Does Anyone Here Play Guitar?

Well, I'd reset the strings(depending on the guitar, you might have to change a few things, so I'd take it somewhere if you aren't familiar) and play it "upside down" so it's playing normal for you. It should make things much easier for you.

 

That's not a bad idea.

 

If your serious about learning, I'd do it. It shouldn't be that expensive if you take it to a shop, and once you get it done you can just restring it that way again yourself.
Plus, playing right handed isn't the best way if your a lefty.

Good luck btw

 

Thanks. I'm working on a few tabs as we speak, and it's coming along pretty nicely.

 

I'm lefty too, it's probably not a coincidence I have Jimi in my sig.

Hendrix's friends say he could play an upside down righty guitar without restringing it just as well as he could if he did restring it.

but I suggest you don't learn upside down. you'd really be better off restringing it, or just fork over the cash for a lefty guitar. right now I'm playing a right guitar restrung, but I plan on buying a nice lefty guitar soon.

just have fun and you will be well on your way.

 

That's awesome man, I'm trying my best. haha So far, it's going well, I'm just gonna keep at it.

 

Improvise.

 

Hey everyone, how's it going?

I have a B.C. Rich guitar, called "The Beast", which is just a modified Warlock... though it's a heavy guitar, its design is awesome. I have a string lock system and fine tuning, which means the strings don't knock the guitar out of tune with every bend. The action is pretty good, but not as easy as the Fender Strat, but I hate common looking guitars. The B.C. Rich and my Peavey Amp has an awesome sound. I use a Digi-tech death metal distortion, Boss multi effect board with digital delay, flange, chorus, and noise suppressor, also a crybaby wawa pedal.

I learned form books and cd's, and playing from TABs... I'd play what I could of the song, and from that, I made up other stuff to jam with. Amazing how simple mistakes can turn into a good riff.

I've been playing for about 20 years on and off, mostly Rock, Metal, Speed Metal, and Classical, but recently, started getting more into Chords, where only a few were used before. I take one chord at a time and see what variations I can do with it, both in its primary spot and down the neck, both fingerpicking, or with a pick. Sometimes clean, sometimes with effects.

Start slow, then gradually build speed, and be patient with your pinky finger, it usually takes longer for it to go where you want it to.

A good site is www.ultimate-guitar.com for 1000's of TAB's. If you have Guitar Pro 5, you can download songs, it breaks them down to each instrument and you can learn faster. I had the 15 day trial verson and learned like 7 songs in that time, most of them, leads and rhythm.

Also check out You Tube to see and hear the song you want to play, if you're lucky, someone has a guitar video of them playing a few riffs for you to see how its done.

Peace man, keep on jammin'

 

I have a some knowledge of guitar, just pretty simple tunes really,mainly bob dylan but I have problems with singing and playing at the same time, I forget to play when i sing or I just lose my rythmn and it starts to sound pretty bad arghhhhhhhhh!

 

Meee!
I've been playing for about three years now.
It's awesome.
I play mainly acoustic.

 

Nice to see so many players speakin up in the performing arts forum! I havent wandered thru here in a while...

I found that as I learned to play it helped me to make recordings and learn from hearing my mistakes. Singing and playing together took some time, but after a while it kind of falls into place. Working on improve helped me alot.

Also, play with alot of other players, and watch others to see what they do. Most guitar players that impress me do it by knowing an easy way of playing something that sounds complex, and watching them is the only way to pick that up.

Last, I find that it helps to not be uptight about perfection - at least till studio time!

 

Yeah man, I've been hitting the tabs at Ultimate Guitar.com and Video lessons on You Tube lately, and I've greatly improved my playing.
I'm enjoying playing lots of the old songs I wanted to play way back when, and now I can, for the most part...
Some include,
Slayer:Raining Blood,black magic,postmortem,die by the sword, seasons in the abyss, south of heaven,dead skin mask.
King Diamond:Arrival,the family ghost,Abigail, the black horsemen
Mercyful Fate: Melissa, a dangerous meeting,
Iced Earth: Burning Times, Angels Holocaust, and Wolf
Some Ayreon, sabbath, iron maiden, savatage, old metallica, and many more.
I like haunting melodies but not into the evil lyrics from some of the above bands, just the awesome guitar work.

Peace everyone... keep guitar alive

 

I just started playing guitar too! I am still working on building up those callases. OUCH. And those links and tips posted here have proven especially helpful to me because i can't afford lessons. So THANKS!

 

What kind of guitar? Electric? Acoustic? Classical?

In any case, getting good quick has been simple for me - I realized when I dedicated myself to learn how to play the metalocalypse theme (yeah I know, thats kind of a goofy thing to learn) and after a few hours of intensive playing, studying the song, etc, I was able to play it almost perfectly at full speed. It was leagues beyond anything i'd learned to play before in terms of difficulty. Since then I've been able to learn just about anything I want - I learned to finger pick in the same way. So:

1. Challenge yourself. Pick something you think is a little beyond your abilities.
2. Practice like crazy. Many hours a day, particularly on scrutinizing and perfecting the challenging song(s) you've chosen.

Once you're able to play something you didn't think you'd be able to, your confidence in your abilities will skyrocket and you'll get better even quicker as you learn more songs and push yourself into even more difficult material. And so on and so forth.

The key is to keep practicing. Don't expect to be able to play even a moderate difficulty song at full speed right off the bat - and don't get frustrated and distract yourself with something else. Just slow down the song , even to a ridiculous extent if you have to. Break the song into smaller sections, and perfect all those smaller sections at as slow a pace as you need to go to be able to play them perfectly. Then work on putting all the sections together in order. Finally, you can start working on speeding it up.

Good luck! I hope you enjoy this wonderful instrument as much as I do.

 

Right on man, well said... except for the Satan part at the bottom of your page.

 

I started playing a few months ago and have learned all basic chords and blues chords. My chord changes have gotten much much faster. I have made great progress...

Now I am attempting to learn major scales but they confuse the hell out of me some reason. Does anyone know a lot about major scales and the CAGED system? All the different positions and "shapes" confuse me. When I search for these concepts on the internet, no one breaks it down in simple enough terms for me to fully grasp everything (I don't know how to read music, just tab and such) Shoot me a PM or somethin (or post in in here )...

 

I just did a check for ya and found a cool site...

www.guitarmasterclass.net

In the search bar on the right, type, beginner scales... or just go through each lesson.
Choose your style of music, chat on the forums, etc.

Hope that helps... I'm gonna go check it out some more.
Peace bro, keep on jammin'


Well, it seems some stuff is free, but the other stuff you need to sign up with Paypal... I'll just use the free stuff and look around.

Try www.ultimate-guitar.com for lots of song tabs and a few free lessons on scales and chords,etc.
I go there often and play as much of a song I can, but you got to practice them every day or you'll forget them fast if not programmed in your head.

 

Steps to guitar greatness:

1) Learn a bunch of songs you like
2) Learn to read music
3) Read a bunch of music and get comfortable in every position
4) Learn music theory
5) Apply music theory to modern music
6) Rock out!

(Note: each step will take anywhere from a year to a lifetime depending on you)