Beginner Guitar

I did not see this thread anywhere, so sorry if this has been posted already.


I am absolutely new at playing guitar. I played it in a music class and learned a few chords. Anyway, I just got an old acoustic guitar today for free. I want to start playing, but do not know where to begin. Before I can start playing I first need to buy new strings since the ones on the guitar are already broken. I dont even know how to tune it. So I guess my questions are...


How do I string and tune a guitar? (Google will probably be my friend)

More importantly, how do I start off? Of course small but is there any recommendations on what instructional methods I should use? I dont plan on playing religiously, but I want to be able to play more than a few chords.

Oh boy, this can be a can of worms :P

As for stringing and tuning, I'd take it to a music shop, and get them to take you through it, it's really hard to type it out, and know that you've done it right.

They'll help you get it strung the right way, and will take you through the tuning process.
You'll need a guitar tuner. It doesn't have to be great, just as long as it works.

Standard tuning for a guitar from thickest to thinnest is E - A - D - G - B - E.

You'll obviously be tempted to go out and learn 'Smells Like Teen Spirit', 'Smoke On The Water' and every other cliched song there is for a new guitarist, and if you do, you'll probably give up after a few months when you realize you can't play anything else, and have no idea WHY each note is played and how it works.

So.

Learn your scales. Major and Minor. There are plenty of lessons online to teach you through these. Once you have these drilled into your head you will understand music a lot better. If you know the scales you'll have an idea of what to play.

Learn your chords. Major and Minor again. Some are easy, and some you won't even understand how you get your fingers there. http://www.guitar-players-toolbox.co...ord-chart.html The numbers represent which fingers to use, 1 being your index finger, 4 being your pinky.

You'll often hear people saying thing like "oh you need to learn the long way, as you'll pick up bad habits which make it harder as you progress" and you'll hear the 17 year olds with huge 100w stacks, an effects board with more features than a submarine and a shred stick of a guitar, saying "Nah man, like, all you need is like, power chords and then read tab for the solos" They'll pick up stuff really fast, and impress all the kids at school with their face melting solos from Metallica or God forbid, A7x.

Unfortunately, the old men are right on this one. You ask Johnny shredder to write you a song and see how far he gets beyond power chord chug chug chug some finger tapping and some bendy notes... Not very.

Now ask the old guys who know their scales and chords, even the basics, and they can write something far more intricate , just because they know somewhat what they are playing.


I go off on this rant because I used to be Johhny Shredder. I bought an electric guitar, a Marshall half stack, and distortion, delay, chorus and reverb pedals, and learned all the Metallica and Slayer songs I could.

Then I joined a band with some guys who knew a bit about music. Wow, I had my ass handed to me.
"Guys, jam this riff with me", "What key is it in?" "I have no idea". This went on for ages. I had NO idea what to play!
Learning your scales means someone can say to you, jam in the key of D minor. You can literally play a D minor chord, and they can jam in the D minor scale, it'll sound like music.

When it came to writing songs all I knew was what frets sounded cool after eachother with powerchords. So every song we wrote sounded like a Blink 182 song.

I pretty much gave up the guitar because I just hit a wall, and that wall was making my own music, rather than just playing everyone else's.

Took up piano and learned my scales and all the chords, and now I can sit at a piano and play all day long, just pulling notes out of my ass, because I know what notes I can pick from etc.
Translating that to guitar, I've found I can actually write music on the guitar too!

So, you have to decide, do you want to be a cover musician, or a musician, capable of actually making music.

If the first, then learn to read tabs and you're set, you'll learn even the hardest songs over time, but you'll never understand why the artists picked the notes they did for that song.

If the latter, then spend a bit longer learning to play scales and chords, and get them into muscle memory.
Once you can do that, you can simply strum an A minor chord, then play a little bit of the A minor scale, and it'll sound like music! You'll be able to analyze music as you learn it, and say "ah hes playing this over this chord etc."

EDIT: I'm not saying there's anything wrong with tabs, and I use them for learning songs too. Nor am I saying you have to learn music theory religiously, and have to learn to read sheet music. What I am saying is that you should just have some understanding of how chords and scales are formed, because that is the fundamentals of all music.

To find a happy medium between Lewis' Johnny Shredder and Old Man who knows what he's doing tactic, I would tell you to learn your basic open chords from A to G majors and minors and then play the blues scale untill you can do it backwards and forwards with your eyes closed

And then from there decide whether you just want to pound out power chords or be the next steve vai

I couldn't agree more with what Lewis posted. You're best off understanding why you're playing the notes you are. The earlier in your playing career, the better.

As for the tuning and restringing, you should either take it to a shop or to a friend who knows how to do it. Have them give you a tutorial the first time, and you should be able to do it on your own after that. My tuner died on me years ago, so I use this site http://www.tunemybass.com/ to tune my instruments sometimes. It has options for different tunings for guitar and bass, its pretty simple to use.

Thank you everyone for replying, especially Lewis. I do believe I want to understand and learn the basics. I dont mind starting off learning basic songs that utilize two or three chords and allow me to identify all the fundamentals of a song.


I have a few more questions though. The guitar I have received is a Goya G-10. No idea if it's a good guitar overall but that should not matter since I am a beginner. I understand that there are different kinds of string, but not sure which is better to start out with. I want to use steel strings, but I understand each set has a different feel to them? I dont mean each individual string itself but some sets of strings have a different feel than others? What would be good for a beginner?

You might want to start off with a lighter gauge set of strings as it will be easier for you to hold barre chords and bend your notes. Until you build up the dexterity in your fingers this may help you out.