ReplyDelete
  6. Sorry if I'm double posting. There was an error on the commenter.
    Anyway...
    I would just start off learning simpler songs, then work your way up. Eventually everything you've learned will be ingrained in your muscle memory.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Drills and scales are only good to a point. Learn to improv and learn to improv well. Music is a language if you do it right, not an art. Work the hell out of your ear to the point where you hear a lick and you can play the next line because you know what's coming. And learn Blues. If you can play that good, everything else you ever touch including metal, classical, anything will be ridiculously easy in comparison. Not to mention all modern genres stem from Blues.

    ReplyDelete
  8. hey i wish i had advice for ya but i gave up playing a while ago.

    ReplyDelete