Music I just started trying to learn guitar...

Tincanalley said:
Good advice. Learn the names of notes on fretboard. Learn to play up the neck (not as hard as it sounds).
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Learning up the neck is really helped by knowing the basic theory.
@Pickle85 try using the pad of a finger to play A and don't worry about muting or anything overly technical yet. Using the pad to press the 3 strings is a good trick and it will also help down the line when you learn CAGED.

Nobody notices that small stuff and if you get serious down the line you can clean that up.
 
McGrathsipan said:
Learning up the neck is really helped by knowing the basic theory.
@Pickle85 try using the pad of a finger to play A and don't worry about muting or anything overly technical yet. Using the pad to press the 3 strings is a good trick and it will also help down the line when you learn CAGED.

Nobody notices that small stuff and if you get serious down the line you can clean that up.
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Thanks mate, that's reassuring as its been frustrating the crap out of me. Shall look up learning up the neck as I gotta say, I don't know what it means!
 
I've been playing on a cheap acoustic guitar for a while now but still can't do barre chords.
 
To contradict others, my advice is to NOT cheap out on your first guitar. Obviously you don't have to buy anything high end, but you will generally find the very low budget guitars can be much harder to play and most of the time don't sound great.
 
Woodzy said:
To contradict others, my advice is to NOT cheap out on your first guitar. Obviously you don't have to buy anything high end, but you will generally find the very low budget guitars can be much harder to play and most of the time don't sound great.
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And the build quality and sound of a mid-tier guitar is pretty great nowadays. Try a broad spectrum of the price range in the shop to get a feel for what the differences are, and then buy something that's comfortable to play and makes you want to keep playing, without breaking the bank. A £500 guitar can be a way better investment than a £100 guitar. After all, what's the point on spending any money on a guitar if you don't even want to play it?
 
Pickle85 said:
Thanks mate, that's reassuring as its been frustrating the crap out of me. Shall look up learning up the neck as I gotta say, I don't know what it means!
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It will all fall into place eventually.
Stick with chords for a while and some basic scales. It's takes a fair bit of time to get good so don't panic. Give it the time it needs
 
Red Stone said:
And the build quality and sound of a mid-tier guitar is pretty great nowadays. Try a broad spectrum of the price range in the shop to get a feel for what the differences are, and then buy something that's comfortable to play and makes you want to keep playing, without breaking the bank. A £500 guitar can be a way better investment than a £100 guitar. After all, what's the point on spending any money on a guitar if you don't even want to play it?
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I bought a Fender acoustic in 2004 when I started playing. Still have it. Still sounds lovely
 
Woodzy said:
To contradict others, my advice is to NOT cheap out on your first guitar. Obviously you don't have to buy anything high end, but you will generally find the very low budget guitars can be much harder to play and most of the time don't sound great.
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I've had about 8 guitars over the last few years and would endorse this. My favourite two are an Epiphone Les Paul Custom and a Fender Mexican Strat. They play much easier than the cheaper ones I have and stay in tune far longer etc. I would also endorse getting a tech to set the guitar up without fail if you can't do it yourself it makes a huge difference. I'm gonna be learning soldering soon and then upgrading the pickups will make them not that far behind American made models imo.

Certainly close enough for me and at half the cost. Each cost around £500 and I will never part with either.

I've got an Epiphone Les Paul Special II which is a lovely looking guitar and cost around £150 but now it feels awful it hardly stays in tune, the action is like rubber bands compared to my others. If I do decide to let one go it'll be that one and I'd only ask about 60 quid for it it's really not worth more than that.

If the budget really is £200 or less I would recommend a Squire or a Harley Benton from Thomman. They can be set up and upgraded but I really would go a minimum of around £500 now I've seen the difference.

I'm into kit guitars at the moment. They are dirt cheap and a lot of fun. I've made a Tele and swapped the tuners and pickups on it and love it. I'm currently making a Les Paul but it's a lot of work grain filling and then sanding it back down - all part of the fun though.
 
McGrathsipan said:
Learning up the neck is really helped by knowing the basic theory.
@Pickle85 try using the pad of a finger to play A and don't worry about muting or anything overly technical yet. Using the pad to press the 3 strings is a good trick and it will also help down the line when you learn CAGED.

Nobody notices that small stuff and if you get serious down the line you can clean that up.
Click to expand...
You just reminded me of a stage at which my goal was to make fretted notes sound as clean as open ones! Important to relax, press string immediately behind fret… yes, one cleanly played note a major landmark:)
 
My 10 year old started about 6 months ago, and he's been having lessons at his mum's house. I recently had the kids at mine on the night he's got his lessons and he's gotten really good at it.

I think it helps that his teacher lets him pick the songs. I wanted to learn when I was a kid and it was boring as feck with the after school music teacher being a religious type and having to play shit like greensleeves and kum-by-yah and shit like that when I wanted to learn how to play rock music. Got fed up and quit after about a month.
 
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