guitar tips for a novice

[WTF555666]

I like music a lot & I want to make some of my own in the future. I want to play in either a prog metal band lke opeth & between the buried and me or a psychadelic type of band like pink floyd & the mars volta. What advice can you give me besides telling me I'll never play music like that.

 

[Scourge of Malice]

Practice

 

[fizz6207]

As well as practice, make sure you explore your creative side. Dont just learn excerises and other peoples songs. Muck around and create your own stuff. Even if some ideas get you no where, work with it, the more you develop your ability to write interesting songs the more you will be suited to join a band one day.

Also, try to explore a wide range of styles. Even ones you hate or find boring, someday it will pay off and give you ideas for other things.

 

[Rocky Raccoon]

learn the names of the notes on the fret board before doing anything else

 

[daz436]

learn the names of the notes on the fret board before doing anything else

i disagree with this

 

[Opethian666]

^So do I, musical theory isn't really necessary to learn to play guitar, and might even limit your creativity. Even Mikael Teh Almighty just fucks around.
As for getting better, practise, make sure you do things slow and accurate before you try doing them fast. Fast and sloppy < slow and accurate. Try to constantly push your boundaries. Even if something seems impossible at first, keep trying, and you will see that you will make progress.

 

[affinityband]

It is very helpful though^ Id say more the rhythm part of playing it. Once you understand the principles of various rhythms and note 'speeds' you are already a massive gap ahead. The thing that helped me most with guitar playing was Opeth. It is amazing how much you can learn from one song if you get it spot on. Which actually takes quite a long time.

 

[OpethNZ]

find every gay man in the music industry, pucker up your lips, and get reading for some sucking

 

[Heckelgruber]

It is very helpful though^ Id say more the rhythm part of playing it. Once you understand the principles of various rhythms and note 'speeds' you are already a massive gap ahead. The thing that helped me most with guitar playing was Opeth. It is amazing how much you can learn from one song if you get it spot on. Which actually takes quite a long time.

Yeah, I'm not a total guitar noob but it's taking me quite a while to learn The Leper Affinity, despite the outstanding tab. Playing what I can already makes me very happy and as you say, it does help to give you ideas.

 

[affinityband]

Yeah, im not an inexperienced guitar player. But to pull that song to the standard it is on the cd is actually very tricky.

 

[metal_wrath]

Yeah, I'm not a total guitar noob but it's taking me quite a while to learn The Leper Affinity, despite the outstanding tab. Playing what I can already makes me very happy and as you say, it does help to give you ideas.

I learned the Leper Affinity intro + solo in two days. Never got around to the rest of the song though.... = laziness

 

[Effigen]

use your pinky alot!

 

[WTF555666]

Thanks guys, I do mess around with the guitar a lot trying come up with some stuff. But my dad says I should learn the chords & scales if I really want to play. I think he's right, if you at least learn & memorize a lot of chords & scales you sholud be able to get to where you want to go. By the way does opeth use standard E tuning or C# tuning. I've seen BTBAM use that & i was wondering if there were different chords & scales I had to learn for C#.

 

[Heckelgruber]

I think most of the older stuff is either standard or drop-D. GR uses a funny tuning of some kind.

 

[Scourge of Malice]

opeth used standard on pretty much every song up to GR with a few in Drop D.

BTW, stay away from BTBAM for a while, most of their songs are a bitch to learn.

 

[Spaxx]

Spend a lot of time on bending, vibrato and intonation. It is so easy to tell an inexperienced guitar player from an experienced one just from listening to their vibrato and bending skills. It doesn't matter how fast you can play, if your vibrato and bends aren't good then you will still sound like an amateur!

Also pay close attention to how hard you are pushing down the strings when you play. Don't use more energy than you really need to. If you push the strings down too hard when soloing for example, it will cause the pitch of the note to go sharp/flat and it will sound really bad. Try to use a very light touch.

 

[affinityband]

One of the main things is confidence in the playing too.

 

[Mike7771]

Try checking out my site there are a ton of things that will help you in there.

 

[fränzi]

I also am a guitar newbie; got mine a couple of months ago. So this thread is actually pretty helpful.
So far, I've been learning scales, and trying to get the hang of chords, which I'm having most difficulty at the moment. It's nice how solos (I'm trying to learn from tabs) become a lot clearer when you know even a few scales and can see, even with a rough idea, how they're put together.

From one noob to another, just keep practising. And don't get despondent like I have in the past, and stopped playing for like a week. That's the worst.

 

[Opethian666]

<3