Well here’s a question I just had to answering straight away:
Question: I’ve been playing almost a year and a half now, I never took any formal lessons, just looked up tabs and stuff. I do picking, chords and fingerstyle and some bass guitar stuff too but I don’t feel like I’m reaching my potential, so any type of suggestions would be great, thanks.
Answer: free bird, comfortably numb, eruption or crazy train
Keep the guitar lessons questions coming! I liked this one:
Question: I’m 12 years old and been playing guitar for about 2 years. i’m self taught and never taken a lesson before and i learn by reading tabs and playing along with songs. i’m doing pretty good and learning different skills throughout songs. so far I think I am a beginner in intermediate or maybe in the middle. lately my family told me i should take guitar lessons and i don’t if i should go or continue what i’m doing.
Answer: Hi! I think I am the perfect person to answer your question because I started playing the guitar when I was 7 and I started taking formal lessons when I was 12! I always played everything by ear. My advice would be this: if you have the gift of being able to play the guitar by ear, I wouldn’t settle for just any guitar teacher. You don’t want a guitar teacher who is just going to teach you tabs and spoon feed you how to play songs. I’ve seen so many people waste money that way. You want a guitar teacher who is going to cultivate your ‘ear’. Someone who is going to respect the fact that you have natural ability. You want to find a teacher who will teach you theory. Playing tabs is fine and all, but by taking lessons–even beginner theory (like I learned at 12), this will make playing by ear even easier! I never bothered to learn to read music because I could play everything I wanted to by ear, and it was easy for me to write songs from the heart. That was until about 5 years ago when I realized that I couldn’t play any of my favorite jazz or classical music by ear (your tastes in music mature as you get older! I still love Steve Vai and Zappa!). Basically, I would say this: there are many great guitarists who didn’t know anything about theory and never learned to read music. Personally, I believe a whole new world opens up at your fingertips once you start learning music theory. The possibilities are endless, and I can guarantee, if you start learning theory at your age, you will never grow tired of your instrument. Just do a little shopping around, and don’t settle for a teacher until you find one who knocks your socks off with his or her playing. You want your teacher to inspire you! I hope you get a lifetime of enjoyment out of playing the guitar!
A learn guitar question that should definitely interest you all this week
Question: I’m learning to play guitar with an acoustic. I learn to play songs by looking up the chords or tabs.
Is learning to play guitar just knowing how to play all the possible chord variations?
Answer: It depends what you mean by "playing" guitar. To me, it’s understanding what you’re doing. Knowing music theory and writing my own material. To someone else, who isn’t an avid guitar player, it might just mean that they want to know a couple songs to impress people. If you stick with it enough, you’ll strive to learn more. You’ll get tired of playing other people’s music, so if you think you’re one of those types, then start learning theory. How chords are made up, arpeggios, scales… etc.
We’ve had a reader question come in on the subject of learn guitar. Let’s take a look:
Question: I can’t read music, and don’t really want to concentrate on that side of things. I just want to start playing some easy tunes to begin with!
TABS is about all I can deal with, so I’d like something that could teach me that way.
Answer: I have no idea but try one of these search engines as one will have the answer you are looking for:
www.google.com
www.yahoo.co.uk
www.ask.com
www.msn.com (New and improved search engine)
Keep the electric guitar questions coming! I liked this one:
Question: I really want to learn to play elecric guitar so I went out and bought one of those starter packs for about £200 and I have no idea where to start some people say learn the basic chords others tell me to pick a band I adore get their tabs and just keep playing them till I know them off by heart.
Answer: start with chords to get a feel for the guitar..then do some scales to build up speed and finger strength. then start learning some songs,after that make your own stuff up.
