EPTLearning Guitar (i.e. total noobie) Part One - Page 2
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Teoita
Italy12247 Posts
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emythrel
United Kingdom2599 Posts
On September 15 2012 23:11 Teoita wrote: As an addendum to that, Guitar Pro (and Power Tab i think) has both standard and tab notation that you can display simoultaneously or separately, and tabs on it always have correct time notation (as opposed to the stuff you would find on 911tabs for example), so it's a good way to exercise. yeah I spend half my time on ultimate-guitar trying to figure out who the hell thinks that there are 5 beats in a 4/4 song because they can't express the timing properly ;p | ||
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LaLuSh
Sweden2358 Posts
On September 15 2012 20:28 emythrel wrote: I do hate to be that guy but when writing as an "expert" which is what TL knowhow is for, you shouldn't be advocating bad practice. I would also suggest that you edit in some videos because a lot of learning guitar is about knowing the correct tecnique and seeing someone doing it right (i.e thumb behind the fretboard, not hanging over the top) helps the process and helps correct any bad habits one might have picked up. The advice is sound, but you ought to work on your own thumb judging from those tutorial videos. That hanging thumb is a serious offender =). Even someone like Fruiscante will bring his thumb down to attain proper reach when necessary. As opposed to the droves of non classically trained guitarists who have a hard time reaching 4 frets while letting their thumbs hang indefinitely -- Fruiscante/Hendrix etc used the thumb for a purpose: base notes in riffs. I would also like to add that the classical stance is to rest the guitar on your left thigh, with your left leg being slightly elevated. I will leave you all with a couple of inspiring classical pieces: La Catedral -- Augustin Barrios. (Listen to the whole thing) Asturias (Leyenda) -- Isaac Albeniz Concierto de Aranjuez -- Joaquin Rodrigo | ||
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cmen15
United States1519 Posts
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elagrion
Ukraine422 Posts
Posts with some recommendation on some specific videos / teachers / etc is ok. Everything else - you will be better without it. | ||
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MisterKatosS
France352 Posts
A very common shape that's used mostly when playing with an electric guitar with some distortion is known as a power chord. Power chords look like these three shapes: C G F |------------------------------|| e |-------------5----------------|| B |----5--------4----------------|| G |----5---5----3----------------|| D |----3---5---------------------|| A |--------3---------------------|| E should be: C G F |------------------------------|| e |-------------6----------------|| B |----5--------5----------------|| G |----5---5----3----------------|| D |----3---5---------------------|| A |--------3---------------------|| E | ||
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emythrel
United Kingdom2599 Posts
On September 16 2012 02:35 LaLuSh wrote: The advice is sound, but you ought to work on your own thumb judging from those tutorial videos. That hanging thumb is a serious offender =). Even someone like Fruiscante will bring his thumb down to attain proper reach when necessary. As opposed to the droves of non classically trained guitarists who have a hard time reaching 4 frets while letting their thumbs hang indefinitely -- Fruiscante/Hendrix etc used the thumb for a purpose: base notes in riffs. I would also like to add that the classical stance is to rest the guitar on your left thigh, with your left leg being slightly elevated. I will leave you all with a couple of inspiring classical pieces: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Du4F4mQkXRo& La Catedral -- Augustin Barrios. (Listen to the whole thing) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qImpg9RXhcM& Asturias (Leyenda) -- Isaac Albeniz http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r2Xdlgii-Rc& Concierto de Aranjuez -- Joaquin Rodrigo Oh when i'm not teaching beginners or am playing a gig I am awful for it lol. I've been playing for 25 years, where my thumb is makes little difference to how I play, I even play without it touching the fretboard at times. The people that tutorial is designed for aren't beginners and don't need to be lectured about technique, they either are lazy or not ;p Every guitarist does it when being lazy including the classically trained Eric Clapton, Gary Draper (my old guitar teacher who sessions for everyone from Clapton to Jose Feliciano and is without doubt the best guitarist i've ever met in real life) and Mark Knopfler just to name a few ;p when teaching properly (i.e in a room with a student) and especially when teaching beginners, I always play with correct technique because you must do as you preach but much like Hendrix I use my thumb to play a lot of the time when I'm playing songs, its very useful to use for blunting, bass notes and barre chords (actually even use it playing an open D chord to play the F# on the E string) even if it is bad technique. It really depends on what i'm playing, when playing scales my thumb automatically moves down because of muscle memory and because you can reach further. Once you can play properly the use of the thumb as a counter pressure point isn't very important but it is important to learn correctly. I am a massive offender but I also went past the point at which I needed my thumb in the correct place most of the time many many years ago. love the songs btw p.s are you a guitarist in addition to being an awesome sc2 player? or just a fan of the art? | ||
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Talionis
Scotland4085 Posts
On September 15 2012 23:44 emythrel wrote: yeah I spend half my time on ultimate-guitar trying to figure out who the hell thinks that there are 5 beats in a 4/4 song because they can't express the timing properly ;p Yeah. Every time I download a powertab tab it seems like the person who tabbed it has no idea what they're doing :p If you've been brought up to read proper notation unlike the majority of guitarists, it's really painful to look at. TuxGuitar maybe should get a mention somewhere. It can open GuitarPro files and it's available for free. The interface is not as nice as GP6 though. | ||
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neobowman
Canada3324 Posts
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Dittert
United States97 Posts
For what it's worth, I am a 30 year old professional musician. I have been playing drums for 25 years and guitar for 22. I teach both guitar and drums as my full-time job. Factual Errors A lot of what I'm going to say in the sections below is pure opinion, and since I am neither the author, nor the editor, not a TL mod, you can take or leave all of that. There are a few factual errors in the article, however. First, a chromatic scale is not simply the fingerboard exercise presented in the article. A chromatic scale is a 12 tone scale in which each note is a semitone above the previous note. A chromatic scale starting on A, for example, would be fingered in this manner: e---------------------------------------1234(5) B-------------------------------2345 G------------------------2345 D-----------------3456 A --------4567-- E -5678- Though the exercise presented in the article does indeed "musically sound like crap," the chromatic scale has a variety of musical uses and can sound quite lovely when played in the right context. Second, the author says that "Overall, however, there are four kinds of chords: major, minor, augmented, and diminished." False. There are many, many kinds of chords in addition to the ones listed here, including dominant 7 chords, major 7 chords, half-diminished chords, etc. Even if you assume that the author was going for the most basic groups of chords, he is still wrong. At the most basic level, there are 3 types of chords: major, minor, and dominant 7. Augmented chords fall under the "dominant 7" umbrella, and diminished chords under the "minor" umbrella. Nevermind that all of this information is completely irrelevant to someone who is just getting started with guitar. Differences of Opinion You should not go to Guitar Center to buy your first guitar. Every GC I've been to has been staffed with high school kids who know absolutely nothing about guitars. Most of their employees work solely on commission, and so their goal is to sell you as much as possible. If you have the chance, you should go to a professional guitar shop staffed by professional guitar players (or at the very least professional salespeople). You will get much better service and probably a much better guitar. If you are worried about price, you can always search for the guitar you are about to buy online. Most retailers will match any reasonable internet price. After you purchase your guitar, I would advise against learning a bunch of scales and exercises (like the ones presented here). I have started some students (at their insistence) with this method, and they always quit practicing within a month. To get started, just learn a few easy chords (G, C, A, E, Em, D, and maybe power chords) and start playing songs you enjoy. The students of mine who progress the fastest are the ones who have the most fun playing. Since they enjoy playing so much, they spend more time with the guitar in their hands, and that leads to increased skill. There's no need to "willpower through" something that's supposed to be fun and enjoyable, especially at the beginning. Formatting Choices Again, more opinion: This article needs some images. Every beginning guitar method book includes pictures of how to sit, how to fret a note, how to hold the pic, etc. This article covers all of those topics, but fails to include any visuals whatsoever. If you're going to spend the time writing an in-depth article (and I assume this article took a significant amount of time to write, research, and format), spend the extra 20 minutes creating or stealing some images to go along with it. Definition of an Expert It worries me that TL presents Teoita as an expert in guitar, or even more specifically as an expert in teaching guitar. If you want to present somebody as "guitar expert," show me their music degree, their current teaching post, the band they're touring with, the record label they're on, or even their youtube channel where they post teaching/performance videos. I don't need all of those things, but any one of them would be nice. By his own admission, Teoita plays only an hour a day (when mastery is now generally defined as 10,000 hours - or 3 hours a day for 10 years), can't read music, has never studied out of a method book, and has only taught a handful of lessons. Teoita seems enthusiastic and well-intentioned, but he does not seem like an expert. That's my two cents. I'm not even sure what the point is, however, because as several other people have pointed out you should just go to Justin Guitar if you want to learn guitar on the internet. | ||
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Tal
United Kingdom1018 Posts
This is a good thread about learning guitar, but I think it would be better off placed in blogs rather than knowhow. I guess I would hope for either a professional musician, or a highly qualified and experienced teacher. Mighty Atom's first series of blogs set the standard quite high, but that's a good thing- I know there's so much talent on TL. | ||
MightyAtom
Korea (South)1897 Posts
But I think this post has been great in getting some awesome contributions and in the future, can we can revise it further and TL knowhow is a work in progress as well. Even though I've played guitar, I didn't know about some of these resources either, but even having this thread get out two great musicians to make corrections and give their knowhow, I think overall it has still done it's intended job. That being said, you're points about level of expertise, is correct, we were thinking of rating system which thedeadhaji also set out, cause he got pissed off at one submission which clearly wasn't up to par, but had just put up as a draft simply to see if there was anything worth salvaging. But yes, intentions aren't enough, but I think as this section starts to take off, we'll, even if the post simply gets others to share their knowhow, well I'm happy to start there. And while it seems like a cope out, well, this section will be a work in progress a while longer. But sincerely, your post is also very well received, and of course my thanks goes out to Teoita for contributing and at least putting us in a position to start some real discussion as well. | ||
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emythrel
United Kingdom2599 Posts
I have offered to make some videos for Teoita to go with the tutorials (including the OP of this thread). I have already seen the next parts and suggested some edits and additions and leave it up to him if he and TL wish to use them. there are fantastic resources for learning guitar on the internet but I think there is a place for this on TL to get people started and lead them on to those resources. No one is going to learn guitar from reading a couple of 10 minute reads on TL but they can get a good overview of the basics and how to get started in the learning process We definitely have a different opinion on the learning process, my experience differs greatly from yours but that is likely due to the setting in which we teach. My students come to me mainly based on recommendation and are usually fairly young, pre the age where being able to play their favorite songs to impress their friends is important to them and often I take on older students who have come from other tutors with glaring gaps in their knowledge or bad technique whom I have to go right back to the basics with because they never learned them. I get the impression that the students you take on are generally older and more in to learning to play songs than be a guitarist and so you have to entice them in to our world, I may be wrong on that but its just the feel I get from what you said. I teach the basic scales first always because it helps people become familiar with the guitar and what it feels like to play, once they become competent with a couple of simple scales (such as C major and the blues scale) I then start working on chords in conjunction with more complex finger exercises. I don't stop my students from independently learning songs and often have a student come to a lesson wanting to show me the latest song they learned and am proud and pleased to see them enjoying the learning experience but when I'm trying to teach someone, I see greater improvement faster when they work hard on scales and the basic groundings of music theory and think of playing songs as a by-product of the process rather than the goal. As you said, this is all very subjective because both philosophy and teaching techniques are a huge part of why we do things a certain way. I have fun with my students, I make learning the boring stuff seem more exciting, I offer them deals like "learn to play this perfectly before next lesson and I will teach you to play something you want to learn", again building on the by-product theme from above. I know tutors who have better results with your method than mine but for me, I consistently see better results with those whom are grounded properly in technique from the start. | ||
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emythrel
United Kingdom2599 Posts
On September 16 2012 10:05 neobowman wrote: Question. If there's a sudden drop d in a piece of music, but only for a small part, how do I play it. Do I just have to tune down the E string for the whole song? A sudden drop D? I've never come across that personally. I would assume that one of the following is happening: 1) You are using tabs/music that is incorrect 2) You have learned to play the song without the drop D but the song needs it i.e you aren't playing it the way it was written for instance, you can play all of Goo Goo Dolls "Iris" without drop D tuning simply by not playing the E strings ever, it sounds weird but can be done, I've seen tabs that don't even have the drop D in them and simply show only playing the middle 4 strings but there is one part of the song where not having the drop D makes it sound horrible. Another instance would be Everlong by Foo Fighters. I can play it without the drop D but it requires a 4 fret spread for a lot of it and missing the low E string out of 1 of the chord shapes and the mid-section Could you please give a particular instance of a sudden drop D in a song and if possible a link to the tab, that would help figuring out what is going on ;p edit: thought of an instance of a sudden drop D but its an unlikely scenario for most songs that use drop D. Newton faulkner plays a couple of songs where he re-tunes the E string mid song but its part of his style and show more than anything and you really won't find many other people doing it. | ||
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neobowman
Canada3324 Posts
On September 16 2012 12:50 emythrel wrote: A sudden drop D? I've never come across that personally. I would assume that one of the following is happening: 1) You are using tabs/music that is incorrect 2) You have learned to play the song without the drop D but the song needs it i.e you aren't playing it the way it was written for instance, you can play all of Goo Goo Dolls "Iris" without drop D tuning simply by not playing the E strings ever, it sounds weird but can be done, I've seen tabs that don't even have the drop D in them and simply show only playing the middle 4 strings but there is one part of the song where not having the drop D makes it sound horrible. Another instance would be Everlong by Foo Fighters. I can play it without the drop D but it requires a 4 fret spread for a lot of it and missing the low E string out of 1 of the chord shapes and the mid-section Could you please give a particular instance of a sudden drop D in a song and if possible a link to the tab, that would help figuring out what is going on ;p edit: thought of an instance of a sudden drop D but its an unlikely scenario for most songs that use drop D. Newton faulkner plays a couple of songs where he re-tunes the E string mid song but its part of his style and show more than anything and you really won't find many other people doing it. http://tabs.ultimate-guitar.com/m/misc_cartoons/k-on_-_fuwa_fuwa_time_guitar_pro.htm It's in a few of the guitar parts as well as the bass a bit past halfway into the song. | ||
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emythrel
United Kingdom2599 Posts
On September 16 2012 13:03 neobowman wrote: http://tabs.ultimate-guitar.com/m/misc_cartoons/k-on_-_fuwa_fuwa_time_guitar_pro.htm It's in a few of the guitar parts as well as the bass a bit past halfway into the song. I must be tired cause I'm not seeing where it changes in the tab pro version, its all in standard tuning. Maybe its different than the one you are using, it would be quite unusual to change to drop D for a section, usually you would have two guitars, one tuned to drop D play that plays without the E string until the drop D section but again thats quite rare lol. I'll look more in to it when I've slept and get back to you | ||
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JieXian
Malaysia4677 Posts
This is an explaination that I have: Scales are more than a practice tool. Songs are made up, intentionally or not, by scales. It defines the mood and feel of the song itself. Like if I play something using only notes present in a harmonic minor scale/phyrigian it'll sound Middle eastern. Or if I play around in a Major Pentatonic scale it'll sound Chinese. *Video of me playing the guitar 404* It may sound obvious but a lot of people are oblivious to the power of scales, which is a fundamental component in improvising and composing, whether they are thinking about it consiously or subconsiously. emythrel, I'd like to think of teaching theory/techniques (the important components of music) through songs. Yes songs will be a byproduct but the student should have fun learning the songs but the purpose is to actually learn techniques. I can go on forever but it's kinda frustrating to only be able type it out. I feel lazy scrutinising every detail of emythrel's and Dittert but I prefer their advice much more in general. On September 16 2012 02:35 LaLuSh wrote: The advice is sound, but you ought to work on your own thumb judging from those tutorial videos. That hanging thumb is a serious offender =). Even someone like Fruiscante will bring his thumb down to attain proper reach when necessary. As opposed to the droves of non classically trained guitarists who have a hard time reaching 4 frets while letting their thumbs hang indefinitely -- Fruiscante/Hendrix etc used the thumb for a purpose: base notes in riffs. I would also like to add that the classical stance is to rest the guitar on your left thigh, with your left leg being slightly elevated. After years of learning music classically and starting to learn flamenco, another really rigid genre, I really hate the mindset of advocating one method of playing the guitar. (Or anything for that matter) It should be find as long as it sounds good, doesn't hurt, and is effective. | ||
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Teoita
Italy12247 Posts
@Dittert: 1) Chromatic scale: you are right, i worded it poorly. Still the exercise i show is really useful for a beginner. The actual chromatic scale would obvously be tougher as they would have to move their wrist. 2) Buying a guitar: honestly if you are going to buy an entry level guitar, you don't need amazing expert advice. Honestly, a squire/epiphone/yamaha/cheap ibanez will do. From what i remember from when i was in the US, prices at GC are honest. 3) Scales/exercises vs Songs: i more or less agree with emythrel on this one. Some songs at the start are nice, but your focus should be on getting used to playing, developing strength in your fingers etc, and that's done more easily through exercises 4): Being an expert: i am more then welcome to get help better musicians than me. I do think i know enough to help absolutely entry-level players though. This article was only meant to be an introduction to beginning how to play, which is really, really entry level. I did what i could with the article, and it did receive decent feedback. Of course it can always be improved, and if you guys have more suggestions/material to add it might be nice to turn the series into "begiiner guitar by Teoita, Emythrel and Ditter" or whatever. | ||
rotinegg
United States1719 Posts
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Pulimuli
Sweden2766 Posts
Great to see a thread like this ^_^ | ||
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