anyone play guitar?

[roosterjuicer]

I just bought a basically brand new guitar and amp from my fiance's little brother for the price of 20$ US. Anyone have any tips on how to learn how to play? Any good books or DVD's or anything?

[cmcpokey]

i play guitar and bass, and dabble with drums. my recommendation is to get a few lessons. they are really invaluable to getting the basics. but otherwise, learning your basic chords, then the variations (major, minor, 7th, adds, etc), then learning some basic scales to you know where everything on the fret board is. guitar is fun, but if you arent doing anything productive, put the guitar in your hands and mess around. the best way to figure out how to play is to mess around and see what sounds good.

[Rockefella]

I play extensive guitar..




hero.

[my porsche]

Yeah, for the past ~9 years. Like CMC said, get a few lessons, learn the basic chords, learn the blues and pentatonic scales, learn how to read tabs and learn some songs that you like, and you're basically set.

Go here for tabs:
ULTIMATE GUITAR TABS ARCHIVE | 300,000+ Guitar Tabs, Bass Tabs, Chords and Guitar Pro Tabs!

[cmcpokey]

yeah, i use the hell out of ultimate-guitar. annoying though as i have to type the whole damn thing out in the browser since there is so many ucp pages in there.

[my porsche]

Originally Posted by cmcpokey

yeah, i use the hell out of ultimate-guitar. annoying though as i have to type the whole damn thing out in the browser since there is so many ucp pages in there.

UCP comes up as #1 when I have "ul" typed into the browser, but for some reason when I hit the "t" #1 changes to UG.

[roosterjuicer]

what is a guitar tab?

[Dino Scuderia]

Originally Posted by roosterjuicer

what is a guitar tab?

Tab is more like a note than a chord. Like you read tab to learn riffs and solos.

[cmcpokey]

tab looks like this.. read low string on the bottom, high on the top, and the number is the fret to play the note on:
x8 x4 x4 x8 x4 x4

|--14---17---14-------------|----9----12----9-----------|
|--15---15---15-------------|----10---10----10----------|
|--14---14---14-------------|----9-----9----9-----------|
|---------------------------|---------------------------|
|---------------------------|---------------------------|
|---------------------------|---------------------------|

[Dino Scuderia]

Tabs will drive you bonkers unless you can play by ear as well....then only half bonkers.

[cmcpokey]

i exclusively use chords. i hate trying to decipher tab, and you cant read it while you play very easily. plus i also play acoustic, not electric, so i dont solo, and thats really why you would want tab.

[Dino Scuderia]

Originally Posted by cmcpokey

i exclusively use chords. i hate trying to decipher tab, and you cant read it while you play very easily. plus i also play acoustic, not electric, so i dont solo, and thats really why you would want tab.

Me too...and you can be just as creative with chords and there's loads of them to learn...but not totally necessary to play and/or write plenty of songs.

[my porsche]

Originally Posted by cmcpokey

i exclusively use chords. i hate trying to decipher tab, and you cant read it while you play very easily. plus i also play acoustic, not electric, so i dont solo, and thats really why you would want tab.

There's plenty of stuff for tab that doesn't involve solos., a lot of the stuff I play on my acoustic wouldn't be able to be played with chords alone. Plus, tabs are something you read, then play from memory, you don't try to read it like sheet music, that will end badly because they are typically spaced completely differently than how they should be if there were bars and rests etc.

[john14]

I have played guitar for more than 10 years and I have to say, guitar tablature is the greatest thing ever invented since people first stood on the Earth's surface.