Hello All (Newbie Here)

Scholar, on behalf of the residents, welcome!

Most of the people do start off by learning open chords, particularly C, G, Em, D etc. They are supposed to be "easy". However, they werent easy for me. It took me a good while before I was able to stretch my fingers to form a G and even longer to smoothly and quickly switch between them.

Welcome from me too Scholar. :)

Some great advice from GoodVicHunting and others above.

I was very interested to see his comments above about playing a G chord. My first thought "G! How can G be hard.." but of course it WAS for me too, and when I started out about a year ago forming G felt just like he describes. I'd just forgotten, that's all.

And that's a point worth remembering. All guitar books, etc are written by people with experience and knowledge. Usually this means they've been playing for years, and can no longer remember exactly how hard it was when they began. I've often mastered one page of a book, turned to the next and thought "WHAT! How the heck am I supposed to do THAT!" Nothing much for the guy writing - but a mountainous step for me!

Sometimes it can be a few minutes worth of practice between one page and the next, and sometimes it can be weeks or even months, or it may even be a style or technique that you end up avoiding altogether.

And you can learn in a variety of orders too. The first book I bought began with reading music and playing simple melodies, note by note. Others start with chords.

If you can keep that 2 hours up - you'll accelerate past most new players at a very rapid rate! Just don't expect it all to click in the first few weeks.

Best of luck.

Hi Scholar, and welcome to GN.

You have already made a great start with your guitar playing just by joining this fantastic site, all the members here are very very helpfull and I have never read anyone putting another member down, so don't get stuck ask questions!

One question for you, how with two young kids, do you find two hours a day for practice??

Hey Scholar and WELCOME.

The people here are just wonderful. Really!

I too just recently started, at the age o 37, now 38. Ditto to all the above and if I may emphasis one thing errr maybe two....?

Dude.. Practice, practice, practice, practice... ad nauseaum. Think about how many golf balls Tiger had to hit before he could bend the ball right and/or left on command?

When your starting out.. Always, always, always do your warm up drills. If you don't have any yet, I'll be happy to share some of mine with you. I find it helps so much more in the long run to get warmed up before I really Practice, but for now the warm-ups WILL be practice for you.

The second thing, Play S-L-O-W-L-Y at first. Then when you get it right, speed it up a little bit, then a lil more. Like my guitar teacher always says..." Its better to play is slow and right than wrong and fast... and don't worry about the audience, they'll just think its a "Blues/Jazz" version." (Speaking of the audience in our heads, cuz we all have one right?)

Keep at it, let your fingers be sore for a few days it does get better.

And again, welcome.

In the beginning everything is hard. G and C were horrible initially. Then F became the worst thing ever. Then it became chords like Dm9. Etc. What is now hard will be easy tomorrow, what is impossible now will be easy in a week. Keep on plucking and have fun!

Hi Scholar, and welcome to GN.

You have already made a great start with your guitar playing just by joining this fantastic site, all the members here are very very helpfull and I have never read anyone putting another member down, so don't get stuck ask questions!

One question for you, how with two young kids, do you find two hours a day for practice??

well I used to be in the NAVY so im a early bird. my Kids are (8&6) summer break so they wont wake till 10:30am i get up at 6am so i just do it as soon as i can.

Where were you stationed?

Where were you stationed?

Sunny MayPort,FL

Very cool :)

It had to be better than the weapons station in SC

Well I was on the USS J.F.K...lol it was like being in the Ghetto on that bad boy. it was all run down...lol good times gooooood times,but on a musical note(yes pun) so after i get the transition of the 3 chords i mentioned,then should i work on scales? or learn a song?

Both! Get your progression, fiddle with a few songs and do your scales, and dont forget to learn more chords. With a couple of hours a day, it's best to break it up a lot imo. Make sure whatever you're doing keeps you motivated (which for me was always playing something that sounded vaguely of music).

Once you get your scales down, get a backing track of some sort. Fiddle with the scales. I believe I got a basic 12 bar blues track from this website somewhere, and the blues scale always sounded best to me when I was playing around.

There are many different paths to learning the guitar. If you dont get something, put it down and come back to it. If you get through these chords but cant get through your scales, put it down while you learn a few more chord progressions. Learn what other chords go with a particular scale. Do whatever feels right.

Hi and Welcome aboard matey,
One thing I didn't notice anyone mention is watch your right arm especially, you want to be sure you are keeping your arm AND wrist relaxed. There is nothing that will fustrate you in regards to strumming faster than trying to do it with your arm stiff.
Since you are practicing for 2 hours, I personally would break it up a bit, maybe 20 minutes on chords you know, then 20 on scales, then 20 on learning 1 or 2 new chord shapes.
From there you can spend 30 minutes working out a song you like or better yet one you know in your sleep (this land is your land) can be played with the 3 chords you know and everyone knows what it sounds like.

hello

i've been playing for almost a year, unfortunately no more than five or six hours a week when I'm lucky. I've never taken any lesson so my only knowledge comes from internet (by the way Guitar noise is the best site I've found) and recently I bought a book with a cd. It is by a French guitarist and I have to say it very well written and really focused to the beginners because it helps you play folk, pop, country, blues etc. (I don't think it is available in english, in any case you could check their site http://www.mega-muse.com ).

Having said so, I can tell you that I quicky learned the first chords (barre chords are way harder but now I'm starting to play some of them): my best advice is to really focus you on bulding some solid rhythmic foundations to your playing. It is uneseful to know a lot of chords and scales if you can't play steadily the easiest rhtymic pattern (like a friend of mine!!!).

I use to praticse new patterns playing some of my favourite chord progressions (like C-G-A-D or C-G-Am_Em) or also try to apply them to a couple of songs which I know well.

I can tell you that in the last two months I feel I'm improving but for at least the first five or six months I was quite frustrated

So another tip: don't discourage!

Good luck!

Matteo

Kids that sleep till 10:30! Oh heaven, my youngest munchkin is normally up at around 7 :?

Kids that sleep till 10:30! Oh heaven, my youngest munchkin is normally up at around 7 :?

It wont be long school starts on the 22nd of this month.

Hey Scholar,

Welcome to the forum. Lot's of great advice and people on this forum, so don't be shy to ask anything.

I ditto on what Arjen said, the G and C chord was my two hardest chords to learn. I still have major problems with the F chord barred or unbarred.

However it's getting better each time I pratice. Just do what the book says and you'll keep on track.

My only advice is that you keep your thumb in the middle of the neck and not have it hang over the top of the neck (which I do and boy is it a bad habit to break), when you playing chords. Especially for the G and C chords.

Kenny