Learn to play guitar

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I am thinking of learning to play the guitar anyone have any info or experience that may help me make a choice whether i do it or not. I have no real experience playing but love music. I think it would be cool and just want to do it as a hobby.

Unfortunately, learning to play the guitar is not a choice.

haha could be worth a try. anything that would help me?

Yes. Get a puppy. Make sure it's less than 6 months old. It'll love you forever.

anything without a smart a** comment haha.

my advice would be to try first a classical guitar and NOT an acoustic guitar, because the latter use hard sharp steel strings which will cause cut and cracked fingertips until one is able to develop calloused fingertips. i was never able to do that, they just kept cracking and bleeding. the classical guitar, OTOH generally uses gut strings or nylon which are far more fingertip-friendly. or for something with a less steep learning curve, you might try a ukekele, which has only 4 strings and comes in a variety of sizes including a baritone model which is like a smaller easier guitar. learning chords on 4 strings is easier than on 5. ukes are such a cheery happy instrument. but if it is a guitar you must have, yamaha makes an all-electric EZ-AG ["easy learning acoustic guitar"] "acoustic" guitar which uses actuator bars instead of strings, you just brush your fingers past them to strum, and you just touch the fretboard on the right spots to make the chords, and it contains training programs to teach you how to play it and hopefully later on, how to play a real guitar. it also has selectable instrument sounds, such as shamisen [a japanese plucked string instrument] and banjo and such. it also has MIDI [musical instrument digital interface] functions so you can connect it to a puter and upload songs to it. it needs no tuning nor has any strings to break/replace. sounds just like what dr. music ordered.

I had been playing a number of instruments classically before I turned to guitar at age 10. I have a perfect pitch (this is not bragging), so I was able to teach myself by listening. You can teach yourself, or get a tutor. What I did was:

1. Get a guitar and a capo for my birthday (guitar start at fairly low prices, but you can go as high as you want)
2. Put on my favorite music in which a guitar is present
3. Look up the tabs online (http://www.ultimate-guitar.com/ is my favorite)
4. Learn how the music I heard corresponded with what the guitarist and I (!) were playing
5. This way I not only got a sense of how different chords and tones are played, but also of how chords generally correspond to each other (like when people say all the Beatles songs consist of three chords)
6. After a few weeks I was able to play songs myself (I already knew scales from classical training, and this really helped with learning different chords)

There are, of course, other ways to teach yourself how to play the guitar, but I've experienced that teaching yourself becomes all the more fun when you can do so to the tune of your favorite songs! If you don't feel comfortable with getting into it yourself, you can of course always get help from a teacher (or friend!).





As for which type of guitar to buy, Auntblabby has a good point... A classical guitar is good for people who start playing, because it is indeed easy on the fingers. However, I started with a Western, and while it hurt quit a bit in the beginning, I was able to master it. Picking up a classical or electric guitar finger-wise was easier - I think - than if I had started on any of the latter two. My credo: "Played until my fingers bled, was the Summer of '69 YEAH!" (Thank you, Bryan Adams)

another point i forgot to bring up about the baritone ukelele, is that it is tuned just like a guitar [DGBE] minus the lowest 2 strings, so some consider it to be akin to a training guitar for somebody to try out and decide if they wanna go on to an actual guitar or if they like the cute little uke enough to stay with it. there are so many lovely uke videos on youtube.

p.s.- and i also discovered, unfortunately, that yamaha seems not to make the EZ-AG anymore but there are a fair number of them on youtube if you are willing to deal with the evil paypal.

If it helps you say yes, they've proven those that can play music are overall more intelligent...much like thsoe that can speak more than one language.

Thanks for the info i am really thinking of going for it.

is it easy to learn at first? i heard it isnt to hard if you put time in.

Drums came so naturally to me, but guitar was a completely different story. Just could not bend my fingers into the chord shapes. I want to try bass guitar but I don't own one and don't really want to buy one.

It depends... some learn faster than others.
I'd start with slow paced songs as trying to play at a fast pace won't teach you anything. Though if you do like some fast paced songs, learn the hand strokes and then speed up when you are comfortable.

Start off with a Fender, or a cheap fender copy. Whatever style you want to play in the Fender will almost certainly accommodate. I move to Fenders from Ibanez.

Also I can recommend a book for you:-

http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Illustrated ... 115&sr=8-8

nice thanks everyone.

<----- Thinks puppies are cute. Thinks raising puppies are a better alternative to learning guitar.