It's hard to imagine musical instrument, which would be more popular than the guitar. Contrary to popular misconceptions, playing it is not as difficult as people used to think. Of course, it will take years to comprehend all the subtleties and nuances, but to master the most basic tricks you can do it in 1-2 months, and in a couple of months you will be able to confidently play the songs of your favorite bands. So how do you learn to play electric guitar?
In general, learning to play on a regular acoustic guitar not very different from learning to play electric guitar, but of course there are a few differences. Acoustic and electric guitars have different sound production techniques. The electric guitar is most often played with a pick, while the acoustic guitar is played with the fingers. And if on acoustics playing with a mediator is also possible, then on an electric guitar you can’t really play with your fingers, because your fingers are not able to give such a sound as with a mediator. This is to the question of whether it is possible to learn to play the electric guitar, and not the acoustic.
Misconception #1
In order to learn how to play, it is not necessary to spend money on expensive and good tool. On the contrary, if you learn on a low-quality guitar, when you switch to a more intelligent instrument, it will be much easier to play.
This is a fairly common misconception among beginner guitarists looking for an instrument. It is dictated either by banal greed, or no less banal ignorance. As you know, a miser pays twice.
The professionalism of a guitarist is never measured by the degree to which he is able to play the instrument. Poor-quality guitars very often have protruding, unpolished frets, an uncomfortable neck, which can lead to incorrect hand positioning and even injuries (it’s not easy to scratch on bad frets, but very easy, especially when you play something fast).
Such guitars often sound bad, and this is fraught with injury to your hearing, and it is more difficult to restore it than scratched fingers. Buy name branded guitars famous guitarists is also not necessary, because it is far from a fact that you will definitely decide to realize yourself in this area further.
Now a quality tool for a beginner can be purchased at a very affordable price. For an electric guitar, it ranges from 8 to 15 thousand rubles. We will talk more about how to learn to play the electric guitar and choose your instrument in this article.
Misconception #2
I won't be able to learn to play the guitar because I have no hearing.
Everyone has a rumor. It's just that for someone it can be better and sharper, and for someone it is not sufficiently developed. Hearing can always be developed, since there are many exercises on the Web for this.
Another similar misconception: It's hard to learn how to play electric guitar without hearing. Yes, if for some reason you do not want or cannot improve your ear for music, you will not be able to pick up a melody by ear or transfer it from sound, but you can play without it - by notes or tablature.
Misconception #3
You have to sing along with the guitar, but I can't.
Is it difficult to learn how to play the electric guitar without singing? Maybe this misconception makes sense in the circle of non-professional guitarists, but at its core it is complete nonsense. If you want to sing and accompany yourself on an instrument - you are welcome, if you don’t want to - also no problem, focus on technique, on the complexity of the music itself.
Very often one can observe how the performance of complex and beautiful passages and melodies causes a very restrained reaction from people who are ignorant of music, and from three "thieves" chords that can be mastered in three days, if not less, the crowd is delighted.
Try not to pay attention to this, if you play really well, the musicians will speak positively about your work, and their comments are much more important for professional growth than the reviews of mothers, grandmothers, friends, etc. Never let anyone reproach you for being unprofessional because you play an independent part and do not sing - the opinion of the person who made such a remark to you should not have any effect on you - some influence.
Tool selection
The price is never the quality, but the chance to buy for 20 thousand is much more than for 5. Check with your familiar guitarists. For starters, you can choose an electric guitar for a small price, but a well-known and trusted brand.
- Epiphone;
- Ibanez;
- Fender squier;
- Yamaha;
- Jackson.
Take a tuner to the store, tune the instrument, check that all the strings sound and do not mow up or down in sound. Run your hand along the side of the fretboard to see how well the frets are polished, twist the pegs. Make sure that you like the guitar in terms of color and shape, this is a very important psychological point: a nice-looking instrument will provide motivation for learning.
First steps
You bought your first instrument, brought it home, unpacked it, sat on the sofa and thought about how to quickly learn how to play the electric guitar.
First, set it up, even if the store has already set it up. A tuner is used for tuning, it can be purchased at the same music store. Take the guitar in your hands in the way that is comfortable for you, the main thing is that you do not experience discomfort in the muscles of your arms and back.
Connect the guitar to a combo amplifier, if there is none, for the first time you can download it to a PC special program, replacing it, and connect the guitar to it. No need to rush to find the notes of your favorite songs and solos, for now you can still play them, but scales and simple melodies can be learned to play. On an electric guitar, the principle of learning is slightly different from acoustics, but in general there is nothing complicated there.
Extraction with the right hand
The strings on the frets are clamped with the left hand in order to change the pitch of the sound, and with the right hand this same sound is extracted, this is how all guitarists play: both right-handed and left-handed. There are special left-handed guitars, where the opposite is true, but as practice shows, they play well on right-handed models, besides, left-handed guitars are a bit more expensive.
Arrange right hand so that the forearm lies on the bend of the guitar, and the brush itself hangs over the strings like a twig. With your thumb, try to extract the sound from the highest sixth string. To do this, simply gently pull the string down and slightly away from you. The sixth, fifth and fourth strings are considered bass strings: the sound is extracted from them with the thumb. The index finger is responsible for the third string, the middle finger for the second, and the ring finger for the first.
The extraction of sound from the lower strings occurs as follows: with the pad of your finger, you pull the string from the bottom up and a little towards yourself. To fix the extraction with your right hand, you can play busts. The simplest is played like this: sixth string, third, second, first, second, third. Don't forget that each string is "attached" to a specific finger.
Such enumeration is used in the intro of Metallica's Nothing Else Matters. After two weeks of practice, when you feel more confident with the instrument, you can try to learn the intro of this song in full. A beginner is not advised to go further than the introduction, since in this song there is a barre technique that can cause difficulties for a beginner. Other iterations:
- bass (sixth, fifth or fourth), third, second, third, first, third, second, third;
- bass, first, second, third;
- bass, third, second + first (pull at the same time), third;
- bass, third + second + first.
Extraction with the left hand
The thumb is located behind the neck of the guitar and is pressed against it, as if leaning. It’s not worth pressing it on purpose, it will adhere to the neck itself when you start playing. Form a kind of dome from the brush, as if holding an apple. The strings should be pressed with the pads of the fingers so that when pressed, the finger retains its shape, does not blur along the fretboard, and does not turn out.
Important: do not press with the pads that we see when looking at our palm with reverse side, but those that we see when we look under the nails. All fingers of the left hand should produce sound of the same quality.
Exercise for the left hand
- "Snake" - you pinch a string with your index finger, extract a sound with your right hand, then clamp the next fret on the same string with your middle finger, without releasing your index finger, and again extract the sound. As a result, all 4 fingers should be in a line on the string. Then we do the opposite: we remove the little finger, we extract the sound, we remove the nameless one, we extract it, and so on.
- "Spider" - the beginning is the same as in the "snake", but after all our fingers are on the string, we do not remove them, but forefinger move it to a higher string, but in the same fret, while the rest of the fingers remain on the same string. So alternately rearranging the fingers "crawl" up, and then also "slide down." Make sure that in these exercises all the notes sound clear, do not rattle, press the strings tightly. Gradually increase the pace.
How to read tablature?
Every guitarist who thinks about how to learn to play the electric guitar from scratch also thinks about what he should play. You can do this either by notes or by tablature. AT musical notation in itself there is nothing complicated, but few people manage to understand it on their own, the teacher's explanation would be the most successful option: this is the question of where to learn to play the electric guitar.
Tablature is much easier to use. It has six rulers, the top one being the thinnest string. On these rulers there are numbers indicating the frets. Thus, we see from which string and at which fret we need to extract the sound. The only significant disadvantage of tablature is that it is almost impossible to follow the rhythm on them. Yes, the creators of the tablature try to compensate for this in every possible way: they make spaces between the numbers where there are longer notes, but you won’t be able to follow the rhythm the way you would by notes, by tablature.
What should a newbie play?
- Pop rock band type imagine Dragons, green day, 30 Seconds to mars, Sum 41 - their songs are very simple and suitable for getting your hands on.
- More classical stuff like Scorpions, AC/DC songs. You don't have to take complicated solos, you can just learn some riffs.
- If you want something more complicated, then you can pay attention to Metallica and Megadeth (before four months of training, it makes no sense to start these songs). Nothing else matters, Fade to black, Muster of puppets (very beautiful solo, it's easy and your listeners will appreciate it), Enter sandman, Trust, Promise (one of the few Megadeth ballads).
Anyone who wants to learn how to play the guitar willy-nilly has a hundred questions of a similar nature: "how to learn to play the guitar?" it was - and I studied on my own, collecting information bit by bit from my friends ... Now everything is much simpler.
I want to say right away that learning to play the guitar is not difficult. It all depends on your endurance, desire and time that you are willing to devote to learning. If you are patient, you have a great desire to play, then everything will work out!
So, you have a guitar and a desire to learn how to play. We collect our motivation into a fist ... let's go!
First you need to become familiar with guitar tuning - you can't play an instrument that isn't ready to play. can be carried out completely independently, or you can configure it using a tuner or through online tuning. Tuner - a special device that shows whether the string is tuned or not. If it shows that it is not tuned, then the string needs to be raised / lowered. Thus, by tuning each string, you will tune the entire guitar. Is the guitar tuned? So, you can proceed directly to learning.
First you need to familiarize yourself with the landing when playing the guitar. Usually you can find arguments everywhere about how to sit properly when playing the guitar. For example, in music school teach the classic fit when the neck is higher than the soundboard. However, many pros hold their guitar straight, not tilted... It's up to you. In my opinion, there should be no clear rules in landing, you need to sit in the way that is comfortable for you.
After you need to read, fight, search. Find out what movements are made by the right and left hand when playing the guitar. Fighting and busting is a set of movements that are performed with the right game, near the resonator hole. Chords - a special position of the hands (fingers) of the left hand on the fretboard. Once you learn a few chords and a beat, such as a 6-beat and Dm, E, C, G, A, you can easily play your first song. Often they play their first song, having learned only 3-4 chords and one fight - a fight of 6. For example, many people play "Pass", "A Star Called the Sun" or "Pack of Cigarettes" by the "Kino" group as their first song. From this you will not become a guitarist yet, but you will learn the basics. After that, you should increase your knowledge in the number of chords, fights and enumerations. It will be obligatory to learn H7, D. After them, it is worth moving on to studying barre chords. Start with an F chord.
Most importantly, after the first song played, you will have a huge boost of motivation that will steadily push you to improve your playing skills. On the Internet, by the way, there are very high-quality video tutorials and analyzes of many simple songs that you can easily master for short term. I would advise you to start by studying the songs "Pass", "A Star Called the Sun", "Pack of Cigarettes", "Bend of the Yellow Guitar", etc. Many simple songs can be found among army songs or marching songs.
Having learned a sufficient number of chords, having learned how to quickly put and change them, you should familiarize yourself with the tablature. Tablature - special way records how to play music. It looks something like drawn 6 strings, on which it is indicated in turn where and how to clamp the strings. If all chords can be learned, then tablature - from the category "the more I know - the less I know." There are a myriad of them, every day they are replenished. Tablature allows you to study contemporary music and songs of different directions and complexity, starting with "Grasshopper" on one string and ending with the most complex arrangements. Having learned what tablature is, learning how to use them, you will discover huge world songs and melodies that are played on the guitar contemporary musicians, groups, etc.
Together with the study of chords, tablature, fights and plucking, you will meet many different techniques sound production, for example: harmonics, pull-offs, hammers, vibrato, glissando, etc. For example, harmonics are performed by plucking a string and simultaneously muffling it. Natural harmonics are played on the 12th fret, artificial ones on any. All of them make the sound more beautiful, complement the game with special notes. They are not difficult if you study everything gradually, and do not jump to a level that you cannot afford.
Thus, learning to play the guitar is not as difficult as it might seem at first. Advice for those who want to start - start!. The sooner you start your studies, the sooner you will be drawn into this topic - the sooner you will be able to play the guitar. All in your hands! A brief tutorial is in front of you, you just read it ... Good luck!
Hello to all beginners and aspiring guitarists! So I finally decided to write an article, which, I hope, will help you understand well how and where to start playing the electric guitar. You will also learn about guitar sound processing, various guitars effects, how to connect a guitar to an amplifier, and learn about straplock and tablature.
guitar sound
So, perhaps, let's start. If you pick up and (without plugging it in) play a couple of chords, you will be convinced that it sounds very quiet and poor compared to an acoustic guitar. This happens because it is a solid piece of wood. Well, or several pieces glued together. There are, however, very cheap guitars made of sawdust, or there, plywood - with them you can impress ignorant friends with your cool look, but it is not recommended to play them.
A real “guitar” sound can be obtained, through one or through a chain of several (for sophisticated guitarists, their number reaches almost a dozen) so-called (“gadgets”), into a special combo amplifier (colloquially “amp”).
A beginner usually has a transistor combo. Its main advantages are reliability and low price. Tube combo amplifiers, as a rule, are an order of magnitude more expensive than transistor ones, in addition, electric lamps in them must be changed periodically (about once every six months). What are the advantages of tube amplifiers? I'll tell you a secret - the topic of "tube sound vs transistor" has been the cause of more than one holy war, just note that tube amplifiers give a more "correct" guitar sound. Moreover, with increasing volume, the sound of the tube amplifier becomes more and more “correct”, while the transistor one wants to be turned off more and more.
effects pedals
When it comes to effect pedals, there are really a wide variety of them. And each gives its own unique sound. They are called pedals because they are small boxes on which, in addition to various controls, there is an on button (aka off button), which the guitarist presses with his foot. Well, the box itself, respectively, lies on the floor. This button is often made in a form that is somewhat reminiscent of a car pedal - hence the name.
Perhaps the most popular type of effect is distortion(English distortion - "distortion"). It is used a large number musicians playing music of various styles - from pop rock to heavy, aggressive styles like thrash metal. To get an idea of what kind of sound distortion makes, I suggest listening to how the composition “Break Stuff” by Limp Bizkit begins.
However, if you want to play a solo (if someone does not yet know what “playing a solo” means, I will explain - when playing a solo at one particular moment in time, the sound is extracted using only one string). So, distortion here would be a bad choice, this effect distorts the signal too much. For solos, another very common type of effect is good - overdrive(English overdrive - "overload"). It minimally distorts the signal, the solo when using it sounds legible and melodious.
When the pedal is off, it lets the sound through without making any changes. This makes it possible to include effects in a chain - sequentially, so that you can quickly switch from one to another - turn one off, turn on the other and that's it - no wire switching.
AT real life a guitarist often needs to switch entire groups of effects while playing, but he only has two legs. For such cases, they came up with a special pedal switch - the so-called footswitch(English footswitch - "foot switch").
Another very common effect is delay(English delay - "delay"). It works in conjunction with other effects. Its essence lies in the fact that the sound of one note becomes longer, as if stretched out in time. As a rule, a delay works in tandem with an overdrive, but options are possible here, because the imagination of people is limitless, and if these people are also guitarists…
Also, there are more complex devices - effects processors. These are digital devices that can emulate sound. a large number various and combo amplifiers. With their help, you can immediately play “in line” (ie, into a conventional amplifier or the input of a computer sound card). Their main advantage is their size. A small processor is much more convenient than a suitcase of lotions and a huge combo to boot. But, firstly, emulation is emulation, no matter how high-quality it is, and secondly, you can’t press the processor with your foot - you need to turn its many switches, and this is not always acceptable for reasons of lack of time.
Do not forget that the effects pedal needs its own power - as a rule, this is a 9-volt Krona battery. Instead, you can connect a network adapter to almost all gadgets.
How to connect everything?
Both the guitar and the effects are connected using “ ” type jacks at the ends. It should be said that the shorter the cable, the better, the less sound distortion, the less your combo will pick up the radio, and combos, oddly enough, love to listen to the radio. This is especially true of the cable connecting the guitar and the "gadget". Its best length is 2-3 meters, no more.
Also, a lot depends on the quality of the plugs and the wire itself. Here the law is simple: the more expensive, the better (by the way, someone who knows how to solder can easily make a cable for the same money, while using components of better quality than in a finished factory cable). Thus, if your chain looks like "guitar - effect pedal - combo", you will need two jack-to-jack connecting cables.
Safety precautions: belt and straplocks
Let's say that we have already connected the guitar, and our hands immediately reached out to play something on it. Now-now, one more note regarding safety precautions. Inspect your guitar, see how it is attached to it. Most likely, you will see such "hats" for which the belt is fixed on both sides.
There are holes with slots in the belt, into which the “hats” go and the guitar is held on the belt due to its own weight. The most common mistake beginner guitarists make is to throw a strap over themselves without looking to see if the end of the strap is twisted.
Ironically, very often the belt is fixed in the wrong position. When this happens, the guitar falls to the ground as soon as you release it, which, you see, is very sad.
In order to protect guitarists from such collisions, and expensive instruments from irreparable injuries, the so-called straplocks(English straplock - “belt lock”). Straplocks are built in (or rather, screwed in) in place of the “hats” and securely fasten the belt in any position. Most new guitars are produced by manufacturers without straplocks, as if leaving the guitarist with the choice of putting on the guitar the straplocks that he prefers.
Let's play rock!
So, I sincerely want to believe that you got to this place in the article with and already connected. Let's try to play something!
To be honest, I feel sorry for those beginners who are forced to play immortal things like "There was a grasshopper in the grass" when they get acquainted with the instrument. The man decided to play the electric guitar, he already stocked up with Metalzone, he wants it louder and heavier, and you give him Grasshopper.
Therefore, I propose to learn how to play a simple, but at the same time nicely driving riff from the song "Fight For Your Right" by the Beastie Boys. At the same time, we will find out what is “ power chords” and how tabs are written.
First, let's listen to a fragment of the song, the riff to which we will learn to play.
In this song, the guitarist uses a "distortion" type of effect. I recommend not turning on the distortion at first, but just playing directly into the combo (guitarists call this “ clean" - clear sound). Playing on a clear sound will let you understand what mistakes are being made, where the finger went the wrong way, where else something happened. It is important for beginners to remember that playing through distortion blurs individual mistakes. It's not that they are imperceptible, it's just harder to understand where you made a mistake.
The riff of our training song is entirely built on the so-called power chords(English power chords - “powerful chords”). Although in the conventional musical sense they are not exactly chords, they do sound extraordinarily powerful even without overdrive, which is how they got their name. Power chords are ubiquitous in rock music. There is even a special guitar tuning for playing power chords - Drop D. Read more about it below.
What is tablature?
Musicians write down how to play this or that composition with the help of notes. For guitarists, a more convenient form of notation is tablature(""). On the tabs, each string has its own line. Here is the blank tablature:
1) —————————————-
2) —————————————-
3) —————————————-
4) —————————————-
5) —————————————-
6) —————————————-
The top line corresponds to the most thin string, lower, respectively - the thickest. You can also find such a variant of tablature - with letters - everything is the same here:
E|—————————————
B|—————————————
G|—————————————
D|—————————————
A|—————————————
E|—————————————
And now, I ask you to love and favor, here they are - tabs for our educational song:
E|————————————————-
B|————————————————-
G|———————5-7——5-7————
D|—7—————-7-5-7-7-7-5-7——-
A|—7—————-7-3-5-7-7-3-5——-
E|5-5—————-5——5-5—————-
E|—————————————————
B|—————————————————
G|———————-5-7——5-7————-
D|-7-7-7-7-7-7-7-7-7—7-5-7-7-7—5-7
A|-7-7-7-7-7-7-7-7-7—7-3-5-7-7—3-5
E|-5-5-5-5-5-5-5-5-5—5——5-5———
x x x x x x x x x
The numbers on the corresponding line indicate the fret number to be pressed while pulling the string. If the numbers are located at the same level vertically, then the corresponding frets must be clamped at the same time, i.e. play . The number 0 means that the string should be pulled without pinching.
So, we see that the first number in the tablature is the number 5 on the bottom ruler. Those. you need to hold the fifth fret at the thickest. The letter “x” below the number means that the note should be muted. This means that when you pick a string with a plectrum, with an edge right palm(in case you are right-handed) you need to lightly press the strings at a distance of 3-4 cm from the tailpiece.
The string at the fifth fret must be clamped with the thumb of the left hand. We need to clamp in this way for the reason that immediately after we take the first note, we need to take a power chord. The thumb remains in place, while the middle and index fingers move to the seventh fret. We “ride” along three strings at once (namely, along the three lower ones, you should not touch the remaining strings). At the same time, it is no longer necessary to mute the notes - there is no cross (the letters “x”) under the numbers.
Pressing a power chord
After a pause, we start playing the main riff. The power chord on strings 3 to 5 is clamped in the same way:
Play the power chord on strings 3-5. After the main riff comes next fragment:
E|——————————
B|——————————
G|——————————
D|-7-7-7-7-7-7-7-7-7—
A|-7-7-7-7-7-7-7-7-7—
E|-5-5-5-5-5-5-5-5-5—
x x x x x x x x x
I think you already know how to play it. The result should be an extremely beloved by all fans of heavy music sound "j-j-j".
I advise you to first practice playing at a slow pace. Then, when some skill comes, you can turn on the sample and try to play along with the Beastyboys.
Now, as promised, a few words about the system Drop D. It differs from standard tuning only by the fact that the thickest (sixth) string is weakened by an additional two frets. That is, if in the standard tuning the sixth string, clamped at the fifth fret, sounds like an unclipped fifth, then in the Drop D tuning it should sound like the fifth, being already clamped at the 7th fret.
What does it give? Now all power chords that are played on the last three strings can be pinched with just one finger. Therefore, you can move between chords much faster than with standard tuning. This fact is very much to the liking of metalheads, because. they often have to move quickly from chord to chord in a low key.
I hope that the article will be useful for beginners. In it, I tried to answer the questions that I myself had when I got acquainted with the electric guitar. Good luck with your tool!
Most people are capable of learning to play the guitar on their own, although many beginners give up too quickly. Often, beginners quit playing, explaining this by lack of time or pain in their fingers. And the problem is that they just don't practice enough. This page may not give you more time to exercise, but it will show you how to successfully become good enough. a good guitarist without the cost of expensive textbooks.
Steps
-
Enjoy your new guitar playing skills!
- If you have a friend who is an experienced guitarist, try meeting him once a week to play together. Even though he or she plays a lot better, you'll only save the time it usually takes to learn guitar by simply playing next to him, watching him play, and learning from him.
- Explore a few ways to test the slenderness of your game. May take time to develop musical ear.
- Pay a little more for good guitar. If you're thinking about buying your first guitar but aren't sure if you'll enjoy playing it or have the time to practice, buy an inexpensive guitar. If you decide to keep learning, it will be possible to buy a more expensive guitar within your budget. But make sure it's not too cheap. Some guitars can cause you to lose your enjoyment of playing. It is very important to consider the distance between the strings and the fretboard. If the strings are far from the fretboard, then to get a good sound, you have to press the strings harder, which will lead to pain and frustration.
- Use nylon strings until your fingers are stiff enough to use regular steel strings, as they are lighter on your fingers.
- Instead of practicing longer and less often, try to practice for a short time but often. In doing so, your brain will be able to memorize chords and melodies faster. It will also keep your fingers safe when you start playing the guitar.
- Don't be too hard on yourself if you don't understand chords. Remember, this is your first time. Just take your time and learn slowly. You will acquire skills one way or another.
- Try to change the strings regularly - once a month if you practice regularly every day. You will be amazed at the improvement in sound.
- If you're looking for an alternative to online courses, or want to find more sources for learning guitar, check out public library also have big choice guitar books.
- Collect tablature of different guitarists. You'll find free tablature online on the first page of search results with a 99 percent chance. Type the title of the song, the name of the musician, and the words "guitar tablature" in the search box. You will have a wide choice regardless of the genre. If you like them, then you can play them.
- If you have an audio editor - GarageBand or , then you can select only part of the song to study. It helps a lot.
- It's easy to learn the basics of guitar playing with the help of the above. If you encounter serious difficulties, then you will need the experience and knowledge of a professional teacher. This page is in no way suggesting that the tutors are useless. This page is just to help you get started.
- If you are left-handed, you must choose your guitar especially carefully. Left-handed guitar will be more natural to you and may be the right choice. However, if you can force yourself to learn right-handed guitar, you will have much more more choice and be able to swap guitars with other guitarists. You don't have to mentally flip the image of the chord to fit your fretboard. After all, both hands should be doing a fairly precise job. You need to avoid choosing one type so that you don't regret your choice.
- Try using video guitar lessons on TocarGuitar websites. YouTube, Songsterr and ultimate Guitar.
- Make notes about how you feel and how well you play every time you practice. If you practice daily, you will notice a big difference every day.
- Choose songs to practice strategically. This resource will teach you how to do it Nobsguitar Newsletter. Most of the ways involve striving for some use of technique and theory from one song to another. Choose parts that you love and can play, and parts that challenge your playing skills.
- Try to keep notes of your exercises to track your progress. Because you can't tell the immediate difference, you may find amazing progress you've made in quite a few short period time.
- Try to accompany someone singing or playing. This will help develop your technique, rhythm and ear. If you work with other guitarists, try to avoid simple copying.
Warnings
- Play the many different guitars you can find in major guitar specialty stores before buying. There are hundreds of guitars in these major stores and you can choose the one that suits you best. Don't let pushy salespeople put pressure on you to buy something when you don't have a choice. Don't get too embarrassed when playing in front of people.
- Never install steel strings on a classical guitar. classical guitars will not match the tension steel strings. The strings are bent or will break the neck, soundboard, or fretboard. The hulls are built differently and are not interchangeable. You can use nylon strings on an acoustic guitar, but the sound will sound softer, less shiny, and more subdued.
- Feel free to play in front of other, more experienced guitarists. They were once at your level, and most of them remember what it was like. They also love to share and showcase their playing to up-and-coming musicians.
- Watch the angle of your left wrist. Since you are self-taught, you will not have a teacher telling you that you are holding your wrist incorrectly. If you bend it too much, you can seriously injure yourself. Keep it straight! If you're unsure, show your technique to someone experienced and ask about proper wrist placement.
- To prevent your hand from getting hurt, control your calluses. Sand your fingertips several times a week. Polishing and buffing your calluses is important. Over time, the outermost layer of skin will begin to separate. Be sure to polish the calluses then, or the string may get stuck in the open recess of the callus when the chord changes.
- Buy an electric guitar tuner. You'll save a lot of string sets and be careful when tuning, especially the first string.
- Playing the guitar can hurt your fingers. You can put some ice in a bowl of water and soak your fingertips for a minute or just pour over them. cold water. This will prevent blisters and hasten the growth of calluses. Wait a while after soaking before playing.
Search the Internet and select the appropriate instructions. There are hundreds of websites on the Internet that offer free lessons, many of which are very well developed and can be applied in your routine practice. There you will find comprehensive answers to your questions.
Learn to distinguish a good musician from a bad one. If you can play as well as your favorite musician after a few weeks, try emulating a more skilled musician.
Learn the tool. Learn the names and functions of guitar parts. Understand their interaction to extract sounds. Understand how sound is produced by the guitar, how string tension affects sound. The half hour spent on this basic understanding will be repaid many times over in the course of your practice and play.
Learn to play chords in different positions. There are 10 different hand positions on the fretboard in which you can play a C chord. Start with a pure C chord, but the more ways you learn how to play a chord, the more flexibility you will have in moving from one chord to the next. It may also come in handy if you decide to try composing music.
Practice daily (at least 5 days a week) for at least half an hour. If you want to learn fast, you must fill your brain with guitar. This includes ear training to understand the pitch and intonation of sounds, comfortable positioning of your body (including legs, back, shoulders and hand position), right hand technique for sound production, and left hand technique for sound control. The most important thing is to train the muscle memory of the hands on the bar.
Practice chords and hand positions without sound while watching TV or talking to a friend. Left hand muscle memory training is much more difficult than right hand muscle memory training (excluding string picking). You don't have to use your right hand at all, just play around with your left hand many different chords. TV or conversation will help you avoid looking at your hands too often. But when you're learning chords, you need to be careful about the position of your fingers and hand so that muscle memory retains the correct position. Over time, look at your fingers less often, but still check the placement of the hand. Gradually, your confidence in the correct setting will grow, and you will not have to look at your hands so often.
Build up calluses on your fingertips. It hurts. But as soon as the calluses appear, the pain you once felt will disappear. The more you practice, the faster it will happen. There are callus builders you can buy.
Learn barre chords along with open chords. Don't skip barre chords though they are harder to play. As with building up calluses, playing barre chords becomes easier as you practice. The playing of barre chords depends almost entirely on the strength of the left hand.
Exercise your left arm muscles by repeatedly squeezing a tennis ball or similar object for 5 minutes several times a day. (Be careful, this can lead to overvoltage).
Allow yourself to be upset. It's unavoidable. This is fine. A chord that you've been trying to play clean for days or weeks will eventually sound clear and beautiful. Keep working on it. Repeat until you're sure the chord sounds great.
Practice. Practice. Practice. "Practice makes perfection." And it's not just grandmother's tales. Practicing, fight for quality. If you practice carelessly, you will perpetuate bad habits forever. The best aphorism might actually sound like "Practice makes consistency." Just as athletes spin their kettlebells by focusing on a particular part of the body, you can play passages by focusing on various aspects - tone, fluidity, speed, accuracy. By focusing on different aspects of the music separately, you can improve your skills and improve your playing!
Play along with the CD the songs you like. A CD player is a great device for practicing music because it's easy to rewind a CD and repeat even very small parts of a song.
Start playing songs. There are two ways to record music for the guitar. One notation technique is called sheet music and the other is called tablature. Find articles online. The ability to read both ways of writing is extremely valuable.
Play on different types guitars. Start learning bass, play classical guitar, play tenor guitar, play electric guitar. You will be familiar with the sounds of various guitars.
Stringed instruments require diligence when practicing playing them. It is widely believed that you can learn guitar picking only by studying with a teacher. A teacher at a music school helps to better develop playing technique, but elementary moments are easy to learn at home.
Can you learn to play the guitar on your own?
To achieve success in any creative and not very business is possible only by approaching it with all seriousness. When wondering how to learn to play the guitar on your own, you need to remember a few fundamental things:
- Any training that involves the acquisition of some skills by a beginner requires regularity. The more often you study at home, the faster you will learn to play.
- It is necessary to work out each action until the correct result. If something doesn't work, try it again until you can play everything right.
How to quickly learn to play the guitar at home
After a few self-study do not immediately expect phenomenal results, skills come and develop gradually. There is a lot of training literature for "dummies" on the network, by downloading which you can select for yourself important points. The invariable elements of successful learning are the instrument itself, its tuning, the position of the guitarist and the position of the hands.
Tool selection
The guitar can be classical, acoustic or electric, six-string or seven-string. How to decide and make an unmistakable choice? Before purchasing a tool, consider the following points:
- Decide on your commitment to any particular genre of music. For example, if you prefer the classical, then it is unlikely that the Spanish guitar will suit you.
- Beginners' fingers are bound to hurt when picking acoustic guitar strings, as they are stiffer than electric guitar strings.
- Beginners should prefer six-string guitar. Russian seven-string guitar gone, now the additional "low" seventh string does not interfere with using only the usual six.
Correct fit
How correct the position of the guitarist during the game determines the outcome of the training. An incorrect posture can be not only uncomfortable, leading to rapid fatigue. Often this reduces the possibility of performing one or another polyphony. It is recommended for beginners to learn guitar exercises in a seated position, since it will not be difficult to play standing up after that.
You need to learn to play sitting on a hard stool, raising your left knee above the level of the seat. For this, a stand is used, on which the guitarist must put his foot. The back should remain straight without touching anything. Place the guitar with the notch in the middle of the raised left thigh. Right foot provide the necessary support to the lower part of the tool. In this case, the neck should be slightly above the level of the left shoulder, and the lower deck should be at chest level. For left-handers, the posture will be completely mirrored: the guitar is placed on the right raised thigh, the neck is slightly above the level of the right shoulder.
Correct hand position
Having dealt with the location of the legs, proceed to the hands. The right elbow should be closer to the body and not go beyond the guitar body with right side, the wrist does not need to be brought very close to the upper deck. The fingers of a rounded brush hung to the strings must be closed together, except for the big one, so that their tips line up in one line. The reference point for the location of the thumb is the strings responsible for the bass. Position the phalanges parallel to the guitar frets.
The left hand is more difficult for a beginner to handle. The wrist of the raised forearm must be bent, the hand rounded and positioned thumb in the center of the neck at the back. At the same time, the remaining fingers should stand on the strings, clamping them with pads. Over time, you will learn to accept this position without straining the shoulder apparatus and hands. It is important to practice at home systematically.
Guitar tuning
Before learning how to play the guitar at home, it is important to get a feel for the instrument and tune it correctly. To play beautiful melodies, it is necessary not only to place your hands, but also to achieve the correct sound of the guitar. Knowledge of music will be an absolute advantage, although tuning by ear is also performed. There are several easy ways:
- Use an online service that plays the correct sound of each string.
- You can tune your guitar with a piano if you have one at home. Strings are designated by letters that correspond to one or another piano key. They should sound identical.
- When using a guitar tuner, tuning it will not be difficult at all. The device will indicate the note you have played and all that remains is to unwind or tighten the string.
- If you have a good ear for music, you can resort to using a tuning fork.
The first exercises for playing the guitar
In order to properly learn how to play the guitar at home, perform a guitar solo and your favorite songs, you will have to work hard every day. It is better to start learning guitar playing with exercises that are played on one string. Often teachers teach students a very simple song about a grasshopper. On the Internet you can find tablature for it, where the numbers indicate which frets should be sequentially clamped on the string. Having mastered such exercises, you can move on to guitar picking, combat and other more complex elements.
Guitar video tutorials from scratch
Guitar lessons for beginners are not limited to teaching from teachers and classes in printed literature. There are video courses in which the teacher gradually explains how to learn how to play the guitar at home. They are given useful advice for beginners, exercises are analyzed in detail, allowing you to quickly acquire the necessary skill. Use the tutorial videos below to learn how to play the guitar at home as soon as possible.
Online guitar tutorial for beginners for free
How to learn to play electric guitar - beginner level
