Learning guitar on your own

[Yippee38]

About a year ago I quit taking guitar lessons. In the 2.5 years I was taking lessons, I had made quite a bit of progress, but not as much as I would have liked. I practiced very regularly, but was only able to practice about 1/2 per day. I did practice at least six days a week though. Anyway, this means I've got some of the fundamentals down, but there are gaps. I want to fill in those gaps and also improve my playing ability, but I cannot start taking lessons again right now.

So my question is....How have those of you who taught yourself to play, gone about it? Did you just start trying to play tabs, or use a book, or what? Did it work well? Any pitfalls to look out for?

 

[Hexer]

used a book to learn the very basics, looked at other players a lot, tried to learn new songs, new technics......

watch out so you dont develop any "bad habbits"! those are pretty hard to get rid of once you are used to them

still I think you'll progress faster with lessons (I've never had any so far)

 

[Thraxz]

Avoid "bad hobbits" too.

 

[MetaldudeEric]

You yourself are the best teacher, well thats my opinion. I taught myself to play guitar and bass.

 

[Hexer]

Avoid "bad hobbits" too.

absolutelly!!!

 

[SuddenDemise]

Thats a must, I had to reteach my self picking styles and how to finger powerchords after about 1-1/2 yrs of playing and it was hard, it only took me a few weeks untill I got the new way down, but still its a pain the ass....

 

[Intoxicator]

I learned through playing tabs, mostly. Listen to songs for different techniques and then look at the tabs to see how it's done. Also, get together with other guitarists. You'll probably pick up a thing or two from them. Watching other guitarists and simply emulating them also helps a bit too.

 

[Vital Remains]

I played scales untill i could rip through them and then i started learning songs. Id like to start playing some classical againg, but i just cant put my electric guitar down.

 

[Hexer]

then why not play some classical on electric?

 

[Vital Remains]

then why not play some classical on electric?

Well i know alot of neo-classical lead peices but not many for an actual classical guitar. If i was to play those songs on an electric it wouldnt sound right though

 

[fell]

it's always useful to get some training in music whatever instrument you play. it means that you learn discipline over your techniques and the correct way to do things. after a 1/2 year or so of covering the essentials and working on weaknesses with a teacher, you can go on from there by yourself really. some say this allows you to 'develop your own style' but that's not always a good thing, if you're learning from tab etc you often dont learn new dynamics and your style remains pretty narrow, so a diverse, renowned teacher is a godsend if you dont mind admitting to being 'classically trained'