Mega Music Talent

Posts Tagged ‘learn to play the guitar’

So, guitar playing is for you and you want to buy your first instrument and play cool and hip music with it all day long? But what do you do first? Which guitar is best for you? Acoustic guitar or electric? These are just some of the questions guitar beginners need to answer, even before you learn a single riff or chord progression.

Learning guitar can be a little frustrating at times, especially if you are a complete beginner guitarist.

A lot of beginner guitar players buy their first guitar after drooling over guitars on a guitar website or leafing through guitar magazines for months or even years, imagining themselves as a pop star recording their newest album…

No other musical instrument stirrs such strong levels of passion and emotion quite like the guitar, or inspires guitar beginners to fantasize about creating cool tunes for the masses. However, fantasizing alone is not enough to get a ‘real-life’ guitar to sing out in tune. Dedication, hard work and a lot of practise is also needed as well, and during all this effort, it is all too easy to become disheartened and lose sight of the passion and enthusiasm which made you want take guitar lessons in the first place.

Folks turning to the guitar for the first time have never had it so good when it comes to taking the plunge and acquiring their first guitar. With the advent of modern hi-tech manufacturing processes and an ever increasing sales force competing for your money, the price of starter guitars has free-falled in recent years.

Don’t forget though, the old saying “let the buyer beware’ still rings true when purchasing your first guitar. Do not let the avid sale person persuade you into buying a guitar that is neither suitable nor right for the sound and style of guitar music you wish to play. It is no good buying an electric bass guitar if you want to play folk songs around a camp fire!

The first thing you should do is decide in advance what sort of acoustic guitar or electric guitar you want to buy and don’t forget to set a price for your purchase and seek sound advice from a knowledgeable guitar player before going to your local guitar store. A great idea would be to take along your own expert with you when you visit a guitar store… At least they will tell you like it is, without fear of losing their commission!

Your choice of guitar is quite bewildering in ‘guitar land’ and at a wide range of prices too. If you are a person who wants to pick up the guitar and play, no matter where you are, then an acoustic guitar is the choice for you. No messing around with speakers and amplifiers. The cheapest acoustic guitar types tend to be nylon stringed ‘classical’ guitars but these tend to lack powerful tones needed for most pop and rock songs. For this you will probably need a steel strung ‘flat top’ guitar which tend to be slightly more expensive, but are great for finger-picking and fast strumming work.

If you would like to become a ‘rock god’ then there is no substitute for an electric guitar. The musical impact of playing an electric guitar will be with you forever, but to experience it you will need to buy and amplifier, a speaker, and be powered up… In reality though there is no difference in the way you learn to play an electric guitar from that of an acoustic guitar except that electric guitars tend to be a little heavier, but there is no massive difference in the amount of physical strength needed to master the guitar.

So when it is time to make your choice between acoustic and electric, the only deciding factor should be your own musical preferences and the practical requirements of each type of guitar.

Learning and playing the guitar can be great fun. If you want more cool information on the guitar and how to play it come and visit our dedicated guitar pages…

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Like for many who aspire to learn to play the guitar, my quest at proficiency has taken many twists and turns. I have considered taking formal classes at $30 an hour. While this method appears to be the best, it is expensive and requires a long commitment. In addition, due to my busy schedule I found it impossible to commit to a set schedule. I purchased the latest books, videos, and online software. By using each of these different delivery methods I learned a bit, and am able to play many basic tunes on the guitar. The purpose of this article is to share my thoughts on the benefits and drawbacks of each method mentioned above. These opinions are based on my experiences and frustrations in my journey to learn to play guitar. So lets get started!

My love affair with the guitar started about 12 to 15 years ago. I was listening to B.B King and was entranced by the sounds coming out of Lucille. I knew that I would love nothing more than to sit back at home and play those awesome songs all night! I thought it would be pretty cool to play some sick blues for a few of my friends at my very frequent (and often drunken!) parties. So I started to look for information on how to learn to play guitar. The Internet was not quite so replete with information as it is today (and I did not have a PC at my disposal) so I went to the bookstore and bought a few books. These books gave a pretty good basic history of the guitar and a cursory introduction into music theory. When it came to learning how to play, problems occurred from the start.

The first issue was tuning the guitar! The instructions were to use a piano for tuning. I did not have one and I suspect not many people do today. The tuning fork was a pain and I suspect that my first few months of learning were done with an out of tune guitar. The next issue was hand and finger position. Six lines, frets and black dots are a poor way to show you how to place your fingers. Even if you have no problem with this, the dynamic nature of playing guitar is difficult to illustrate on paper. The next issue was reading the music. It was presented in a cumbersome and very boring manner. How did I know that I was playing the notes right? The big issue with the book method for me was a lack of visual step-by-step instructions that showed me how the fingers worked in unison, and how the notes (and songs) were supposed to sound. In later years, books on how to learn to play guitar came with CDs. This was a tremendous improvement and help. Tuning was much easier, and I could listen to what the songs I was learning were supposed to sound like. But many of the problems remained. I feel that books are not the best delivery method for learning to play guitar.

Next came the videos. This media was leaps and bounds better than the books I had purchased. I could see and hear what the instructor was teaching. Tuning was even easier than before. Video close ups shed light on many of my previous questions on hand position and the dynamic nature of guitar playing. I was able to copy the instructor and actually play some cool tunes. I used the rewind function hundreds of times to reproduce something I had missed or was having troubles with. There were some very painful limitations to this method though. The first was boredom. You can only rewind the same tape to watch the same thing so many times. After that you lose interest. The next problem was that you really only learned to play whatever songs are on the 60 min tape. You were never (or at least not very well) given the tools to play other songs. This was quite limiting for me. The last issue was the actual camera angles of the videos. The shots were often too far or at wrong angles for you to see exactly what the instructor was doing. This was frustrating for me.

So we get to my favorite method: Online software! Today’s Internet gives us the ability to download full courses that allow you to learn to play guitar in the comfort of your home. Some of these courses are multimedia instructions that allow you to use technology to maximum effect. One such course is Jamorama. This course teaches the user TAB, and how to play songs by ear. It takes advantage of the thousands of TAB songs available for free on the Internet. The price is close to what you would pay for one hour of instruction, or what you would pay for 2 good books on learning to play guitar. This course overcomes the shortcoming of books and videos because it is dynamic. There are games that teach you to learn the tedious and boring tasks of reading and transcribing music. There are over 148 videos that show you step-by-step how to play songs. One of the more interesting things about Jamorama is that it also has 26 tracks that you play along with. In fact, you can turn off the guitar track and play along with drummer and bassist. This is a vast improvement over the other methods. The main benefit with this method, and with this course in particular is that it is more interactive!

So what are the downfalls? Because these methods are made to appeal to a large audience with many different musical style interests, there are a lot of songs that just don’t appeal to me. I personally have no interest in Nirvana, Van Halen or a multitude of Bands/singers that always appear on these types of courses. Much of the content is just not interesting and therefore some of the wealth of information that is offered is often wasted. I still believe that online software is the best way to go to learn to play guitar. The interactive benefits are excellent. This is also a very convenient way to learn!

Author Bio: Learn to play guitar online like the pros. Visit my Jamorama Review to find out how you can be playing real songs in no time!