Guitar lesson material?

[tgs]

Just got my new guitar and since I've mostly been cheating when it comes to playing for the past 20 years, I was thinking that maybe it's about time I improved a bit. I usually find myself altering between Anthrax and Darkthrone riffs when I get my hands on a guitar and I'm a bit tired of it.

Does anyone have any tips about learning material for someone who is not a TOTAL beginner? I realize I probably have to take 20 steps back and learn some proper technique, but I also don't really need to learn how to play a G major. Also, I guess I'd be leaning more towards ROCK guitar rather than metal.

All tips are welcome! If it's something available online: brilliant. If it's free, even better! Although that's not a requirement.

 

[ratsapprentice]

Songs off Pleasure to Kill are really fun, and if you concentrate on playing them with good right hand form then they are great practice too.
So are Mastodon songs and they full of straight up rock riffs as well.
No idea if that's the sort of thing you're looking for though...

 

[tgs]

Not exactly, it's kind of what my approach has been so far, playing along with albums and such. What I'd REALLY like to do is to just grab a guitar and play some proper blues or something.

I've always been comfortably hiding behind heavy distortion. Enough of that for now, I want to know how to play for real.

 

[ratsapprentice]

I'll leave that to you then, my advice would probably only help in making your guitar playing sound like a spastic hairdryer anyway

 

[morten.nu]

Try Band-In-A-Box and learn to play over some easy changes.

 

[Old_Gregg]

The only advice I have to offer is the advice I wish someone had given me when I first started learning guitar. Don't bother learning other songs in order to get better, just try and translate what you hear in your head to your guitar because that (in my opinion) is the best way to learn guitar.

Having said that, if you head over to www.ultimate-guitar.com they have plenty of helpful lessons that range from absolute beginner to advanced.

Hope that helps

 

[olif8]

My advice is to learn chords (like the dreaded G major) and the theory behind them. I'm serial.

 

[luismars]

http://guitar.365practicesessions.com/36520118/default.asp?undefined

It covers most things you should know

 

[tgs]

My advice is to learn chords (like the dreaded G major) and the theory behind them. I'm serial.

Ah. I guess I could have been more clear; what I meant was that I don't need to learn a bunch of basic chords because I already know it, it's how I learned how to play in the first place and it was ALL I played in the beginning. I just mentioned it because I want to try to break down my playing a bit to re-learn how to do certain things properly but I want to avoid course material that mainly focuses on learning chords.

Thanks for all tips so far! Will start checking some stuff out, I'm really giving the guitar too much rest here.

 

[olif8]

Ah. I guess I could have been more clear; what I meant was that I don't need to learn a bunch of basic chords because I already know it, it's how I learned how to play in the first place and it was ALL I played in the beginning. I just mentioned it because I want to try to break down my playing a bit to re-learn how to do certain things properly but I want to avoid course material that mainly focuses on learning chords.

Thanks for all tips so far! Will start checking some stuff out, I'm really giving the guitar too much rest here.

Silly me

 

[Zack Uidl]

tgs,

The problem you are having is not necessarily the material, although relying on songs to learn is not very effective or efficient.

Your issue is that you have not become well rounded enough to have the confidence that you need to perform how you described. I see this all the time.

The solution to this is a perfect practice schedule where you most effectively and efficiently reach your goals. The practice schedule, if designed right, will allow you to get there much faster without wasting any time.


The problem with trying to get advice on a thread like this is:

1-You will not get accurate advice all of the time
2-Nobody has a clear view of what your goals are
3-You likely do not have to relearn things, but rather fill in the gaps that you missing in what you already know


I would love to help you out. Just email me your goals and I can help you develop the perfect practice schedule for you and help you to know what you need to be doing.

This is what I do, and I love it. It is why I teach music. I have seen your issue come up with hundreds of students and I know how it feels. That is why I started to teach.

I hope you take me up on the offer. Just send me that email as soon as you can.

 

[chrisjmp]

Check out guitarjamz.com, I pretty much started over re-learning guitar, and it's helping me a lot. It's mostly blues based lessons, but has some theory and other stuff thrown in as well. It's a subscription site, but you can watch a few of the videos for free to check it out. A good amount of it is pretty basic, but if you can wade through that stuff, it gets pretty informative.

 

[smy1]

Back when I started playing guitar, I spent hours every day riffing, noodling, doodling, shredding and I made progress. But I got much much better once I started practicing for one hour a day with a schedule and a drummachine. Basically what Zack is saying up there.

I also think that a big mistake is being "thrifty" and trying to get by without a teacher. I used to book 4-6 lessons in a month and then work on the input I had received for 3-6 months. Then took more lessons. That was when I was a pretty good player though. So in the beginning, you might want to get lessons more regularly. Unsupervised learning can only take you so far.

 

[Zack Uidl]

^+1.

 

[Virgil.]

I agree with the last few posts for sure. Get a teacher if you can afford it, don't skimp out. You will make much faster progress. Also, practicing to a metronome is a must. I was a classical guitar major in school and I had a very strict schedule -- despite having to practice for 3-4 hours a day (sometimes 6-8 when preparing for juries and recitals). Here are just SOME things that I used to include in my schedule...

10 minutes - warmup exercises
30 minutes - work on chords (fingerings, changes, inversions, theory, etc. Also work on fluidity of chordal changes with metronome)
30 minutes - technical exercises (scales, leads, rhythm exercises to metronome)

30 minute BREAK (don't overdo it, if your hands start hurting at ANY TIME, IMMEDIATELY STOP PLAYING AND GO REST! Stretch your hands, drink some water, hydrate yourself, and just give yourself a break)

20 minutes - Song #1 (usually a concert piece I was working on, or could just be a song you're trying to learn for fun.
Break it down by EACH MEASURE. Perfect it, get it up to speed with a metronome, and then move on to the next measure. Once you've perfected the 2nd measure, then go back and play the two you just learned back to back, and so on and so forth with the other measures. Some guitarists play sloppy because they've never perfected a song. It's good to take a piece section by section, delve into it, understand it, and know how to play it perfectly. Doing this will help you get better at gaining speed faster, developing precision, and also helping keep you from getting frustrated.... instead of looking at an entire song and thinking "holy crap this is going to take me forever to learn!", getting frustrated and giving up on it to learn something else, this will help you focus on just taking it one step at a time. Baby steps.

Song #2 - 30 minutes, Song #3 - 30 minutes, Improvising over X chord changes - 30 minute, Etc etc

Obviously that was just a part of my schedule, and it's going to differ on everyone else. As a beginner, I would only recommend like 30-60 minutes per day until your hands, muscles and tendons get used to the idea of playing guitar. So working out a schedule for you that makes sense for you is going to be key. It's different for everyone as we all have different learning styles, and some learn quicker than others, some have muscle memory that others don't, etc.

But seriously do stop if you feel pain with any practice routine. Take a break and then come back to it.

Good luck man!

 

[tgs]

Wow, great tips here, thanks guys!

Zack: EXACTLY! That's pretty much how I feel about it, and I can say that all my years in the studio has scared me away from practicing without knowing what I'm doing. I've seen guitarists with totally messed up trem picking and noticed that they're holding the pick in a weird way. I've tried to fix badly intonated guitars only to eventually discover that the player pushes down too hard on the frets. These people probably never took any lessons, nobody ever pointed out any problems in their playing before and they never noticed it until I put them in the hot seat and turned their gain down.

I am originally a drummer, started playing when I was around 11, had my first lesson when I was 15. By then I was pretty good, but one of the first things the teacher pointed out was that I was holding the sticks wrong. I changed my grip and suddenly felt like a complete RETARD, I couldn't play anymore. But I'm so glad it happened because eventually it improved my playing SO MUCH.

So this is what I want to avoid if I'm going to try to get better at guitar. I don't want to waste my time with learning something the wrong way only to have to spend even more time if and when I notice my mistake.

So I will look into taking lessons, definitely. And I'm for sure willing to take you up on your offer, Zack. I realize that having supervised tutoring is totally superior anything else, but I guess my purpose with this thread was to just give me a nudge in the right direction and get started. I used to play a lot but lately I've hardly touched a guitar for various reasons. When we moved from Portugal to Sweden in December last year, I actually left my guitar there so I haven't even had one at home until yesterday when a new one arrived in the mail.

 

[Sam Cruz]

two words, "Pebber Brown" - absolute beginner or a twenty year player would learn something new from him

 

[pikachu69]

Check out my sticky thread on the production tips page:

http://www.ultimatemetal.com/forum/...torial-breaking-down-guitar-scales-modes.html

Go to the last lesson on page two and download the 44 page PDF I wrote on scales and modes. Maybe something for you to learn in there.
I have been a guitar tutor for 14 years now and if there is ever anything you would like to know feel free to hit me up.

 

[ndrewoods]

The only advice I have to offer is the advice I wish someone had given me when I first started learning guitar lessons. Don't bother learning other songs in order to get better, just try and translate what you hear in your head to your guitar because that (in my opinion) is the best way to learn guitar.

Having said that, if you head over to www.ultimate-guitar.com they have plenty of helpful lessons that range from absolute beginner to advanced.

Hope that helps

I totally agree with Gregg here. In that way, you'll know that type of song you will pursue to learn and play not just copying the songs that is already there. And practice, practice and practice is the only way for you to get better.