How did you begin? Did you sit down with a DVD or whatever and learn chord 1, then chord 2, then chord 3, etc.

Or did you just google “Nirvana tabs” or something similar?

All of the above, + friends of course. Someone on here recently mentioned http://www.justinguitar.com/ as well and it seems quite good really. Anything that keeps you interested has to be good

the very first time, I was 10 or 11 & had a tutor at school. I wasn’t interested & gave it up within a year. by the time I was 15 I’d started playing drums instead.

I’ve since started teaching myself guitar (and some bad habits too, probably), mostly from a book of chords, scales & riffs etc, but I also use a software package called Guitar Pro, which is rather good. I can just about put some rhythm guitar together now, and some bass, but I’d never be confident enough to do it in public

I just listened to records ( yes at the time it was records) and tried to work out the parts, main thing about guitar playing is commitment to practise. I played for at least a couple of hours every day for the first couple of years. Then again, I suppose it depends on how good you want to be for how much time you commit. Good luck and don’t give up, its an awesome thing 😉

music theory and scales 😯
plenty of nice stuff you can play on individual strings. Chords require the coordination of many fingers and are not easy to learn. Playing scales arpegios [spell] is boring but it gets the finger control and you can play some reasonable stuff.
For pop/rock just learn riffs and/or power chords
Self taught but some mates are seriously good gutarists I have just played for years so am good to novic e/non musician but am not really talented.
Blues can also work for single /easy stuff and can sound effective
nothing worse than not being able to play something so it is important to start with something realistic to practice rathe rthan going for something way too hard

Decide what you want to play and learn something easy in that style

I started at christmas, am enjoying the ‘jamming’ bit although it’s frustating when you play a few notes that sound familiar then can’t recreate the riff!!! I’m having a few lessons to see where that takes me, but otherwise it’s tabs and just enjoying myself messing about (with headphones on to save family harmony).

Great, to the tabs website it is. I think I shall start with Daughter by Pearl Jam, that can’t be more than 3 chords.

Right chords is one thing, playing em at the right time is another!!!

that justinguitar guy is a f**kin hero

Music teacher, at school and then at home privately. Grade 8 eventually. Music theory, scales, chord patterns, arpeggios…

Use about 4 chords these days LOL.

I always recommend justinguitar as well for beginners.

Daughter is in open g tuning, and lots of up and down the fret with some stretchy bits – i think your fingers may struggle to move fast enough to the right places.

main advice i’d give to to start slowly and learn something cleanly before moving on

Right chords is one thing, playing em at the right time is another!!!

distortion pedals are your friend …lazy arsed electric guitarists with their poor technique 😉

A friends mum got me into it! 😆

I started off trying to copy bits of records. She sorted out some tuition for me.

learned some chords – learned how to put those chords together to play songs that i knew ( mostly punk songs of the era).

that led to making my own tunes with those chords.

bought a really cheap guitar second hand that came with a vhs with some basic chords.

searched for a well recommended tuition book that was based on the kind of music i wanted to play (david hamburger ‘acoustic guitar method’), and started working through that.

if i was starting again, i would no hesitation get lessons.

the problem i found was twofold… that i learnt a lot very quickly but then hit a plateau and lost motivation. and also that i struggle to find the concentration to work on a lesson knowing that i’ll never play that lesson tune again.

these days i just dig out song lessons on youtube that i fancy trying and go with them, its fun. i’m content to be a three chord hobby guitarist crashing my way though some basic songs.

would love to be able to afford lessons though, that and be more disciplined to actually do some quality practice.

am a crap guitarist.the first thing i tried to learn was limelight by rush from guitarist magazine.still love the guitar though (but do not practice right,have a load of bad habits e.t.c)

u-tube all the way.

my brother gave me a u2 rattle and hum chord book, tape and a guitar and sent me on my merry way.. 6 months later i went to classical guitar lessons for 2 years and got put thru the exams up til grade 4(I’ve still got it in my head to go back and continue that, mibbe one day), for the last 16 years i’ve been teaching myself.. the lessons stood me in good stead though.

You really could do a lot worse than working your way through the beginners course at justinhuitar.com

That is where I started last year and I have enjoyed it a lot so far. it is well structured and well explained.

Have fun

BTW, what guitar did you get?

ps if classical sounds good to you, start posting on this site, 40 posts gets you access to an unbelievable amount of sheet music. It’ll get your fingers going anyhow and it’ll teach you to read music if you work your way through the grades.

http://delcamp.us/

I need to thank the STW guitaring massive for telling me that 38 wasn’t to old to learn guitar. So on the 29th of Jan this year I borrowed an acoustic guitar off a mate, had a brief lesson with him and borrowed some reading material and off I went. Since then I’ve had weekly professional lessons, used justo guitars site and YouTube and can now play stand by me and wild thing plus some other basic rhythm stuff. Absolutely lovin it and to top it all my mrs bought me a Encore Les Paul copy for my birthday . Thanks again Stw massive.

I learned very basic ‘Wish you were here’ (Justin has it) and played it at a jam night in a bar. A bit of a rock god (Spanish) with his own recording studio came in and did the fancy lead on an acoustic all over the top of my basic chords. It was bloody marvellous!

Marty Schwartz’s easy beginner songs on YouTube are very good to learn from the guys a ledge 😀

Heeeeyyyyyyyyyyyy what’s up guys….