help !!!!!

Hi Screaminside,

There are quite a few band members on these boards. Hopefully they'll jump in after the weekend is over. I'll offer up some thoughts until then.

RE- Scales: It's argued that you know all the minor scales up and down the fret board in a certain pattern. If someone can't sing in Am and changes to Bm, you do know that you simply slide down a couple of frets. This also partially answers another jumping ahead to a later question for number of scales. It's all about the patterns. I learned the basic Am Pentatonic scale first. I know I can play that scale anywhere. I know a good, I dunno, 18 scales? No, I know one pattern. If I want to play a Bm pent, I just move everything down two frets. In reality, I know two patterns. A Major scale pattern and a Minor pent pattern.

RE - Band Joining: Let's say you are going to start a band. #1: What are some of the songs you want to play? #2: Can you play them? In order to even begin to answer if you're ready to join a band, you need to know what songs are being played and can you play them in the manner needed. I don't care about all the technical accomplishments and theory knowledge. If we're playing Song X, can you play song X? Even if not, can you learn song X (along with a couple dozen other songs) within a short time frame? When working with others, no matter what activity or job, you got to be able to perform or get out of the way.

As far as the teacher thing, why not? You know your budget and time constraints. Just remember to communicate exactly what you want to play on the guitar and a good teacher will help build the foundation from which to spring forward.

The only advice I have is to not be too focused on any one thing. When I decided to get "serious" about playing guitar a few years ago, someone here pointed out that I didn't know even one song beginning to end. Just bits and pieces to many. So, I started playing one guitar arrangements of many songs and found myself very limited with my skill-set. I've been learning lead, finger picking and other single note things mixed in to everything else now. Still way behind. There was a point, however, that I could play a few hundred songs in rhythm or single guitar arrangements, but was not even able do a simple arpeggio type song like House Of The Rising Sun or Everybody Hurts. I might be 3-4 years down one path, but am less than a year down far too many other paths.

Good luck with everything!

Having a good teacher is great. A good teacher is a good coach who will help you progress much faster. You need to fine a teacher who will understand your goals and help you reach them. Find one you'll feel comfortable working with.

If you can find other folks to play with too, do that. Playing with other people will help you become a much better player. So whether it's joining a band or just sitting in to play with some other folks, it's a great idea. You'll learn a lot that way too.

Ditto with rparker on the scales.

thanks you rparker and Musenfreund .. i understand what you said and i will work on what you said

thank you again

Good replies so far so I'll just add a bit. When playing with a band, timing is very important. You need to be able to keep your own time so things don't get out of whack. The drummer is the most solid key here and you need to be able to follow along with him. When practicing alone, you can use a metronome to help with your timing. A good band is one that is very tight with each other. If the drummer has bad timing to begin with, then there will be more problems to follow:)

As aleady stated, patterns are the easy(ier) way to learn your scales, as you probably already found out. Once you get these patterns down, then you just move them around the fingerboard to be in what key you need to be in. The internet is a great resource for these patterns. A good teacher will be able to help in many ways.