So I'm trying to learn guitar.....
 

And boy do my fingers hurt :D

No really, I am a drummer but I thought I would really like to learn guitar (I have 3) even at my advanced age. :P

I found out something REALLY cool, reading a Mac article on the latest Garage Band which I have and never use, it's got full teaching in it that is done the best I have seen.

The totally cool feature is you can download artists songs for a fee, and the artist will teach you their song! Sting is going to teach me Roxanne for $6.50, Then I'm going to learn Black coffee in bed by squeeze, then maybe some Proud Mary.

They have guitar and piano, so you could get Nora Jones to teach you Thinking about you.

Now if I could only get these meat hook sausages to curve and bend the way I want...is it possible my fingers are too fat for guitar? :D

Anyway if you have Garage band 11 check it out.


Bob

You can do it. Just look at this guys fingers.
YouTube - Redd Volkaert & Bill Kirchen (Twangbangers) - "TUBE'N"

I played keys in my early musical life, gave it up for about 25 years, picked up a strat in '09 and have been playing almost every day since. There are a lot of ways to learn these days. There's some good stuff online and some good YouTube lessons. There are also some really bad 8 year old kids with a kit in the box guitar that think they are ready to post You Tube lessons that really suck.

My daughter bought a bass guitar and is learning from a book and dvd for now. I've discovered that I really like bass, maybe more than guitar. Funny thing is that I am playing my daughter's Squire Jazz bass. She's a righty and I'm a southpaw. Playing upside-down really sucks, so I guess I will have to find a lefty. That said, bass came naturally. My next challenge will be relearning a lot on a lefty bass that is properly strung for me.

What's garage band? I found Justin guitar dot com really good and donations only

Garage Band is a Macintosh application that's in the iLife package of products (it may just come in the OS install, but I'm not sure.

I just downloaded a bunch more content and I'm really surprised, it goes into 12 bar blues, classic riffs, etc.

Took me all night, but I think I've got the intro to Roxanne (Stings' a great teacher :D ), now on to the next lesson.

Downloading does take forever as some of the lessons are bigger than 1.5 G

Man, the new players have it so much easier than it used to be. I remember when TAB books were very hard to come by, no Youtube, no Internet, no iPods and no CD's. Back then it was all by ear. Play, pause, rewind, play and repeat. It was a lot more difficult and you often got it wrong. But it made your ears very sharp. I was playing plenty of Van Halen and Rush songs wrong until I had good seats at a concert and saw up close how they did it right. Now I just go to Youtube and find the guy with the most views and compliments and figure he has it right.

Yeah well, if it's so easy how come I'm still so bad at it?

Oh that's right, no talent. Never mind.

Well, it does take a lot of practice. But the main thing is to practice the right things and to not develop bad habits. Unlearning bad habits and techniques is harder than doing it right the first time.

One of the best ears I've ever known was the guy who played drums in my college band. He was a horrible guitar player, but when I couldn't figure something out by ear, I put him on it and he could do it. He could never play it correctly on a guitar, but I could figure it out from there, once he showed me how he stumbled around it.

A lot of DIY guitar learners practice inefficient motion, sort of like slapping the water when you swim. You have to learn all the tricks like double picking, sweep picking, palm muting, muting strings you're not playing, vibrato, pick harmonics, angle of attack, strumming near the bridge or near the neck and many, many more. Just knowing the notes and even the groove of the song is only half the battle.

And how long do good calluses (sp?) take to build up?

Just for you Rick I am going to download Working Man, Tom Sawyer, and The Spirit of the Radio and let Alex teach them to me himself :D

a good long while. ymmv

If you're a noob, calluses take about six mos. I have them on all my fingers and, after so many years, they're just about permanent.

I'm learning too, I've been following the lessons on justinguitar.com. Has videos, good to know stuff about guitars, tuning, etc.

My son started playing a few months ago and just got a cool little Fender amp that plugs into the computer and can be used with Garageband etc. Looks like fun and I am thinking about taking a crack at it myself! I played piano as a kid but have been away from any sort of instruments since.

My worry is that my hands/fingers are a bit weak and painful sometimes including a touch of arthritis in the thumbs. 30 years of heavy daily computer use will do that. Will guitar (or piano) help or just expedite the damage?

My main problem exactly...

Bob,
Take your guitar to a guitar tech and have it setup. This makes a huge difference and will make it easier to play the guitar. The string height, fretboard, bridge, tension rod, etc... all may need to be adjusted. I'm a drummer, too and I just had my son's guitars setup and it made a huge difference!

Thanks yes I had my Kramer V setup by a local store but I still need to take in my Hammer to have it done, it sounds like crap.

I'm switching between acoustic and the V right now so it's not the guitars that sound bad :D

Man my fingers hurt.... :D

Find a buddy who can show you how to set it up yourself. I found a pro who let me watch it once and, though I was very thankful to him, I never had to take a guitar to a pro again. It's not that hard to DIY and, when you really have it down, it gives you a little more understanding of how it all comes together. What I could never figure out is how some of these guys can tune a single string the middle of a song. I remember seeing Yngwie in a club long ago and, as he uses vintage Strats and beats the hell out of them, they're always going out of tune. It was amazing to watch him just shredding some solo and then reach up and turn a tuning peg in a fraction of a second and come right back in.

Thanks for tip Bob. I had no idea Garage Band had this.

Wow just found this thread and opened garage band and there it was.... I know I'll never be great, but even mediocre impresses the ladies.... :D

It's the same way you get to Carnagie Hall: Practice, son, practice. Don't overdo it. Pretty quick you'll have calluses on the fingertips you're using to fret the guitar. When that happens, it'll get a lot less unconfortable.

And if you're playing electric, so many of which use really light strings, so much the better.

But I'm not so sure about learning songs. I should think you'd want to learn chords first. Just depends where you want to go, I guess.

When I was in middle school I was learning in the classical method. I mean reading music and the whole nine yards. I lost interest and quit, but I still have a few classical guitars around from that, and my mom plays some too. So right now I have a nylon stringed classical in my lap. At the house I have an electric, a few more nylon strings, and a steel stringed acoustic electric.....

I've got my pick.. I may get the chord to plug the electric into my MBP and bring it over...

Bob,

Go to Youtube and get a load of the thirteen Evergreens created by yours truly Resident Fluffer (Dr Fluffers Blues). That will teach you something about basic guitar playing as well as what no sane man would display on Youtube. :D

What's the best way to buy a guitar? I took lessons many moons ago - the teacher picked on out for me. It's been long gone. A friend left one here about 6 months ago and I've been plinking around on it, but it went away last month. I want to keep it up, but I've never bought one of my own. I want a basic, blues/follk acoustic. What brands and markets (eBay, CR, the local music store) should I look for?

Good thread. I started to learn this June. I too was sucked in via Garage Band. The basic lessons are good, but unfortunately I don't think there is any plan to update them, or worse yet, the artist lessons.

I've since gotten a teacher. I think you can do very well DIY now, but since I'm older, and feel like I have less time to spare, I decided to go "pro" and I'm very happy with my choice. Better to invest in instruction than lots-o-gear.

I found that I got sufficient callouses in about 2 weeks or so (at least to the point that I could practice w/o serious discomfort).

I started by barrowing my brother's electric. I've since gotten an acoustic, as it's easier to pick up and play at a moment's notice, and that is what my first instructor taught with. I have a telecaster on order though (slippery slope like everything else).


FWIW, I got a Taylor "Big Baby". It's a hair smaller than a standard guitar, and a significantly thinner body, making it easier to hold, and more electric-guitar like. I got mine at Guitar Center for $450. You can hold out for one of their sales, and probably do better by 10 - 15%.

My guess is find something that is comfortable to play, and made by a reasonably reputable brand, and you'll have something that will take you far. Both of my instructors were unfamiliar with my guitar, but were really impressed when they played it.

Yeah this is very true. Click, rewind, play, click, rewind, play. And cassettes were a godsend over needles and vinyl......

And consequently we have a generation of players who cant tune their instruments without an electronic box, let alone actually read music.

Someone taught me a trick to build callouses many years ago. Its probably not healthy for you but it does work:
Dip a Q-tip in turpentine and swab your fingertips and let it dry. Do this over and over when you are not playing (or eating finger-food :rolleyes:). It speeds up the callouses.

That said, it doesn't help make you a better player so you still need to practice!

I've never used anything but my A-440 tuning fork.

I hadn't played much in the last year. And then my buddies in Pittsburgh, who have a Rush tribute band, asked me to sit in on one song with them. It's a 9 minute song and takes some effort. So I immediately started playing again a few hours a night. My calluses were just about gone. I played hard for three nights, went on a business trip for three days and, when I got back home, my fingers were back. I've been playing at least three hours a day now and my hand strength has really come back too. Less than a week to go before the big night. Now they want me to play 12 songs, so I'm busy relearning everything.

Great tip about Garage Band didn't know. My 12yo daughter wants to play so that will work great.

Make sure you hang on to that- very collectable. -)

Hmm. How to buy a guitar. Not easy.

First of all, what kind of guitar? Acoustic or electric? If electric, what kind of tone you looking for? Tele? Strat? Paul? I'd go to Elderly.com, look in their used/vintage section, see if there's anything there that fills your needs. This is a great company to do business with. They'll let you try an instrument for three days - and they'll take the time to talk you through a preliminary decision on the phone, playing and commenting on the instruments you're interested in, while you're on the line with them. If you decide to try one, you can - if you don't like it, send it back. No harm done.

But if acoustic, much more complicated. What kind of music? Who are your guitar heros? What kind of playing - finger or straightpick? (Lotta finger players like Taylors, for instance; folkies and bluegrass people - that would be me - pretty much stick with Martins, though there are other terrific options - Santa Cruz, Bourgeois, Froggy Bottom and more.) What's your budget? The good ones, the ones that are beautiful to look at, feel good in one's hands and sound great are not inexpensive.

Most important, don't buy an acoustic over the web. They're all different, even if they were built side by side on the same bench. Here in SoCal we're blessed with a couple of places that have big stocks in hand - California Guitars in Van Nuys, Norm's Rare Guitars in Encino and Buffalo Brothers down outside of San Diego come to mind - so does McCabe's in Santa Monica, of course. And up in Palo Alto there's Gryphon Instruments, in Santa Cruz there's Sylvan Music. Lots of cool places, all of 'em gots websites, too.

Electric or acoustic, you really have to find one that speaks to you. Easier with electric, but worth taking the time to do right, I think.

And one more thing - going with really light strings will help you learn more painlessly. I keep lights on all my guitars all the time - less tension trying to pull the things apart.

Don't forget about Fretted Americana.. Not as public as the rest, but a good place to for high end used guitars.

LOL. I wondered what you were talking about and then I saw it...Oops...A-440.