The Top 40 Common Newbie Guitarist Mistakes

Because of this thread, I snapped a cellphone pic of David just before a recent gig (Kathy R's at the Monterey General Store):

Warning: It's a gift from Kathy R and he's quite proud of it.

Vai's 10 hour work out can destroy a life. Too bad it can't teach you how to play guitar. :(

It is, however, a very useful collection of finger exercises. I have a printout for those times when I want to do something "different" for a warm up, I'll flip to some random page and start playing.

Warning: It's a gift from Kathy R and he's quite proud of it.

As well he should be!!!!!!

I don't think a newbie can make a mistake. What do they know? Everything is new to them. Sure, when I walk into Guitar Center and hear kids playing the riff from Enter Sandman over and over with a highly out of tune guitar through a horrible sounding modeling amp I want to smash the guitar like John Belushi did in Animal House. :D

But hey, they are a beginner. They have to start somewhere, we all did. In time they will discover that there are actually chords with three notes or more that sound much prettier than those two note "5" chords. And they might even discover that guitar sounds pretty good with the gain turned down or even clean. :shock:

Most beginners cannot even tell if their guitar is out of tune. But the more you play the more your ear develops. After awhile you hear it right away. It is all part of the process.

I think players should be open to all types of music, but who am I to tell others what to play?? Some Punk players play power chords forever and are completely happy. More power to them.

I think the only mistake a beginner can make it to think that guitar will be easy and that they will get good quick. You may get good quick if you practice 16 hours a day, but it is never easy.

I'd disagree, Wes. Most beginners do things that are "comfortable" (I know I did) that end up being at odds with what gives you the best performance ability. You have to go back and re-learn things the right way. Call it a blind alley if you want... but they're habits that you'll either need to break eventually, or they'll limit your ability.

A lot of what I do in teaching beginners is coaching on those little things - fretting strings with the flats of the fingers, letting the neck angle drop, not arching the hand, etc. They're not intuitive things, and you only get it by doing it right a few thousand times :)

Not picking sides here, but a great (Turkish?) proverb:

No matter how far you have gone down the wrong road, turn back...

:)

Tuning every guitar at Guitar Center to dropped D and then not retuning them to standard pitch.

:lol: I'm sure that happens a lot, too! Reminds me of when I went to buy my last (newest) guitar. The woman working at the place informed me that "I am learning to play for about 4 months now. All the guitars here are set up to play, so go ahead and try any of them".
The first thing I had to do when I took one down was tune it. After messing with it for a couple of minutes, I got it in tune. She was watching me, and said "Hmm, I suppose that's some weird tuning to play rock or something?"
I replied "Well, this particular tuning is called "standard"" :mrgreen:

Pete

Hi,

Thanks for the great educative post, Nuno.

-diatonick

Thanks for the great educative post, Nuno.

Diatonick, thanks for this post. But I'm not sure if my original post was right. Probably I wouldn't write today. I agree with several sentences and I think some of them are simple jokes which must be understood as such because every forum or group or discipline has its own jokes.

And I agree with them because I did them when I started or because I did read similar things in good books, magazines or sites like this one. And now I'm speaking about the articles in the main site also, not only the forums, which are absolutely recommended.

Anyway, if you are getting some positive feedback from this post, then I feel better. :D

Thanks.

Tuning every guitar at Guitar Center to dropped D and then not retuning them to standard pitch.

:lol: I'm sure that happens a lot, too! Reminds me of when I went to buy my last (newest) guitar. The woman working at the place informed me that "I am learning to play for about 4 months now. All the guitars here are set up to play, so go ahead and try any of them".
The first thing I had to do when I took one down was tune it. After messing with it for a couple of minutes, I got it in tune. She was watching me, and said "Hmm, I suppose that's some weird tuning to play rock or something?"
I replied "Well, this particular tuning is called "standard"" :mrgreen:

Pete
Awesome +1 :lol: