That's the first Martin I've seen in a while that I would consider buying. I bet you can't walk past it without picking it up.
Good to see a bolt on neck on a proper guitar. My go-to YouTube luthier, twoodford, is keen on them.
Thanks - it's inspired me to re-learn a few acoustic things that I haven't played for years. More Than Words here I come...
email dropped into my inbox this morning giving me 75% off the nationalguitaracademy's 'beginner guitar secrets' course. works out at around £36. had a quick look at the structure and it seems good value, but i thought id ask if anyone has any experience of these guys or this course?
would i just be paying for the same material as i get for free on justinguitar?
for context, im learning bass and have finished bassbuzz course and also paid for the talkingbass 'creative bassist' course as a follow on so im still very much a beginner, the CB course being waaaaay above my current skill level so i feel like ive got a lifetimes worth of bass content to work on over the next few years.
i bought the 6 string just to see if i could get my head (and fingers) around chords, and i havent really moved from first base as i find my fingers arent flexible enough to either do barre chords or some of the other main chords 'properly'. i thought id slowly work through the justinguitar course but i havent looked at it for a few weeks, nor touched the 6 string, concentrating on bass.
this course and and the bass courses are all lifetime access, so i guess theres no harm in buying it for the future, or seeing if it gives me anything that the justinguitar course doesnt, but thought id just ask your advice.
im guessing the advice will be its just £36 you tightarse, get it bought, and i think i will, so really i suppose im interested in thoughts on why i shouldnt buy it, such as NGA are crap, no point if youre doing justinguitar, just concentrate on one instrument at a time etc....
thanks
More Than Words here I come...
Oh bloody hell, no! Is this the modern Stairway To Heaven? 😀
I've recently picked up a mandolin - Losing My Religion is the mando version of STH. I loudly and incompetently belt it out to warm my fingers up.
im guessing the advice will be its just £36 you tightarse,
fwiw my advice, not knowing this guitar secrets course (obv 😁) would be that there aren't really any secrets. You need to learn a few chords and tunes and enjoy playing them. It won't get easier without a lot of practice. I'm not sure an online course will supply motivation to get over this hump. It could do I guess.
Anyway, hand flexibility is overrated. I've duprens which may be climbing related in both hands and really inflexible fingers in my right hand dislocated on a spectacular landing, which I clicked back into place to ride off the hill, and stupidly never sought attention for. And I manage to play finger style. Badly, obviously, but that's brain not fingers. Jango only had three fingers and he did okay...
fwiw my advice, not knowing this guitar secrets course (obv
) would be that there aren't really any secrets.
When I got back into playing, after a long lay-off, I used the Fender course which was free with the guitar. I started at absolute beginner level - which I wasn't, I'd been playing on/off but poorly for over 30 years - and played through it until I finished it. It was a useful refresher, but I worked through it very quickly. I learned a few very basic tunes which I still play with some elaboration, but probably no secrets! But it was useful to have a structure while I was finding what else was out there, having originally picked up a guitar in the pre-internet age.
email dropped into my inbox this morning giving me 75% off the nationalguitaracademy's 'beginner guitar secrets' course. works out at around £36.
I think this is the one that I keep seeing on Facebook. It's a good looking advert, but I haven't looked at the details. Funnily enough I was looking at a harmonica course earlier, priced at roughly the same. I wonder if £30-odd is the goldilocks amount to ask, regardless of quality? I'm not sure I need a harmonica course - the cat stays on my lap when I'm playing so it can't be that bad!
What I really want is a tailored guitar course to get me from my level (whatever that is) to being able to play like Ben Smith at Andertons. Can't be that difficult, surely? 😀
^^^that's very fair enough. I wasn't meaning to argue against courses/structure etc, which I'd benefit from myself frankly (I'm guessing many of us on this thread play quite a lot but with minimal structure and slow progress). Just that the question seemed to be "will this course help me learn to play chords with my stiff fingers?", to which I'd say learn a few chords before parting with more money.
the question seemed to be "will this course help me learn to play chords with my stiff fingers?", to which I'd say learn a few chords before parting with more money.
i think this is the crux of it. i struggle with chord shapes so i pick the bass up again, which means im not practising chord shapes which means i wont improve.
i guess i also feel a little overwhelmed by the different 'versions' of chords. i want to know in my own mind 'this is how you play C major, this is how you play F minor' and practice swapping between them, but just when i think ahhh that alternative 'cheat' C major looks easier i read that theres a Cmaj7 or or an Fmin7dim or somethings thats different yet again. and are these chords just 'campfire chords' to be played at an easy pace, or do people generally use them in rock songs? or do they use power chords for those? and if power chords then root and fifth? or root/fifth/octave? oh but barre chords would be easier still.... just one shape, knock yourself out all up and down the fretboard, but... i cant get my index to hold down the relevant strings 😀
soooooooo many options, soooooo much confusion in my head so it puts me off practising cos i dont want to practice the wrong stuff.
i guess its only £36 and theres a 30 day money back guarantee, ill mebbes give it a go and see if there are any lightbulb moments. and if not i'll just pick the bass back up again 😀
I'd personally stick with Justin Guitar, as you progress through the "Grades" he'll show the alternatives. Or maybe just sit down and write out what you want to achieve ultimately with your musical journey. Maybe the guitar isn't for you, and you're happier playing bass.
I'd personally stick with Justin Guitar, as you progress through the "Grades" he'll show the alternatives. Or maybe just sit down and write out what you want to achieve ultimately with your musical journey.
yep, pretty much settled on this. had another look at the course and theres a lot of stuff i already know or am not too fussed about and there seemed to be minimal chord tutorage, so i'll stick with trying to learn basic open chords before progressing.
Maybe the guitar isn't for you, and you're happier playing bass.
im certainly happier playing bass, but i refuse to be beaten, id like to see whether i can improve or not.
i read that theres a Cmaj7 or or an Fmin7dim or somethings thats different yet again. and are these chords just 'campfire chords' to be played at an easy pace, or do people generally use them in rock songs?
I played in a band 30 years ago and didn't know all the major 7th chords. And I'd have no idea what that fmin7dim is if you asked me to play it today
Now ill caveat that by saying I'm pretty rubbish, but the point is you can muddle through most songs and make then sound OK with the basic major and minor chords. If it was me I'd start by learning as many basic open chords as you can, plus the major and minor bar chord shapes, and take it from there
There are a good few YouTube vids along the lines of ‘These classic tunes all share the same four chords’ - which are great for learning as they’ll a) Give you a great sense of achievement and b) give you something to actually play when someone passes you a guitar at a party… A repertoire of Wild Thing,Summertime Blues, Blue Suede Shoes and Folsom Prison Blues will get you far 😊
I went to see the band Love on Wednesday. They of Alone Again Or, and saw their amazing guitarist Jonny Echols who is still wigging out and full of energy aged 79.
The rhythm guitarist & vocalist, who was excellent, just restricted himself to cowboy chords all night. Not a single barre chord, thumb coming into play from time to time, and if it was a tricky chord just stuck to the top 3 or 4 strings.
Nothing wrong with that, it all sounded great. And it's a useful lesson.
this is going to get me kicked out of guitar forums and clubs but i am actually planning on trading my 2 guitars for just 1 guitar (a cort G300 raw guitar). i know the more guitars the better 😀
i currently have a charvel san dimas sassafras hss floyd guitar and a prs se paul's guitar which are both lovely guitars i must say BUT i just don't get on with floyd roses and the prs doesn't have a trem.
also i just like the idea of just having one guitar that i just play all the time if that makes any sense.
i did actually have the twin model of the g300 (the g300 glam version) and it was a lovely guitar but i just really wanted the natual finish version and in a moment of depression/stupidity (as usual with me lol) i sold it not long after getting it.
i just like nude (naked finish) guitars and i cannot lie as someone once sang in a song somewhere.
On the subject of Cort guitars. I saw a Cort M600 in blue flame finish that looks amazing. Read a couple of on line reviews and seems all positive. Does anyone on here have any real world experience?
I had a Cort P/J bass once that played and sounded every bit as good as the Warwick I replaced it with. Cort is a bit like the Giant Bikes/Merida of the guitar world and they make guitars for many other companies - including PRS (and Fender, I think?) - they definitely know what they're doing, so if you like the look of one, it's probably going to hold up build-wise.
Leaning Scales. So after titting about on the guitar for almost 4 decades ive decided to actually learn something properly. Im mostly interested in rock so i'm thinking the blues scales up and down the neck (5 positions) would be the way to go. Starting with E. Is this just a case of memorising them through constant repetition? I also keep hearing positive stuff about the CAGED system, but that seems to be based on the major scale so i'm thinking that might just confuse me if i looked at both.
Thoughts??
i'm thinking the blues scales up and down the neck (5 positions) would be the way to go. Starting with E. Is this just a case of memorising them through constant repetition?
Thinking out loud..
If I don't constantly use scales (or tunes, or riff..) I forget them. So, every time I pick up my electric, which is fairly rare, and play some blues, I have to remind myself of the scale I'm planning to use. Whereas I'm happy with various scales on the mandolin and the various things I play on the acoustic, because I do that regularly. Learning all the scales would be an absolute waste of time for me because I'd rarely use most of them.
But, you aren't me and you might use them!
Learn the blues scales sure, what is more useful is to learn some blues “licks” and understand where they fit into the scale patterns.
see here….
https://www.justinguitar.com/guitar-lessons/5-blues-licks-from-pattern-1-bl-404
otherwise just playing your way up and down the patterns isn’t that useful
also worth remembering that changing the phrasing of a lick can make it so7nd totally different.
For rock you could start by learning all the minor pentatonic box shapes up the neck, this will give you some good ideas for linking them up and not just sticking to one box position. I learnt them by starting in E at the bottom and up to the 12th fret where it repeats. After a while you can start to add in extra notes for flavour, you'll start to get a feeling for what works and what doesn't. I prefer this over learning all the scales/modes - I did go through a phase of learning all the modes etc but it didn't stick..
I never bothered with CAGED either but sometimes think I should have given it a go. After 20+ years of playing I feel I might be too set in my ways now though and my "pentatonic with some extra notes" works well enough for me.
