Any Other Guitar Players?

[Herbert The Love Bug]

martin, mcconnell, and henderson guitars are the only one's I'll touch. Acoustic is the only type of guitar for me

[Kramerica]

Fender Jagstang

My acoustic is a Takamine

[pir8fan05]

Taylor DN3

[The NFL Shield At Midfield]

1959 sunburst les paul standard => every pete cornish pedal ever made => dumble overdrive special

[Proudiddy]

I don't play, but with so many experienced players in here, I figured this would be a good place to ask.

I have always wanted to play - competently, that is. I got a Fender Strat Squire when I was like 12. Beautiful guitar, and I was told by a guitar teacher that those were actually the high quality versions before they were sold out and went to crap. Anyway, I still have it but hadn't turned it on for 10 years until last December and it had a hard time picking anything up through the amp consistently.

But, I wanted to ask, what is the best way for me to learn. And quickly? I've always wanted to play and feel that is a "burning desire" within me - to play and create music. I tried to learn through books when I was younger, but I lost patience and just quit. Even if I look at them now, it just frustrates me because I want to pick it up and play some Hendrix right off the bat, lol.

Any advice?

[The NFL Shield At Midfield]

yeah actually if you've got a japanese or mexican made squier then you're pretty lucky because a few of those are somewhat sought after guitars. they're at the very least on par with the fenders coming out of mexico right now if not better.

i'm on year 13 as a guitarist now and there are still things i suck at but that also means there are rewarding moments where the light comes on and i understand something new that i didn't before. as for learning how to play, if i could go back and do anything over, i would have actually taken the scales, modes, and chord theory my guitar teacher was trying and failing to shove down my throat when i was 14 more seriously. i would just ignore him and go home spending hours trying my ass off to play "black dog" and utterly failing without realizing that the minor/major pentatonic blues exercises my teacher had given me were literally exactly what formed the foundation of that song and most rock guitar playing.

the thing is, what could work for you is just looking up tabs for songs and learning how to play that way. that didn't work for me-i never seemed to get better and when i did learn how to play more challenging stuff i was always wondering why things worked the way they did.

this crappy little website some guy banged out in notepad pretty much changed my course as a guitar player:

http://www.scenicnew...ords/chords.htm

http://www.scenicnew...ales/index.html

i have never seen a more simple, concise, logical breakdown of chord and scale theory anywhere.

i'm not saying this is the right way to do it, it's just the way that worked for me and allowed me to take the next step as a guitar player.

[Bwood]

There's a lot that goes into being a good guitarist, I honestly just think you either understand how to play the instrument or you just don't, at all.

I've seen guys that tried so hard to play guitar. Taking lessons and reading books, but even though they have all the equipment and the lessons, they just can't make that jump to the next level.

You know when you hear your friend that rarely plays guitar but always remembers one or two lame classic rock songs? Yeah, he might know the chords, but the technique, the strum pattern, the tempo, etc, just isn't there.

I'm basically saying if you aren't a natural right away, you better really focus on technique, strumming, and tempo. When you get that stuff down than you can learn songs and chords.

And just stay loose. Don't play tight. My teacher told me that when I first started and I finally jumped from the level of playing simple chords and being stiff on basic scales, to being able to play difficult chord progressions and speed up and down different scale patterns.

[TANTRIC-NINJA]

Charvel Model 6, Fender Stratocaster maple neck Seymore Duncan pickups. Line 6 Spyder Jam amp, Rockman xp-100 stereo amp.

Sold all my big stuff.. Mesa boogie half stack, Roland jazz chorus. Yngwie Malmsteen Fender Strat with Scalloped fretboard.

[Coheed]

But, I wanted to ask, what is the best way for me to learn. And quickly? I've always wanted to play and feel that is a "burning desire" within me - to play and create music. I tried to learn through books when I was younger, but I lost patience and just quit. Even if I look at them now, it just frustrates me because I want to pick it up and play some Hendrix right off the bat, lol.

Any advice?

when first beginning, I'd recommend taking lessons to get the basics down. A teacher is much more engaging and helpful than a book. Although books can e helpful, I don't feel they can replace a good teacher.

In terms of that "desire", I've always felt my personal desire to create music at it's highest when I'm actively making music with other people, music that I really like. Once you write that initial song or something with a few friends, and you really really enjoy it, the thirst is there to keep doing it, and you don't necessarily need to be good at all to write one you like. Looking back at the first song wrote that I loved, it was AWFUL ahahaha. That's how it is for me, at least. I haven't played guitar as much in college because I haven't found anyone to really play with, yet.

[LifeisaGarden]

My 11 year old daughter plays guitar or is learning to play guitar I mean. I love it. It's one of the few instruments that sounds good even if you don't know how to play. She plays with a 3/4 size acoustic Dean Playmate. She's also learning to play the Jaw Harp and Harmonica.

[Bronn]

I don't play, but with so many experienced players in here, I figured this would be a good place to ask.

I have always wanted to play - competently, that is. I got a Fender Strat Squire when I was like 12. Beautiful guitar, and I was told by a guitar teacher that those were actually the high quality versions before they were sold out and went to crap. Anyway, I still have it but hadn't turned it on for 10 years until last December and it had a hard time picking anything up through the amp consistently.

But, I wanted to ask, what is the best way for me to learn. And quickly? I've always wanted to play and feel that is a "burning desire" within me - to play and create music. I tried to learn through books when I was younger, but I lost patience and just quit. Even if I look at them now, it just frustrates me because I want to pick it up and play some Hendrix right off the bat, lol.

Any advice?

It depends on what you want to play.

If you want to be able to play whole radio rock songs relatively easy, just learn the bar E chord. You'll be able to play pretty much any rhythm guitar part for the last 20 years.

If you don't care about the technicalities of playing guitar, learn to read tablature. Basically all it does is tell you what fret # to hit on what string and when.

If you want to play some base 1-4-5 blues type stuff that can get technical like Hendrix and SRV, learn a few scales that you can just create riffs out of. As long as you stay within the scale, you can't really go wrong with improvisation this way.

[Bronn]

The 1-4-5 stuff I was talking about, you can do runs like this guy is doing... which sound sexy but aren't really terribly technical

[The NFL Shield At Midfield]

i want this amp. it's a granger m50-basically a hand wired plexi clone made by a small shop in birmingham, alabama:

sounds damn good to me and i'm not necessarily that big of a brown sound/eddie van halen fan. the base model is $1600 which is more than a grand less than the street prices you'll find for the actual marshall reissues.

[iamcline]

I'm guitar player! Well I try anyways. I did have a pretty nice rig but fell on some troubles and had to get rid of everything. Slowly, however, I am piecing it back together. Here is the foundation:

In the future I'd love to get my hands on a Mesa Boogie Mark V, but until then I'm going to develop my backup rig.