Hi All,
Just a quick intro, a word of thanks and a question.
I'm a 44 year old Englishman living in the North East of Scotland. Married with a couple of kids and not a musical bone in my body. Not sure what possessed me to pick up a guitar a couple of months back, but I'm having fun with it. Started with a cheap Squier Strat and Marshall MG15 amp. Quickly discovered that I can't stand the sound of a plastic pick on metal strings so am sticking with my fingers for now. Didn't seem to do Mark Knopfler any harm!
I've recently picked up a budget acoustic. I'll probably go back to the electric eventually but the acoustic makes a nice noise and forces me to stop fiddling with amp settings and just focus on trying to play.
Not sure what my aims are yet. Not looking to make a career out of it, or even to play in a band although it could be fun to play along with other members of the family sometimes. I'd really just like to learn to play a variety of stuff that's pleasing to the ear, pick up a new skill, give my brain something a bit different to think about, use it to unwind at the end of the day and maybe learn a bit about how music is made.
Stumbled across this site a while back and I have to say that it's bloody marvellous. A real nice mix of theory and versions of songs that let you get into actually playing music you can enjoy.
My question is, whether there is any order in which I should work through the site. The easy song lessons seem to build on each other, but then there are all these other lessons and then the podcasts. So I'm confused as to where to start.
Cheers,
Andy
Welcome to GN Andy! 8)
"The only way I know that guarantees no mistakes is not to play and that's simply not an option". David Hodge
Welcome to GN. You never know what can happen after you've been playing for a while. New doors may be opened for you.
Welcome to GN!
just go with the flow bro, ymmv :wink:
#4491....
Hoot, mon! But can ye pleyyy uh haggis, matey??? :lol:
Cat
"Feel what you play...play what you feel!"
Thanks for the welcome. Being English I don't even know how to catch a haggis let alone play it :D
Still not sure on the best way to work through all the lessons on the site, but picking the odd one at random seems to be working OK.
Cheers,
Andy
Hi Andy
Sorry I missed your post until now...
And a belated welcome to Guitar Noise.
One of the odd things about this website is that it didn't start out to be a tutorial site. Just kind of grew into one. When I first started writing here (back in 1999), the object was to write about what people asked for or seemed interested in.
Because of this, we don't have a "lesson plan," and yes, we know that makes things a little difficult. Problem is, with over two million readers a month, it's hard to write for everyone's specific desires.
So knowing more about what you're looking for is the best way to help us help you. Just saying you "want to get good at guitar" is fine, but being more specific about your own goals (switching chords? learning more about chord voicing? fingerstyle? better practice habits?) will not only aid us in directing you to the lessons you might want, it will also help you by giving you measurable goals, which are vital to making good progress.
So, welcome again. And let us know where you're coming from and where, as specifically as you can, you want to go from here. Remember that the guitar is going to be a lifelong trip and you can always change your direction as you go along.
And you can always PM me or post a thread on the Beginners' page to get more ideas about where to go. Someone just posted about walking bass lines and ended up with a list of lessons to choose from.
Hope this helps and looking forward to seeing you on the boards.
Peace
Welcome to Guitar Noise, Andy! We look forward to seeing you around the forums! :D
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-:¦:- ((¸¸.·´ -:¦:- Elecktrablue -:¦:-
"Don't wanna ride no shootin' star. Just wanna play on the rhythm guitar." Emmylou Harris, "Rhythm Guitar" from "The Ballad of Sally Rose"
Hi,
Thanks again for the welcome. What are my goals? That's a fine question and I'm embarrassed to admit that I don't have a decent answer. Maybe a quick summary of the journey so far will help to shed some light on the matter. If I explain how I got here then maybe those who have trodden the path before me can tell me were I'm going :)
I'll gloss over the first 44 years other to say that I'm a science geek by profession and every bit as introvert and analytical as that moniker would suggest. Apart from a bit of recorder playing at school I've had no real exposure to playing music, but always admired people who could play an instrument. At the start of the year my wife decided to try and learn the fiddle and my daughter started recorder (and now fiddle) lessons. So, I figured I might as well join in the fun. As a child of the late 70s and early 80s UK punk/new-wave scene the guitar was a natural choice, so I picked up a cheap electric starter package and a cheap acoustic and am just having a bit of fun trying to play a few tunes and get my head around some of the theory.
I have no desire to perform (beyond the odd jamming session with the family). Also, despite my punk roots I've discovered that I have no desire to play distorted stuff e.g. 90% of electric guitar stuff on YouTube sounds horrible to me. I play mainly to relax and give the brain something different to work on. I'd like to make some pleasant noises, be able to knock out some recognizable songs and learn a bit about what makes music tick. With the exception of heavy rock/metal I'd quite like to explore all the other genres.
What I love about this site is the clear desire by the contributors to teach. Lot's of sites will show you how to play a song but this is the only one I've found that will show you how the song is put together, how it can be made more interesting and how you can mess about with it. There is also clearly a desire to take the reader on a journey so things build on each other. Working through the easy songs one at a time is probably a good a way as any to achieve what I want. But then there are the podcasts, which look like a teaching tool too and various other articles are tagged as lessons but don't seem to slot neatly into the other ones. That's no big deal through. If there is no structure that's just fine. It should indeed be a lifelong journey and I'm quite happy for it to be a random walk as well :)
Cheers,
Andy
