Post by thedemonslick on Aug 27, 2011 2:42:43 GMT -5
Hi All. Love the forum, drawn here by the excellent "Wonderful Tonight" video on youtube, thanks Mojo, awesome video for us beginners.
Things I've learned about being a beginner......
1) Personal preference, but I feel like it's stupid to go spend a thousand bucks or more on a Guitar when you can't even play yet. Just saying... After a while you'll have a much better idea of what your needs are. Meantime, look at them on the internet and drool...
2) Try an Acoustic/Electric at first, I suggest around the $300 US range. Something decent, but not too pricey. Unless of course you have already decided to go all Electric.
3) Don't get a solid neck yet (Acoustic/Electric) It's too much weight on your fret hand, makes it harder to learn. Unless you buy a really expensive Guitar, the weight of the neck causes it to "pull" or "tip" towards the neck. Fighting this takes away from your learning. If you're buying Electric, try not to buy anything that's too heavy, keeping the weight off your fret hand will really help you learn.
4) Get one with a decent auto tuner. Tuning will eat up a lot of your time, otherwise, and it gets to be a chore after a while.
5) Get a guitar that fits you. If you're a smaller frame, you wouldn't want a Dreadnought, for instance. A guitar that fits your frame will be much easier to play. A thin neck can make fingering a little easier, but if you have longer fingers a thinner neck might give you too much curl and you get claw-hand, Think about things like that when you're shopping.
6) The guitar I eventually settled on was a Fender T-Bucket 300CE cutout Dreadnought. One of the things that really helps me is that it has dots on the side of the frets, so as you look down at the neck you can see them without tipping your Guitar back or leaning over your fingers. If it doesn't come with it you can always make them yourself, if you can bear to mark up your Guitar. Or not, I have just found them extremely helpful.
6) Make sure you get something with a nice low action. If you have to crush the strings down all the time it makes you more fatigued, and it makes it much much harder to sound good. Eventually you will get stronger and it won't matter so much, but as a beginner, it's downright discouraging to have to slowly form and squezze each chord down so hard. Try adjusting the Truss bar if you need to, if you don't know how ask here or goole it. You want the strings to be close to the frets, but not so close that it causes buzzing.
7) Try different strings. I'm using Medium 80/20's now, again. I started with medium, but when I strung it with light strings it was actually easier to play more quickly. The sound is different of course, but as a beginner it's a good way to get a little faster..... which makes you get stoked and want to play more. As you play a little more, try all different strings to see what you like best. You might suprise yourself.
*
I guess that's about it. I just think a lot of the more experienced Guitar players tend to think you know stuff, and you don't. As a beginner, you might not even know what questions to ask. I hope this helps some people. I invite anyone else to post if they have any tips for Beginner Players like myself, and whoever else might find their way here.
Cheers!
-TDS
Things I've learned about being a beginner......
1) Personal preference, but I feel like it's stupid to go spend a thousand bucks or more on a Guitar when you can't even play yet. Just saying... After a while you'll have a much better idea of what your needs are. Meantime, look at them on the internet and drool...
2) Try an Acoustic/Electric at first, I suggest around the $300 US range. Something decent, but not too pricey. Unless of course you have already decided to go all Electric.
3) Don't get a solid neck yet (Acoustic/Electric) It's too much weight on your fret hand, makes it harder to learn. Unless you buy a really expensive Guitar, the weight of the neck causes it to "pull" or "tip" towards the neck. Fighting this takes away from your learning. If you're buying Electric, try not to buy anything that's too heavy, keeping the weight off your fret hand will really help you learn.
4) Get one with a decent auto tuner. Tuning will eat up a lot of your time, otherwise, and it gets to be a chore after a while.
5) Get a guitar that fits you. If you're a smaller frame, you wouldn't want a Dreadnought, for instance. A guitar that fits your frame will be much easier to play. A thin neck can make fingering a little easier, but if you have longer fingers a thinner neck might give you too much curl and you get claw-hand, Think about things like that when you're shopping.
6) The guitar I eventually settled on was a Fender T-Bucket 300CE cutout Dreadnought. One of the things that really helps me is that it has dots on the side of the frets, so as you look down at the neck you can see them without tipping your Guitar back or leaning over your fingers. If it doesn't come with it you can always make them yourself, if you can bear to mark up your Guitar. Or not, I have just found them extremely helpful.
6) Make sure you get something with a nice low action. If you have to crush the strings down all the time it makes you more fatigued, and it makes it much much harder to sound good. Eventually you will get stronger and it won't matter so much, but as a beginner, it's downright discouraging to have to slowly form and squezze each chord down so hard. Try adjusting the Truss bar if you need to, if you don't know how ask here or goole it. You want the strings to be close to the frets, but not so close that it causes buzzing.
7) Try different strings. I'm using Medium 80/20's now, again. I started with medium, but when I strung it with light strings it was actually easier to play more quickly. The sound is different of course, but as a beginner it's a good way to get a little faster..... which makes you get stoked and want to play more. As you play a little more, try all different strings to see what you like best. You might suprise yourself.
*
I guess that's about it. I just think a lot of the more experienced Guitar players tend to think you know stuff, and you don't. As a beginner, you might not even know what questions to ask. I hope this helps some people. I invite anyone else to post if they have any tips for Beginner Players like myself, and whoever else might find their way here.
Cheers!
-TDS
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