Hey, I'm new, clueless, and totally need help.

soundwave · Newbie Alert Joined: 13 May 2007 Posts: 1

Heya. I've been teaching myself guitar since last summer, and bought an electric around xmas. If anyone ever asks my advice on how to self-teach, i'll tell them not to teach themselves electric out of an acoustic book. better to invest 10 bucks or so and buy something tha twill teach you the basics.

I've been involved in music since I was 5 (i'm 13 now), so I know how to read standard musical notation. But tabs give me a headache, although I know I need to learn them.

Also, since I've taught myself, I'm finding as I visit more websites and watch more covers on youtube, a lot of the basics in electric guitar are not covered in my education. I can strum and hammer-on, that's about it. I'm totally clueless and I need tips. I'll hopefully be taking a few work-shop-type lessons from a guy on the worship team at our church soon, but not until after may is over. So basically I just need tips on everything you can think of. Think of me as a total beginner (you have no idea how much I hate that word...but it's so true).

Thanks!

PunkStar · Posted: Mon May 14, 2007 10:20 pm Post subject:

First of all, welcome to the board. Good to have you with us. Feel free to stick around and comment on things that come up. You will probably learn quite a bit that way.

What we tell you probably won't be much more helpful than what you have read in books. Except that we can reword and explain things again which a book only gives you the text printed. We are obviously not going to be as good as a local teacher. But we are more than happy to share what knowledge we have.

You've asked for a lot of general information. Now we could probably type up a lot of information on playing, but I don't think that will help much. Everyone has a different idea and a different goal of guitar playing, and we tailor our skills to match.

What attracted you to the electric guitar in the first place? Which players or songs do you like to listen to (and would like to one day play)? Do you have any goals to achieve with the guitar? If you can answer those questions, we can start to pinpoint what you need and want to learn.

markm2553 · Posted: Tue May 15, 2007 3:47 am Post subject:

The mistake I think many young new players make is to rely on the effects to much. Better to learn the basics first. I'm NOT an electric player, and I don't play one on TV. Wink

But that is the best advise I can give. If you can read music, you are already ahead of most, me included. Tab is what you learn when you can't read music. Very Happy

Learn the notes on the fret board, and look at anything that has to do with playing scales.

There are several very good electric players on the board, if you ask a question in a little more detail, they will be happy to get back to you.

Welcome to the board!
It's great you plan to help out at Church, may God Bless you in it.

dertsa · Posted: Tue May 15, 2007 10:04 am Post subject:

With learning electric. I definately agree that a lot of times people rely on effects too much. One of the most common mistakes is to think it sounds good because you use a lot of distortion. A lot of times heavy distortion just covers up mistakes better.

Knowing music notation is awesome. Try to learn to ready tabs as well, and maybe work on some theory (knowing notation will help in this area). Scales and chord progressions are a great thing to learn. Once you understand that kind of a thing, solo work for just about any song gets pretty easy. then work on speed and control with both hands.

Hope that helps. God bless.

sam