learning to play guitar

[chsattack22]

hey guys i see a lot of you play guitar and i wanna learn. is there a website or do you guys have any tips? basically i wanna just play some acoustic while sitting by a campfire and chillin.

[Live4It]

Theres books you can buy in like a music store, I had a couple when I was learning, man I wish I still had my guitar, I regret not going farther with it, maybe I'll try to get back into it someday. Anyway I'll try to find those books and give you the name of them.

[chsattack22]

alright thanks, my dad plays too so i could probably ask him

[Warrior]

www.musicianforums.com [Head over to the guitar forum, they have a beginning guitarist sub-forum with many many lists of songs to play]

www.mxtabs.net [This site has tons of guitar-tabs to help you out]

Download "PowerTab Editor" -- its a great program. PM me for more information on it.. It shows the tab and plays a midi file of what the tab sounds like while being played. You can slow down sections and work up to speed in order to get better. www.powertabs.net has some.

www.ultimate-guitar.com has them for Download as well...

Heres some more advice--

Learn to tune a guitar... You can get a tuner for under $20, and it will be useful for a long long time. Learn how to replace strings incase you ever need to.

Some basic knowledge is a must, im not saying go master all the modes, but know a little bit about your guitar.

e [skinniest string]
B
G
D
A
E [thickest string]

-There are usually 21 frets on a guitar
-They are marked with "fret markers" at 1-3-5-7-9-12-15-17-19-21..
-If you see 0 it is an open fret [meaning you don't press down any string]
-An octave is 12 frets [12 is the same note as 0, but is an octave higher]
-PRACTICE!!!!!

This is very basic so if you want to know anything else just ask.

[strongisland]

practice, practice, practice

[berger1227]

im also trying to teach myself...do you guys reccomend doing exercises or learning songs?

also i played saxophone so i can read music...will this help?

[superlaxman2]

I reccomend both. Do finger excercises, like scales and such, and also work on songs. Chord progressions also help your fingerwork with their quick changes, and chords are also a major part of a lot of songs, so It will benefit you both ways.

Also, when I started, I was getting a dead sounding note and couldn't figure out why.
The reasons: I wasnt pressing hard enough, or I was accidentaly letting the back of my finger hit the string below it. Watch out for both.

[ekajsk8er]

www.cyberfret.com has a lot of information and can help out. i highly recommend that site, as well as www.musicianforums.com. Both helped me out a ton when I first started playing.

[atacklax]

Learn the Blues scales and drill them. The first one you should learn can be played at any fret. I like to play it in E, but on an acoustic without a cutaway, this might be hard. So play it in G (3rd fret). It goes as follows-
E--3--6------------------------------- Fingers: 1,4
A--------3--5------------------------- 1,3
D--------------3--5------------------- 1,3
G--------------------3--5------------- 1,3
B--------------------------3--6-------- 1,4
E--------------------------------3--6-- 1,4
If you don't like the above fingering, just make up your own. Drill things as fast as you can with up-down picking. A good drill is the 4,1,4,1 fingering on the B and E string.

[chsattack22]

what are frets. i know just about nothing when it comes to playing music

[Live4It]

These are frets, http://www.istockphoto.com/file_thumbview_approve/454558/2/istockphoto_454558_frets.jpg

[laxchamp278]

if you need a site to get a guitar and stuff on one to cheak out would be http://www.musiciansfriend.com/