Definitely play your scales slower than the one you showed in that video. The point of learning scales is not to blow through them as quick as possible. Play them slowly, with the right technique (I had to relearn guitar because my fundamentals and technique were off), and GRADUALLY build up in speed. Only do this after playing through the scale multiple times front and back, with alternate picking, and every note ringing out cleanly, and on time with the metronome. That's when you can raise the metronome speed a little. Then repeat the process and you will gradually build up your speed while keeping your technique in good shape.
Some other advice... if you want to use effects pedals, don't buy an individual one. Buy a decent multi-effects pedal instead. A single effects pedal will usually cost you about $60, a mid-level multi-effects pedal will be about twice that much, but offer so much more.
Also, learn some easy songs first. Concentrate on playing it as cleanly as possible, and as close to on rhythm as possible.
In that video you're trying to play very fast. And as you see you're making a lot of mistakes. When I say slow, I had to go back and start playing scales at 100bpm with 1 note per beat. I made sure every note sounded the way it should, every finger pressed at the right spot and had the right angle and every sound came out as a natural progression of the previous one. I still warm up with speeds like that. It helped me improve tons.
It's classical guitar that I got more serious with, but I don't see why this wouldn't apply to acoustic/electric too.
For the vibrato thing, I think you're doing the "electric" one kind of wrong. Can't be sure though, cause the video's quality is not that great. You have to grab the neck, keep a steady hand press hard on the fret and do the up and down motion with the finger. Only the finger should be moving. This is for the electric guitar (I don't have an acoustic here to check it out, but I think it's the same). (The vibrato on classical is kind of the opposite of this. The finger presses hard and its tip stays at the same position while the rest of your hand moves left and right.)
I made sure every note sounded the way it should, every finger pressed at the right spot and had the right angle and every sound came out as a natural progression of the previous one. I still warm up with speeds like that. It helped me improve tons.
should the finger be: Let's say this is a fret [ ] should finger be here [x ] or here [ x] or in the middle [ x ]
I don't know how to angle it, but i'll ask a friend i know that plays guitar to show me. :O
Don't really try to look for sound quality, especially in the lower end guitars. Just find something that feels really comfortable to play; that's arguably the most important thing to look for.
ok thanks.
The main problem with all lower end electric guitars is that their electrical components are really cheap, and the pickups almost always fucking blow ass. Besides, for your first guitar you aren't trying to sound heavenly, you're just trying to learn how to play the instrument and get better at it.
I also completely disagree with the earlier post about multi-effect pedals. I guess to start off it could be okay to buy some cheap, shitty mutli-effect pedal to learn about effects, but single pedals are of better quality and allow much more flexibility and possibilities. If you have friends that play guitar, just ask to borrow some shitty pedals they don't use or something and just play around with that. Effect pedals are fun though, and they get kinda addicting and sometimes make you lost concentration on your actual playing, so just keep that in mind and try to moderate yourself.
Well yes, if you use a cheap shitty multi-effects pedal, what do you think it's going to sound like? Hence, mid-level is recommended.
You should always fret the note as close to the fret as possible [ x] . The only times you don't are with advanced techniques like trying to hit certain harmonics that are inbetween frets.
On March 30 2009 04:11 EscPlan9 wrote: Well yes, if you use a cheap shitty multi-effects pedal, what do you think it's going to sound like? Hence, mid-level is recommended.
You should always fret the note as close to the fret as possible [ x] . The only times you don't are with advanced techniques like trying to hit certain harmonics that are inbetween frets.
I was thinking of how I described the vibrato and actually it's not that accurate. I had in mind that you do it with your 3rd finger. If you're doing it with the 2nd or even worse with the 1st one, the rest of the hand doesn't remain steady at all, so scratch what I said before (also the thickness of the guitar neck plays a role in this). I searched youtube and found a few videos that could help you (and some pretty hilariously bad as well that made me laugh so hard lol).
This is by far the best one I found (only watched part 1 but the 2nd should be equally good as well)
And these too are good too to help you get the idea better
if you've nvr played b4... u do not need 500 bucks to play...
i suggest burrowing the guitar from ur friends or something similar to that. Mots people have guitar in their homes but they nvr use it...
also if u've nvr really played guitar or other string instruments b4, then play acoustic b4 playing electric as it gives u a better basics
as for an amp you can totally buy a practice amp for around 100 bucks (15 watt ones, i really like my Frontman 15R)
also if you buy extra strings i recommend getting ernie ball super slinky types <- those r the standard ones that comes w/ guitar (super slinky) also as for the pick get a medium flex one
but seriously i high recommend u practice like the basic 7 chords and stuff w/ a burrowed guitar from one of ur nicer friends and then see if u want ot get ur own and such because if you do that then if for some reason u decide u do not like it or it's too much commitment u didn't waste any money, also if u do want to continue playing you have much more knowledge about guitars and such in general that u r in a better position to buy the stuff u need
buy a metronome/tuner combo devices also as for the guitar any beginner's should be fine? but i recommend that u buy ur guitar at a store a key thing to check on ur guitar is how ezily the strings become loose u do this by bringing that tuner of ur to the store and tuning one or two strings to their rightful pitch and then on one chord try tugging on it side ways rite and left couple of times and see how much it's out of tune after doing it a couple of times. You should be able to do it rapidly for like about 30 times w/o having it go out of tune (giving i ta nice tug, but not too hard, just about enough to barely touch the string next to it) then u need to check the effect of the other strings on that particular string u r testing (u only need to test one string most of the time, try strumming al lthe strings just randomly up and down couple of tiems and such and then see if the string u r check has gone out of tune or not u should be able to a fair amount of strumming (like 30 min continued?) b4 u start seeing that the string goes out of tune, but usually guitars r so that either they go out of tune really fast or they don't so u won't need to strum in the store for 30 min more like 30 sec-ish
so yeah... gl w/ ur search (also if u strum enough the store owner might get ticked and offer u the guitar at a cheaper price if u just take it out w/ u, haha)
oh try to not buy guitars from those chain stores...
EDIT: oh if u play cello then guitar should be ez for u.. trust me guitars allow so much more rm for error than violin or cello does! so u can probably practice w/a electric rite away... unless u wanna go pro w/ it Also i noe it would seem cool to try out ur cello vibrato skills on the guitar but most of the time u can hardly hear those things... it's really really subtle... that's y they have tremolo arms, but i dont' recommend u get guitars w/ tremolo ones unless u r paying up like at least 500 for just the guitar cus all the cheaper ones suk due to the tremolo arms causing problems w/ strings loosening and such... like i said just burrow the guitar from a friend... it's really not that hard
Tremolo bridges are fine for the most part. The cheap ones suck yeah, but if you don't actually use them, they keep in tune fairly well. Changing strings can be intimidating, but it's nothing hard.
Oh, and if you don't have a large budget, I'd suggest going with Epiphone. (stay away from the explorer line)
I suggest rondo music guitars for cheap but great.. www.rondomusic.net - look at the Agile ones specifically, they are really good (most people like the Agile LPs better than most Epiphones of 3 times the price, myself included)
On March 30 2009 06:10 Murkyith14 wrote: A good place to learn techniques is justinguitar.com Completely free, full lessons. Awesome site.
Yeah, that's a real good site; he has lots of exercises etc.
edit: atm I'm learning this song, and trying the approach to play it really slow at first, meaning about half speed or slower and trying to nail it as good as possible. Works so much better than trying to play really fast from the beginning. Most of the time I have problems finding accurate tabs and I'm not yet good enough to tab a song by ear myself.
Another problem I have is that sometimes I have a hard time to decide which finger to use in a scale or riff that is played very fast : /
Aaaaaaand my sweep picking really sucks, since I've never done it before and it's so hard to learn q_q
fortress iss awesome ^^ they played bloodmeat live at warped tour and everyone was all cheering at the end when they stopped for a little bit and im just like the only waiting for the last part ;o completely unknown band in houston
On March 30 2009 05:14 R3condite wrote: if you've nvr played b4... u do not need 500 bucks to play...
i suggest burrowing the guitar from ur friends or something similar to that. Mots people have guitar in their homes but they nvr use it...
also if u've nvr really played guitar or other string instruments b4, then play acoustic b4 playing electric as it gives u a better basics
as for an amp you can totally buy a practice amp for around 100 bucks (15 watt ones, i really like my Frontman 15R)
also if you buy extra strings i recommend getting ernie ball super slinky types <- those r the standard ones that comes w/ guitar (super slinky) also as for the pick get a medium flex one
but seriously i high recommend u practice like the basic 7 chords and stuff w/ a burrowed guitar from one of ur nicer friends and then see if u want ot get ur own and such because if you do that then if for some reason u decide u do not like it or it's too much commitment u didn't waste any money, also if u do want to continue playing you have much more knowledge about guitars and such in general that u r in a better position to buy the stuff u need
buy a metronome/tuner combo devices also as for the guitar any beginner's should be fine? but i recommend that u buy ur guitar at a store a key thing to check on ur guitar is how ezily the strings become loose u do this by bringing that tuner of ur to the store and tuning one or two strings to their rightful pitch and then on one chord try tugging on it side ways rite and left couple of times and see how much it's out of tune after doing it a couple of times. You should be able to do it rapidly for like about 30 times w/o having it go out of tune (giving i ta nice tug, but not too hard, just about enough to barely touch the string next to it) then u need to check the effect of the other strings on that particular string u r testing (u only need to test one string most of the time, try strumming al lthe strings just randomly up and down couple of tiems and such and then see if the string u r check has gone out of tune or not u should be able to a fair amount of strumming (like 30 min continued?) b4 u start seeing that the string goes out of tune, but usually guitars r so that either they go out of tune really fast or they don't so u won't need to strum in the store for 30 min more like 30 sec-ish
so yeah... gl w/ ur search (also if u strum enough the store owner might get ticked and offer u the guitar at a cheaper price if u just take it out w/ u, haha)
oh try to not buy guitars from those chain stores...
EDIT: oh if u play cello then guitar should be ez for u.. trust me guitars allow so much more rm for error than violin or cello does! so u can probably practice w/a electric rite away... unless u wanna go pro w/ it Also i noe it would seem cool to try out ur cello vibrato skills on the guitar but most of the time u can hardly hear those things... it's really really subtle... that's y they have tremolo arms, but i dont' recommend u get guitars w/ tremolo ones unless u r paying up like at least 500 for just the guitar cus all the cheaper ones suk due to the tremolo arms causing problems w/ strings loosening and such... like i said just burrow the guitar from a friend... it's really not that hard
yeah cello vibrato didn't really show much on guitar, it's actually held completely opposite from how a cello is held vs guitar.
I'll defiinately try out guitars with how fast they detune via chords And i'm starting on acoustic
as for strings , pick, and amp; i can borrow those from my friend ^^ however he won't let me near his jackson or gibson
On March 30 2009 05:47 Skyze wrote: I suggest rondo music guitars for cheap but great.. www.rondomusic.net - look at the Agile ones specifically, they are really good (most people like the Agile LPs better than most Epiphones of 3 times the price, myself included)
Amp.. check out Tech 21 Trademark 30
I didn't see a any Agile LPs in the listing, just a bunch of AL's Not that i know the different between them either way. Thanks for the site though, lots of cheap guitars on there. ( If anyone wants to know prices range fom 60-600$ for electric )
However, i don't think i'll be comfortable buying through the internet.
On March 30 2009 04:56 SchOOl_VicTIm wrote: I was thinking of how I described the vibrato and actually it's not that accurate. I had in mind that you do it with your 3rd finger. If you're doing it with the 2nd or even worse with the 1st one, the rest of the hand doesn't remain steady at all, so scratch what I said before (also the thickness of the guitar neck plays a role in this). I searched youtube and found a few videos that could help you (and some pretty hilariously bad as well that made me laugh so hard lol).