guitar

[samus]

so i've decided to pick up the guitar. unfortunately i have short fingers. however, i play the viola and violin, so i don't really see that being a problem.

does anyone here play the guitar? and if so, do you have any important tips for a beginner? any good easy songs to mess around with? what chords should i start learning first?

jeez, so many questions.

[ghosstt]

The easiest song you can learn is "Horse With No Name" by America. Two chords, alternating, with a rather easy rhythm. Something I'd say you should really work on at first, is the ability to hear a rhythm and play it with your right hand, even if its over just one chord. When I gave lessons, the kid I gave lessons to really had trouble with doing any sort of rhythm, and you could tell he never practiced aside from during the lesson, so that brings up point 2; just practice a lot. When I first started playing, I played a decent amount, and shelfed out, and it got rather boring. I cured this by playing with others, etc. (It really brought out my soloing side, and improv.) Since you already play instruments, I'm sure you have the determination though.

Easy Chords to Learn:
Em
E
A
Am

Those are by far the easiest chords. (I'm talking open chords here) And luckily, they happen to make up the first 2 parts of the blues in key of E. (This too, while can be boring, really helps you with multitasking left and right hand, and getting rhythm down)

Just make sure you can play all the major chords at first. This will help you a drastic amount, more than most people give credit for. Once you get those down, you can start into the open minor chords, barre chords, power chords, and scales. (Or you can start with major opens and scales too)

Learning riffs can be really fun too, and a decent way to practice, but that is where I started to shelf out at, and became tough for me to get over.

Overall, just have fun with it, and practice a lot.

[weaponepsilon]

"Smoke on the water". Heh. Oh and "Rocking in the free world".

[Metallica Man X]

Hm..hard to add anything of any real merit after ghosst's post lol.

BUT, I can still add a tune to learn: For whom the bell tolls!!! That's pretty easy as far as metal riffs go--a good starter tune.

[AfroLH]

Weezer songs are generally good Beginner songs.
"Undone (The Sweater Song)" especially.

[samus]

i should probably mention here that i also play the bass guitar: blues and jazz style. and i can play the trap set. so i have rhythm.

thanks for the tips guys. i already wrote a song today.

[timmeh87]

pirate a copy of "guitar pro" for all your tabulature needs. Search for GP files on google or ultimate guitar

[weaponepsilon]

Anything by Rush...

[Biased]

Blink 182 songs are very easy to learn (and sing along with), I learned about four or five Blink songs after playing for about three months when I was 14. It helps to get music books that have tablature along with sheet music. Hal-Leonard books have them and are always (I think anyway) the guitar recorded versions, so you know you're learning the song the way it's actually played.

EDIT: If you're into pirating software, get Guitar Rig. Amazing program for effects, although it does kind of suck up processor power and RAM, and as long as it's running it hogs the use of the sound card....

[RockNRoll!]

http://www.zentao.com/guitar/guitar-lessons.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
These are the best online guitar lessons I've found. Here's another one I found but haven't read much cause I just found it the other day but it looks pretty good so far: http://www.essentialguitar.com/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[desertman123]

"Smoke on the water". Heh. Oh and "Rocking in the free world".

What can this strange device be?
When I touch it, it gives forth a sound
It's got wires that vibrate and give music
What can this thing be that I found?


I learned One by Metallica for my first song. Damn it was hard to learn but once I did I could easily play a lot of the "beginner" songs with ease. Try it, if it's like WALLHAX then try something by Nirvana.


Protip: Don't tape yourself playing the guitar for the first time and put it on Youtube.

[Extreme_Jesus]

Lots of good advice here already, so not much to add.

Writing your own songs is very good, I find it more satisfying than learning other peoples songs. Just learn lots of chords and play around with them until you find something that works

http://www.all-guitar-chords.com/

Thats a pretty good little tool for quickly finding chord shapes that you need

Thats all i can give that hasn't already been said unless you need advice on playing ska and reggae

[desertman123]

pirate a copy of "guitar pro" for all your tabulature needs. Search for GP files on google or ultimate guitar

Tux Guitar.

[Jidan]

Check out Lick Library for tons of videos and stuff as far as learning specifics goes

[kingpin901]

''The House of the rising sun'' is the easiest I know by The Animals.