Finally got around to buying a guitar (acoustic) yesterday. I’m starting from scratch and want to learn in a structured manner to ensure I progress properly and learn the right techniques, rather than just trying to play a load of songs from the off.

There seems to be a lot of guides around that use 30 mins a day (with more practice recommended when time is available). As a busy parent a plan like this would be good as time is limited and I think I can stick to it. Is there anything specific that any of the STW players can recommend in this area as there seems to be loads of choice?

I know that lessons would be a good thing too, but I’d like to get some basics down first.

Ta.

http://www.justinguitar.com/

Search for guitarjamz or Marty Schwartz on you tube

Yeah, Justin guitar is definitely a good place to start. If you can afford a one to one lesson weekly or fortnightly though, even just for a month or two, it would be very much worth it, and help you also get the best out of online tutorials.

Justinguitar is the one I always suggest.
Regular, small amounts, of practice is the key when you start.
You can make your fingers pretty sore when you first start off but it gets better with time.

Wow that Justin Guitar is comprehensive! Thanks.

I`ve just started too a few months ago. I looked at Justin Guitar got bored and and downloaded the ultimate guitar app for chords to ACDC so i could rock out!

i just piss about really but i`m mastering the chords to enter sandman, some alice in chains and green day (easy only 4 chords for the most part!) some beatles, jack johnson.

I`m not good at just practicing chords on their own as its mind numbigly dull. at least trying to play a tune with a few different parts, chord changes and rythms is a challenge. my daughter is learing the widdly complicated stuff (has formal lessons). i just want to duckwalk across the kitchen…

I need to get my daughter to teach me how to read tabs as thats the next step for me i think. she’s actually quite musical. I’m a heathen!

I’d also suggest evening classes….

but that’s dependent on the tutor.

Justin Guitar is probably the way to go, each module is well constructed with recommended practice times for chords, minute changes, which is great to see improvement, song video’s, and his JUSTIN technique which is a great aid to identify chords.

Van Halen – Member

You are not the real Van Halen and I claim my £5.

Don’t get me wrong, I want to rock out and I know that being disciplined will be tough as it is not my natural inclination, but I also want to be able to pick up the guitar and not just be able to play ‘Stairway’.

My advice would be to do one or two 1-1 lessons to get you started. Then you can be sure you’re starting right – how you’re holding/sitting with the guitar, your hand position holding the neck etc – all things which can be easily identified before they become habits that are too hard to break.

I reckon that’d set you up better to continue with the basics on your own.

Rocksmith is a good fun way of learning songs but you’ll need an electric guitar plus pc/games console.

Choose something that you like to listen to that looks and sounds do-able then find a Youtube tutorial with tabs (it’ll hep if you speak Portuguese). Even better if it’s in your vocal range and you can sing along. As for basics, you’ll learn as you go along because you’ll learn whatever techniques you need for whatever you’re trying to play. Some people are very fussy about the way you hold a guitar but it’s really a case of whatever allows you to play best. I’m much happier standing up and don’t much like acoustic guitars, each to his own.

Justin gets my vote.
Some bits may seem a bit boring to start with, but the Beginners Course is well structured, and is all about creating a good foundation while introducing techniques gradually.

I progressed more in the 5 months it took me to do Justin’s Beginners Course, than I had in the 10 years prior.

What aroyalnit said is spot on

also, the initial 1-2-1 lessions allow you to make progress so much quicker than you would going from step 0 using online tuition, remember that online tuition isn’t tailored for you and a teacher gives you an instant response whereas you only get outcome feedback at the end of the process with online learning. Good teachers give more than instruction.

online tuition is good but it’s not always easy to use when it’s the only method

(I am a trained musician who has taught so I have an interest but I really believe that even just a few lessons are worth it)

I use Drue James linky

My lack of progress is totally down to me 🙁

Another recommendation is to have a few lessons or to try and find some players to hang out with. I made the most progress when I discovered the bar manager of the place next to where I lived played, so once or twice a week we’d sit down when it was quiet and he’d help me and review my (lack of) progress

C, D, G, EM and you can play lots of songs – it really helps me to play and SING songs I love, its good to learn by accompanying yourself singing

Good luck

give ‘Andy guitar’ a search on you tube, follow the linky then to his website, theres a couple of dozen free online lesson/tunes even I can play. hes also based in leeds if you are in that neck of the woods for 1-2-1

+(n) for Justin Sandercoe if you are self teaching. His beginner’s course is incredibly well structured and thorough, and there is a massive amount of follow-on material, too.

http://www.justinguitar.com/en/BC-000-BeginnersCourse.php

It may seem a bit slow to start, but stick to the course as there’s a purpose in everything he teaches, but you might not appreciate what it is until later.

I also progressed massively more following his course for a few months than I did in 20-odd years of downloading TAB and trying to learn tunes.

(It’s free, and freely available, too. No mailing list sign-up or “registration”. Just make a donation if you feel it’s worth it.)

I’m also just starting guitar but picked up an electric rather than an acoustic to start with.at the moment I’m just working through the DVD that came with my guitar, I’ve got my first lesson next week,first lesson is free then it’s £12 for 30 mins and£23 for an hour. I’m going to go 2x per month depending on my Rota. As others have said a few formal lessons will help you to know if your actually doing it right. I’m also going to be using Justin guitar, rocksmith and some guitar books iv picked up cheaply. I’ve not played guitar before but I do play flute at grade 4 level so already know some music theory and can sight read treble clef,bass clef and chords are a new thing for me though.The thing I’m finding annoying with guitar is tabs,standard notation is not hard so why is guitar taught in tabs for beginners? Half the info is missing!

Justin is good. Lessons with a good teacher will be better.

None of it matters though if you don’t practice. Resolve today to practice and play for at least 5 mins a day or save your time and cash now. More time is obviously better but it’s the consistent daily practice that will get you to the stage of playing (well) the songs you like.

Had a look through the Justin stage 1, seems really well put together, so I’m going to make a start with that.

There are a few teachers in my area so will look into lessons in the new year. I’ve got a mate locally who is an excellent guitarist, so I’ll have a chat with him and see if he is up for some informal lessons too.

Hellz – look for guitar pro tabs. I still use guitar pro daily.

Another site to look at that isn’t mentioned is licklibrary.

For rock/metal, the Troy stetina books are good

The thing I’m finding annoying with guitar is tabs,standard notation is not hard so why is guitar taught in tabs for beginners? Half the info is missing!

Tab (tabelature) isn’t just for beginners, and has information in it which is missing from standard notation – there’s only one middle C on the piano, for example, but there are (I think) five on a guitar – In addition to the note pitch, tab tells you where (on the fretboard) the note is to be played.

(It’s also a relatively easy way to exchange music in plain ascii files!)

How do do you note 2h4-4b(6)r2h4p(2) in standard notation on this forum? That”s a typical country sequence. If it were on the G string it would be pluck on fret 2, hammer on to fret 4, pluck on 4 and bend to the same note as fret 6, release the bend slowly, pluck on 2, hammer on to 4 and pull off leaving a finger on fret 2.

Rocksmith is fun…

If you really want to learn though – Gibson Learn and Master is the dogs danglies. It aint cheap, but it is comprehensive and actually very, very good.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Gibsons-Learn-Master-Guitar-Book/dp/1450721494

The videos are well shot and useful, with the book as backup. It isn’t as good as a one on one lesson but about the closest I have ever found. I am planning to go through it with my wee lad over the next couple of years (he keeps trying to play my guitars but is a bit on the small side so a 1/4 size classical guitar is on the Christmas list) whilst reminding myself of some techniques and theory as we go along!

Kiddy Strat! Even a full-size Tele/Strat/Les Paul has a narrower neck than any mini classical guitar I’ve ssen.

Justin is good. Lessons with a good teacher will be better.

None of it matters though if you don’t practice
+1000. Justin is good for helping you learn to play, youtube is great for learning specific tunes but not the skills. A teacher will make sure you practice and fix stuff. All of them rock

Edukator – yes… they do… but I think learning single note melodies is the best way to start m’self 😉

Besides which I was classically trained so I kinda figure it isn’t a bad way to set off. It helps to keep bad habits at bay (until later!)

I am probably going to get his little brother a Uke at the same time 😉 I was considering a teeny 1/8 classical, but the Uke looks way more fun (and only 4 strings)

Here you go https://youtu.be/-WO9yT2pM54

and in case you think he’s a dork….

saw him playing with Walter Trout his week https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VwiBKzSeaOo

I’ll add Truefire as a good source of lessons.

Main thing is to decide what you want to accomplish on the guitar. If its just banging out a few chords to accompany yourself then you can do that on 30 mins a day. Anything more and you really need to commit more time to it over a number of years to be any good.

Edukator the following link shows how hammer ons are written in standard notation
http://www.cyberfret.com/guitar-techniques/hammer-ons-pull-offs/2/

I’m not slating tab or those who use it btw, just commenting that as someone who has only ever been taught standard notation due to having played flute I’m actually finding tab difficult because timing etc is not shown. I can understand the standard notation of a hammer on, I had no clue what you meant when you wrote it down because I only started guitar today and have only seen tab for the first time today. I see why tab is useful and can be good for learning from but I still personally prefer standard notation but that’s because I have learnt it from the age of 6 (flute has been an on/off thing, mostly off atm as my dog hates it and any other woodwind instrument) so can see it and immediately know what/how to play where tab is like looking at a foreign language for me atm. Plus once I know where the notes are I can use my many flute books to play with rather than having to look for guitar specific books.

used this Four Chords App

Also Marty Schwartz, Justin Guitar, Drue James but the best thing by far has been 1-2-1 lessons with a really good guitar teacher.

Paying for a lesson motivates me to practice too

My point was “on this forum”, the beauty of tabs is that all you need to exchange a score is a keyboard. I know the time signature is not as accurately represented as on a music sheet, but if you keep in mind that most of the rock/pop/country will be 2/4 or 4/4 then using hyphens to denote half beats or whole beats that are not played, 1s2——0-2, allows you to approximately indicate the time signature – so that’s pluck fret one, slide to two, count the next three beats of the bar, pluck open, pluck two.

If you can do both so much the better, if you’ve got the original music to listen to and the tabs you’ll soon be playing along.

The uke is a great way to get started. So much easier to just pick up and practice on.
4 strings – and the concert size uke can snuggle up on the sofa nice and comfy.

Lots and lots of lessons on youtoob

My first song was ‘Wild Thing’, A,D,E I think, lol. My Dad showed me that then I was away!

Look at Ultimate Guitar Tabs, that’s quite good although the songs are the interpretation of the people who upload them. The app on the phone’s good and free but the iPad version’s chargeable.

I know loads of chords but struggle to remember songs the whole way through! 🙁 I rarely get time to play anymore 🙁

I should of maybe added to my previous post that I did do classical guitar at school, however classical guitar never interested me, so I never practised, and never progressed. It did mean I learnt all the notes up to the fifth fret though.
I can also play piano/keyboard and read sheet music, so I probably wasn’t your typical beginner when I started Justin’s course.

The main thing I like about Justin’s lessons, is they are well thought out, and make sure you cover all the essentials. There are plenty lessons on youtube covering pretty much anything you want to learn, but I’d probably say in terms of free online courses, Justin’s are the most comprehensive and structured.
The Beginners Course covers all your key basics – guitar/pick/hand/body position, all open chords and F-barre, 8th note rhythm, shuffle beats, basic fingerstyle, power chords, 12bar blues, minor pentatonic, and very basic impro using the 12bar blues/minor pentatonic.
There is then the Intermediate Method, which then works on the more advanced essentials, like all your barre chords, 16th note rhythm, triads, major pentatonic scale, and lots of other bits I’ve still not reached.
After that, Justin has several style modules, depending on what direction you want to take your playing.
He also backs up each stage with recommended songs that apply the techniques learnt at each stage, so it’s not as though you’re only practising for the sake of practising, you do get to apply the techniques.

There are also quite a few standalone courses/lessons, one of which I’ve just started working through is the Practical Music Theory book/course (one of the few items you do have to pay for), and I’m enjoying learning about the theory behind music. It’s certainly not for a true beginner with no/little music understanding, but it does start with the very basics and builds from there.

If you do have the chance, get some one to one lessons. I’ve personally not had any since school, but it does greatly help having someone to point out any mistakes you’re making so they don’t become ingrained bad habits.
As Justin regularly says in his lessons, Practise makes permanent, not perfect (and I’ve just proved that having spent the past week trying to relearn the correct rhythm for a song that I’ve been playing wrong for the past 6 months!)

🙂 Wild Thing was recommended to me too as a good starter song ! As an aside the Troggs are definitely the most famous thing to come out of Andover.

Wild thing was the song that helped me learn the E major barre chord.

marked fro later cheers

Didn’t take too long practicing D chord to make my fingers hurt, hoping my desk jockey keyboard fingers toughen up soon!

When I was at University I bought a crappy guitar and amp from Argos of all places 😳 With no proper course to follow I just grabbed some tabs and tried to play various riffs, stopping whenever I encountered a chord that was ‘impossible to play’. After two years of this nonsense I could barely play a handful of riffs, had pain in my left arm from terrible posture and gave away all my gear having concluded ‘I can’t play guitar’.

That was 15 years ago, before the days of YouTube would you believe? Showing my age a bit!

This time last year (a year next week in fact) I had a craving to explore music again and based on the advice on this forum bought the Justin Guitar beginner’s course book and accompanying song book. After just 3 months I could play significantly more chords and songs than I ever could just messing around on my own. After a year, I’m almost through the beginners course and can play many chords, not to mention changing between them at a reasonable speed.

Cool story eh? Err no.

The point is, don’t make the mistake of thinking you will learn guitar by playing a few riffs here and there, you wont learn the underlying skills and foundation techniques that your further development as a musician will rely on. You’ll just be that guy who can play the opening riff to <insert-awesome-song-here> and err nothing else! Justin’s site is full of lots of really useful information, just make sure you watch the course right from the start as there will be things in there you think you know, but you actually don’t.

Enjoy.