how do you play guitar?

I would think it is best to start with a simple scale i.e., Minor Penatonic, and get that down as quickly as possible along with some other scales, so when you get better you are able to come up with more complicated things because of the scales you learned. I would also recommend looking up tabs on songs you like that do not sound too complicated.

    Ehm, ok... unless you already know everything since this thread has been up for a good while now:

1. Forget the piano when you're playing guitar. It's completely different. With the guitar you can easily play chords that you can't play on the piano with two hands.

2. The same theory applies to guitar as well. We have chords with 3 notes, the scales are easilyl found if you know how it goes, c is c, d# is d#... So you take the guitar, and go through the neck looking for all C s, and then you play the scales from it, finding exactly where the notes from the scales are.

3. With guitar the scale patterns for fingers are always the same with the exeption of the higher strings that are half a step lower, just to make it possible to press chords.

4. So you now know the scales, you realise you can form any chord you want with the knowledge you have. Nevertheless it's advisable to learn some by heart as you go. Play some easy, a bit silly even, songds and learn basic majors and minors, at least 2 ways of playing them, evenmore maybe, depending on what kind of music you're playing.

5. Playing solos doesn't differ a lot from piano. You know the scales, and if you're really creative, you might even try to change them when a chord is changed.

6. For tricks: shredding without any idea what you're doing is pointless and sounds horrible. Pay more attention into staying in the scale, if not intentionally straying from it a bit on occations, like when playing in C it's common to go from G to A with quickly playing the G# there in between, but not letting it play for long. If you want to play quick, practise changing strings with both hands, but the basic quick bursts are easy on just one string and barely noticable.

To this it's easier when you know how to play the scale on 1 string, 2 strings, 3 strings etc... there are loads of places where you can find the C and more ways to go through the scale to it.

Just so that I wouldn't lose my paycheck with this, I'll give you one lesson. Play through the chords you know and after each play one type of scale through and then take the second chord and so on and so on. Example. C and c-major scale, G and g-major scale, D and d-major scale. Same thing with minors. And remember. There can be even 20 ways of playing C which all sound a tad different...

Well, I've got nothing to sugest (can't play guitar myelf), but for what it's worth my brother self taught himself at twelve, w/ some Rage Against the Machine videos, and now he is a very accompished musician at the age of 18. 

about effects: delay/echo + ebow + wha wha to have a deep mantra-like sound.

I recently bought a DVD out of curiosity more than anything else - I thought I might have a good laugh.

It's called "50 Killer Metal Licks" and is produced by LickLibrary - see why I thought it might be funny?

Instead, it turned out to be really good - the tutor is Danny Gill, a student of Joe Satriani, and really, you might just as well be having lessons from Joe himself!

The screen is thoughtfully laid out so that you can see both his fretting hand - and his picking hand in a smaller window, so you can clearly see how he holds the pick and the pick movements.

Danny starts at base level with the pentatonic scale, and works up to a moderately advanced level incorporating major and minor scales, including the ubiquitous sweep-picking techniques, two-handed playing and some fun at the end.

I went from "could just about sweep-pick" to proficient in 6 weeks (I only get 30 minutes practice time a day if I'm lucky, and most days I don't practice), but my favourite "trick" is intervallic leaps and octaves, which I've already incorporated into a couple of solos.

Most of it is simply developing a "memory muscle" so your fingers get used to moving in certain ways at speed.


This DVD is great for soloing, but for songs, nothing beats listening to your favourites and playing along by ear.

Or even better, fingers...
    

Edited by Certif1ed - September 07 2006 at 04:51

MikeEnRegalia wrote: I suggest you take some lessons to get started. It's quite difficult to learn to play the guitar simply "by doing".

That was my approach to it and I turned out just fine (although my dad did show me a few chords when I was just starting out everything else I learned came quite naturally over time).

The Lost Chord wrote: I play piano, i know all of the scales, can play with my eyes closed and all I am just really experienced so to say...I know it like I know 2+2=4   Anyways, I have been trying to learn guitar naturally, and have figured out many things about it, but can anyone here recommend taking lessons or any tips about the construction of the guitar and how it applies to piano or vice versa?   I also play flute and know it very well.   Thanks!  I am just having alot of trouble with the idea of strings and frets and everything.

LC...

suggestions:

1. get this book a.s.a.p.  if you cannot afford to buy it, get it from your local library.
you will not regret it.... trust me

http://www.amazon.com/Guitar-Handbook-Ralph-Denyer/dp/0679742751/sr=1-1/qid=1157547877/ref=pd_bbs_1/002-7399183-7285631?ie=UTF8&s=books

2. get a good quality electric to learn on. why ? they're easier on your fingers and hands.

3. don't use a capo if you really want to learn to play a guitar... well, at least NOT until you've learned how to play barre chords.

4. learn chords first... THEN solo fingering.

i go into guitar shops and i am surprized to see how many young/new players don't have any clue about chords...they just want to play "lightning-fast" fingered solos.

5. learn to play BOTH barre chords AND "open" chords
.


Edited by utah_man - September 06 2006 at 09:26

It's very simple. Start off by learning chords, become a chord macheine. Then learn scales and you're set.

Start with the pentatonic scale - learn it in as many positions as you can - the same way you learn piano scales, ie playing it over and over until it's second nature.


It won't take long before you're soloing like a 1970s guitar God - you cannot play a wrong note if you use the pentatonic scale!
    

The big difference between the guitar and a keyboard is that the keyboard has the sharps and flats clearly marked with the black and white keys - frets are all the semitones presented in a "flattened out" way.

I took pretty much the same approach when I got my first guitar - I could already play piano to a very high standard, and didn't want to go through all that learning malarky all over again with the guitar.

The first song I learned to play on the guitar was "The Boxer" by Simon and Garfunkel - it's got pretty much every chord you'll ever need in it. I learned it by playing a tape recording of it over and over and over until I had nailed it.

Edited by Certif1ed - August 29 2006 at 04:14

Start simple - use tabs - figure out how to read them (they are very simple string and fret number diagrams). Find some easy stuff - lots of sites that have tab - and try to play them. Use songs you know well, cause tab gives absolutely no idea of structure, but if you know the songs you can probably figure out what happens when and where.
And- ignore the shredder comments above.
    

Edited by cobb - August 28 2006 at 01:04