***The Official Guitar Thread***

Soldato
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You can get strings that are still meant for an acoustic but are "lighter"... like the D'addario phosphor bronzes - they're 12s but they're more comfortable to play (and bend etc) than regular acoustic strings
 
Caporegime
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Don't do this, while it's all true you should get the type of guitar you want to play be it accoustic or electric.

My number one piece of advice would be get some lessons from a good teacher I mucked about for years but have found it much easier to progress and learn from someone. Internet lessons won't give you individual feedback and guidance everyone has different challenges. Plus the weekly lesson has made me knuckle down and practice properly otherwise there is no point going!

I disagree, I am self taught and not had a lesson in my life for all the instruments I play. I'm not knocking lessons but the fact is you get the easiest instrument play as a beginner and get a chord book.

The body of an electric is smaller, and easier to play. ( forget the long timers here have have forgotten what being a complete beginner is like)

You can then move onto an acoustic anytime you like. Why limit yourself?

The key to learning guitar is playing it. All the time...Not just an hour a week.

I slept with mine, pooped with mine and it never left my side for 3 years when I started playing when I was 15.

If you have a job, play in your dinner hour...If you watch TV just have the guitar in your hands...Get comfortable with it...Make it your friend....even if you only know 3 chords.

Its like anything in life...If you really want it...you will learn....Learning wont be a chore...and if it is....in the word of Eric Clapton. "Guitar is not for you"

You have to want it so bad that if you walk past a guitar and feel its a drag to pick up....go do something else.
 
Caporegime
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Soldato
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I disagree, I am self taught and not had a lesson in my life for all the instruments I play. I'm not knocking lessons but the fact is you get the easiest instrument play as a beginner and get a chord book.

The body of an electric is smaller, and easier to play. ( forget the long timers here have have forgotten what being a complete beginner is like)

You can then move onto an acoustic anytime you like. Why limit yourself?

The key to learning guitar is playing it. All the time...Not just an hour a week.

I slept with mine, pooped with mine and it never left my side for 3 years when I started playing when I was 15.

If you have a job, play in your dinner hour...If you watch TV just have the guitar in your hands...Get comfortable with it...Make it your friend....even if you only know 3 chords.

Its like anything in life...If you really want it...you will learn....Learning wont be a chore...and if it is....in the word of Eric Clapton. "Guitar is not for you"

You have to want it so bad that if you walk past a guitar and feel its a drag to pick up....go do something else.
I still disagree if the music you want to play is electric then choose an electric if the music you want to play is accoustic choose an accoustic like you say the key to learning is enjoying it and you're more likely to enjoy it if you're making the sound you want to!

Lessons v's self taught I guess is down to the individual we all learn differently some like a Haynes manual others like a mate to guide them! after years of learning by myself I have found have a teacher has helped me develop far quicker his experience and knowledge helps me correct things I'm doing badly etc even when I don't realise I'm doing them badly!
 
Man of Honour
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I still disagree if the music you want to play is electric then choose an electric if the music you want to play is accoustic choose an accoustic like you say the key to learning is enjoying it and you're more likely to enjoy it if you're making the sound you want to!

Lessons v's self taught I guess is down to the individual we all learn differently some like a Haynes manual others like a mate to guide them! after years of learning by myself I have found have a teacher has helped me develop far quicker his experience and knowledge helps me correct things I'm doing badly etc even when I don't realise I'm doing them badly!

After 48 years experience this is what I was going to write and it is possible to get a great playing acoustic (like mine).
I've been self taught on all the main instruments which over the last 5 years has proved to be a drawback with different musicians I've been involved with.
Last week my manager showed me a video of her 7 year old playing piano after 3 months - I was stunned into silence realising what I've missed out on however I play with 3 bands on keyboards/guitar but wish my level was higher.
 
Caporegime
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After 48 years experience this is what I was going to write and it is possible to get a great playing acoustic (like mine).
I've been self taught on all the main instruments which over the last 5 years has proved to be a drawback with different musicians I've been involved with.
Last week my manager showed me a video of her 7 year old playing piano after 3 months - I was stunned into silence realising what I've missed out on however I play with 3 bands on keyboards/guitar but wish my level was higher.

I’m not saying you can’t get an acoustic guitar that’s great to play. I’m saying it’s harder for a beginner.

Even reaching higher up the neck becomes harder when learning scales etc....

I also learnt on an electric and rarely plugged it into an amp...so I didn’t get obsessed with sound but just wanted to practice technique.

Why wouldn't you get a teacher if you can afford to? You would be shown things, learn things at a rate that someone is more experience can teach you, show you how to avoid traps and mistakes. Someone has already made the mistake, you don't need to make them and then unlearn it.

In my experience the people who I have met that have had lessons....sound like everyone else....it’s important to find your own voice and style...

Also people who do lessons tend to practice less in my experience...better to play your way for 8 hours a day rather than a teachers way for one hour a day...

I play this odd rhythm and I showed it to a bonafide guitar teacher...and he basically said...I wouldn’t know where to start teaching it....although he loved it...

My brother in law had lessons....he has been in numerous bands but at BBQs he’s a boring guitar player...as his playing is playing by numbers....have a jam and he goes to pieces when improvising....and he still plays streets of London like he did when he was taught it...

My version blows it away :p my version has uniqueness. :D
 
Man of Honour
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In my experience the people who I have met that have had lessons....sound like everyone else....it’s important to find your own voice and style...

Also people who do lessons tend to practice less in my experience...better to play your way for 8 hours a day rather than a teachers way for one hour a day...

I play this odd rhythm and I showed it to a bonafide guitar teacher...and he basically said...I wouldn’t know where to start teaching it....although he loved it...

My brother in law had lessons....he has been in numerous bands but at BBQs he’s a boring guitar player...as his playing is playing by numbers....have a jam and he goes to pieces when improvising....and he still plays streets of London like he did when he was taught it...

My version blows it away :p my version has uniqueness. :D


and this is why you need a bit of both, like I say, I wish I had proper lessons 5 decades ago because I know I'd be way better now.
 
Soldato
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It's a fun debate and the real truth is there is no correct answer everyone learns differently and some will go onto be great guitarists either way while others will not. The key for me has always been enjoyment hence my saying you should get the guitar that lets you sound like what you want to play.
 
Caporegime
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It's a fun debate and the real truth is there is no correct answer everyone learns differently and some will go onto be great guitarists either way while others will not. The key for me has always been enjoyment hence my saying you should get the guitar that lets you sound like what you want to play.


I don't even think sound is important when you are starting off....Buzzy Barre chords, rattles bum notes....all these are part of the learning curve.

Playing a barre chord is easier 99% of the time on a nicely setup electric for example...Easier not to buzz..less pressure on the hands so results easier to obatin leading towards the feeling of "not giving up"
 
Soldato
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I don't even think sound is important when you are starting off....Buzzy Barre chords, rattles bum notes....all these are part of the learning curve.

Playing a barre chord is easier 99% of the time on a nicely setup electric for example...Easier not to buzz..less pressure on the hands so results easier to obatin leading towards the feeling of "not giving up"
I still can't agree I play accoustic almost all the time and always have because the music I want to play is accoustic. I've always learn't songs rather than techniques so things like barre chords just came up as the songs I wanted to play needed them. I think people are much more likely stick guitar if they can sound like the songs that inspired them to play! The old argument always comes used to be learn on accoustic as it will toughen you up and make you a better player and I used to say that was dumb because if you wanted to play electric then accoustic was never going to satisfy. Now everyone seems to have gone the other way with everyone saying play electric it's easier reality is there is no right or wrong answer play the guitar that makes you happy and enjoy it as you will much more likely progress that way!
 
Caporegime
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I still can't agree I play accoustic almost all the time and always have because the music I want to play is accoustic. I've always learn't songs rather than techniques so things like barre chords just came up as the songs I wanted to play needed them. I think people are much more likely stick guitar if they can sound like the songs that inspired them to play! The old argument always comes used to be learn on accoustic as it will toughen you up and make you a better player and I used to say that was dumb because if you wanted to play electric then accoustic was never going to satisfy. Now everyone seems to have gone the other way with everyone saying play electric it's easier reality is there is no right or wrong answer play the guitar that makes you happy and enjoy it as you will much more likely progress that way!

What songs inspired you to play ?
 
Soldato
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I do agree with the above... I know I said before I was completely self-taught but technically I did have lessons for about 2 months right when I very first started - having expressed an interest in playing guitar my parents bought me a classical guitar and signed me up for some lessons at school (I must have been about 13 at the time)... I went along excited to learn but whilst I wanted to know how to play songs by Nirvana, Guns N Roses etc. I was disappointed that in the lessons we were starting out with super basic open chords and learning songs like House of the Rising Sun, Satisfaction, and other typical simple acoustic fare (not bad songs by any means, but not what I wanted) and some very basic introduction to playing the major scale but in a very very "how to pass musical grades" kind of way (hand position and technique must be perfect and so on)...

Suffice to say after persevering for those first few months I stopped the lessons, got a Nirvana tab book (no internet back then) and fumbled my way through that. My parents spotted a cheap "Encore" strat clone in the freeads and got it for me along with a cheap little Roland 10W amp and I went from there. That was almost 20 years ago now and I would say I'm a competent, intermediate level sort of player - I have most techniques down (bending to correct pitch, vibrato, vibrato on bends, all the legato stuff, a reasonable grasp of phrasing/dynamics) and can improvise fairly well... where I think the biggest gaps in my ability are though (that proper electric lessons would have helped with) are in all of the theory stuff - I'm happy improvising blues or pentatonic stuff, and various embellishments or additional notes I can include over certain things where I'm more familiar, but have only really recently started digging a bit deeper into understanding chord construction, modes, interval theory etc.

But maybe if I'd started out with an electric, and with lessons which were focused on the sort of music I wanted to play, things would have been very different!
 
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I don't suppose Clapton, Page, Hendrix, Vaughn, BB King or Beck had a guitar lesson in their lives.



Although in my case being taught some music theory would have been helpful, listening to records and slavishly copying solos and riffs
note for note is fine for showing off as a party piece, but I would like my rhythm chordwork to be less Status Quo and more Django Reinhardt.
 
Soldato
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What songs inspired you to play ?
I got my first guitar after buying vertical horizons running on ice album but it's more than that I' e always been drawn to accoustic music and usually prefer accoustic versions of electric songs think peak jams alive! When I got my first decent separates kit the album I used to pick the components was nirvanas MTV unplugged!
 
Soldato
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I've got a Laney Iron Heart Studio rack amp arriving tomorrow. :D Can't wait, looks so good!

I'm going to have a rack mount set up on my desk, so I can record to my pc. going to get serious about guitaring after Xmas! (only taken me 25 years!)
 
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