learning guitar: stuck (guitar players input wanted)?

Question

learning guitar: stuck (guitar players input wanted)?

Answer 1

To put it quite simply...



You have to play with other musicians, preferably someone who's just a bit better than you. Playing with others will increase your ability 10 times as fast as it will sitting alone in your room and practicing.



Record yourself. Record a rhythm track and try to jam over the same track...record this also. Put it away for a week, and then listen to it. You'll hear areas where you nailed it, and areas where you need improvement, plus this often leads to song writing ideas.



Play some open mic nights in your area, The fear of performing in public will definetly force you to practice.



Subscribe to a good guitar magazine. Getting that issue every month in the mail helps keep the juices flowing.



Read Rock & Roll biographies. Always a great source of inspiration.



Work on areas you may not like..such as the pick and fingers approach (hybrid picking) and finger picking chord and melody changes....pedal steel bends on guitar are useful in any area of music.



Know at least 4-5 different ways to play every chord. Understand that instead of the usual open G chord, you can play a little 3 note G chord at the 7th fret looks like the standard D shape)



For inspiration, I recommend listening to the Hellecasters, Danny Gatton, and the Ventures. The Ventures are literally an encyclopedia of guitar riffs...great learning source...and finally,



Practice till your fingers bleed. Haha

Answer 2

You can get a beginner package that will have everything you need for the guitar from almost any music store for under $200. Don't get anything from Walmart, Radioshack, etc... If you don't want to spend that much money, try looking through classifieds. Also make sure you try the guitar before you buy it (if you decide to get a package, try out a guitar similar to the one your getting). As far as learning to play. Start learning chords, theory, etc... There are tons of good books out that will help you with that. Ultimate-guitar. com has some good lessons and tabs for most songs. Youtube has some good videos to show you how things are done. Also if you know anyone that plays guitar, ask them if they want to play together sometime. I also suggest getting lessons as soon as you can because that is the best way to learn the correct technique.

Answer 3

I am a guitar player ( not as good as you need) but I have to say I think you should learn to play many strum patterns, and also play the lead .. not only the baseline & chords. Rhythm is great but you must learn to solo ... learn to play modes learn the entire fingerboard so you can run scales up and down the board. I believe much of this you are doing, but you have to take it to the next level, make it hard for yourself. If you are fast .. make it faster... if you have a hard time make a certain chord change then work at it until it is no longer hard ...



In other words, challenge yourself all the time, if you lost direction grab some guitar books and work on stufrf in there.. this will often help you find a new direction in your development. Also, play stuff you never would so you can find areas of music that you may not otherwise venture into...If you want to play rock mess with Jazz, later on as a rock player you may find Jazz just perfect for your solo...

Like I said, just another man's opinion... hopefully there is something in here you find useful

Answer 4

buy you a cheap recording device. it doesnt have to be anything fancy at all, just something that will record decently. start be recording a simple rhythm progression, then goe back over it and play along with a solo. It will help your timing, solo fluency, as well as you rhythm and song writing. that helped me alot.



just remember its all about getting the note right other than trying to play fast.



practice practice practice

Answer 5

Find some peers on craigslist or whatever. Similar tastes, similar situations. Play along with radio and recordings until you see the commonality in it all----and yet the unique ways people write key changes or a passing chord into a song that takes it off the beaten three-chord path. Search your heart for lyrics about life. Start writing your own as you are studying the people that are doing what you aspire to do. I wish I understood it at 14 but try to publish your own stuff. Take lessons from someone who understands the vastness of career potential in music and understands where you are coming from. HE THAT REFUSES INSTRUCTION IS A FOOL.

Answer 6

Take lessons from the best teacher you can find.I have heard many very talented players that never made it.I have also had famous players in my store and they are far better than you will ever know. in my area you go to Al Ferante who played with many big names.Find the best you can in your area and practice forever

Answer 7

It sounds as if you're question is more-so concerning how to find inspiration to write riffs and songs - and this is definitely the million dollar question. If it were easy to write good songs, everyone would be doing it.



Try starting off with selecting a chord progression. You really can't go too wrong - just pick a standard (G C D... C G Am F.... G Em C D...etc) or of course you can create your own. After you decide on a progression and strumming pattern, try to write a melody over it. This can be extremely simple or as complicated as you want (using your scales will help write a melody, honestly this is the part where you just have to keep fiddling around and trying all sorts of things until you settle on a melody). It would be very helpful to record the progression so you can hear the melody played over the chords.. a simple way to do this is to use a webcam or just the audio recording on your computer... and record yourself playing the chord progression over and over for a couple minutes.



After you get the melody, try working the melody line into the chord progression simultaneously (not the whole melody, but parts of it) this should give you an interesting and unique guitar riff and base for a song - also it will give you a melody line for lyrics.



There is no right way to write a song. Just keep playing and playing until all of the sudden you realize you just played something pretty cool. Good luck!

Answer 8

I am not a "guitar player" but I have an answer. I am a music teacher and I also just bought a bass guitar.



I saw several different method books for sale that I am sure you can find on the internet. Type in "guitar solo book" is my suggestion. You'll get a large selection of books to choose from.

Answer 9

My best advise is to listen to what kind of music you want to make and try mixing different chords and riffs together to make the sound that you want. Try recording it and playing it back to see if you like it. If you can play a song all the way through with the radio or cd than you should be able to put together your own song from chords that are similarly matched. A good site to get some knowledge from is www.ultimateguitar.com. Good luck.

Answer 10

Ahh, you're wanting to learn to improv.



As to the way I learned, I sat down with other musicians and just started playing. At first, they'd tell me what key the song was in. Later, I just figured it out.



Well, that was one way I learned. Another was just sitting next to a radio and playing along with the music.



In both cases, I only got one shot. I played lots of wrong notes. Then, not so many. Then, I learned to cover for the wrong notes I did play.



There are no shortcuts when it comes to ear training. You've just gotta play. Make those mistakes and remember them. Then you won't make them any more.



That said, it's great that you chose to start with a good foundation in music theory. That helps more than you know, but you've gotta discover that on your own.



Go play, and have fun. Peace.