Anyone play guitar?

[Oliwerko]

Sorry to go a bit O/T.
After reading a few musical topics, I wonder how many self-taught people there are. Is it just that people don't want to go "official" and have regular lessons?
I don't say that if you don't have lessons you will suck. I am just a bit biased into the lessons "side", because when you do it regularily with a qualified teacher, he can show you some tricks (of course, you can learn them from interned/dvds, but these are first-hand and you directly communicate and can ask him/her) and most importantly - the teacher watches/listens how you play and can help you avoid bad habits, which are VERY bad in music. I have a few self-taught friends and I can tell you that if they are not very talented, they play much worse than the less-talented "lessons" ones.

I just want to know if it is just me and my personal opinion bias, or why does the majority of people self teach them. Or is it just guitar?

[PsychicHeart]

@Oliwerko:
When i first started playing i had one or two very basic beginner lessons from a friend, and then i just started teaching myself for a few months.
I then started getting lessons and my playing picked up dramatically.
I would not be able to play to the level I can today if not for these lessons.
-Blake

[Stupot]

I know people who are have been taught officially and I know people who have pretty much taught themselves.  While I agree that the lesson-taught players tend to have more theoretical and technical ability, it is the self-taught players who tend to have a certain flair, a bit of imagination.

The problem with having lessons is that you learn the rules of playing the guitar... some people take these rules a little too literally and their music, though technically sound, becomes essntially a masterclass of all the rules they have learned.

But wheres the fun in that?... Some of the best guitarists are those who taught themselves, and they are the ones who broke the rules, pushed the boundaries.  They are the people who made the likes of you and us WANT to pick up a guitar in the first place...

I say if someone really feels they need a kickstart then a short course in the essentials of guitaring would hurt (I kind of wish I had done that)... but once you have the resources to teach yourself you are free to bend the rules and use your imagination... and make some awesome music in the process.

[Tuomas]

As far as I know, most guitarist are self taught. Take Steve Howe for example. You don't need to have a teacher to be great, but, I think in order to make great music, you need at least a basic understanding on the methods and the theory, and that goes to all of the instruments out there. I was fortunate enough to be taught by a good teacher privately and fairly cheaply, and hes playing influenced me greatly. For example I'm able to compose and play music, that I didn't even know was possible when I rammed those power chords back in the days. Steve Hackett (listen to the solo) is another good example of one of my favourite guitarists, who are self taught.

[R4L]

One reason I'm teaching myself is because lessons here in my area cost a little too much. It's $45.00 every 2 weeks to get lessons.

My friend Matt, his dad is self taught, been playing guitar for 22 years, and he can most certainly shred on a guitar. He has a music myspace if anyone is interested.

[Oliwerko]

Well, we have an elementary music school here and lessons there are pretty cheap. Did you mean private lessons? These are expensive here too. I am a graduate of this school and I can say only the best about the learning methods. I know a few people who taught themselves and the main problems were that they were in a rush to play ("bah, technical exercices? piss off, man!") and they tried things they could not play and so they developed some nasty bad habits.

They were sometimes able to play something they wanted, but it was very "shallow", you could hear that the player has not gotten under the skin of some very basic habits and conceptions of music. Having a teacher, you can pretty much completely avoid these problems.

It is not that fun, I admit. But in the end, you end up like a competent musician with complete understanding and years practice, not a self-taught player that on the first sight plays good, but on the second lacks some practice and experience that is gained by the "boring" side of playing. (Of course this applies to everyday people, not to some extreme musical talents. The clarinetist in our band was able to play an extremely hard piece on a completely different type of flute he uses to play in two hours. I was playing this flute for years and it still took me two days to learn the piece. He plays flutes of all kinds and clarinet like a god, and if that is not enough, he plays violin too. And he is like three times faster with his progress than regular people.)

[R4L]

Well, we have an elementary music school here and lessons there are pretty cheap. Did you mean private lessons? These are expensive here too. I am a graduate of this school and I can say only the best about the learning methods. I know a few people who taught themselves and the main problems were that they were in a rush to play ("bah, technical exercices? piss off, man!") and they tried things they could not play and so they developed some nasty bad habits.

They were sometimes able to play something they wanted, but it was very "shallow", you could hear that the player has not gotten under the skin of some very basic habits and conceptions of music. Having a teacher, you can pretty much completely avoid these problems.

It is not that fun, I admit. But in the end, you end up like a competent musician with complete understanding and years practice, not a self-taught player that on the first sight plays good, but on the second lacks some practice and experience that is gained by the "boring" side of playing. (Of course this applies to everyday people, not to some extreme musical talents. The clarinetist in our band was able to play an extremely hard piece on a completely different type of flute he uses to play in two hours. I was playing this flute for years and it still took me two days to learn the piece. He plays flutes of all kinds and clarinet like a god, and if that is not enough, he plays violin too. And he is like three times faster with his progress than regular people.)

Oh I meant private lessons. That's all that there is around my area.

I went to the guitar shop in my area today, and my friend Matt's dad works there, and he heard me jamming out on some Metallica, and we started shooting the shit for a bit, and he said that I could come around anytime and get some free lessons and trade Metallica riffs.

[Dualnames]

Go bohemian rhapsody.. man I love this song.

[magintz]

I tried to learn recently but really couldn't get down chord changes. It would always take me a few seconds to think where my fingers need to go and another few seconds of placing each finger individually on each string.  So with a 10 second gap between chords there wasn't much melody going on... how can I practice speeding up this changes and stop my chords from ringing out all clangy every time I strum them.

Are chords the best way to go to try to learn or shall I choose a song I like and try to get myself playing the tabs.  I've tried both and neither seems to sound very good, as expected at such an early stage.

[R4L]

I tried to learn recently but really couldn't get down chord changes. It would always take me a few seconds to think where my fingers need to go and another few seconds of placing each finger individually on each string.  So with a 10 second gap between chords there wasn't much melody going on... how can I practice speeding up this changes and stop my chords from ringing out all clangy every time I strum them.

Are chords the best way to go to try to learn or shall I choose a song I like and try to get myself playing the tabs.  I've tried both and neither seems to sound very good, as expected at such an early stage.

Well, like you said, it's an early stage. You got to practice a lot. Sooner or later, your fingers get used to it and you'll be playing easier and faster.

I thought just like that at first, when I was trying to play a simple A, to D, to G, and back to A. I just couldn't do it, but if you keep trying to do it, it starts to get a lot easier.

[LGM]

yea, everyone goes through that. I thought the same thing, now it's pretty easy to go between them.. At least the basics.

Once you know where your figners are supposed to go, just keep trying and trying. I used to sit and talk with friends or watch TV while I played. Once you can do it without thinking about it, it's pretty smooth sailing after that.

[magintz]

Hehe, I'll grind like I'm levelling an MMORPG

[Ubel]

I've pretty much self taught myself, too. I don't want to be commited to something like guitar lessons. I would feel like I HAVE to play regularly, and that's not what anybody wants, right? I wanna play when I wanna play and that's that. Oh, and then there's the obvious money issue...

I'm lucky enough to know quite a few really talented guitarists, including my father, who always has some tips to give me. Though he's self taught too so his advice isn't always "by the book".

I always tell people who want to start up with guitar that they should start off by learning a few basic chords, then after that move to learning some songs they like. Yeah, some people would say this is wrong and that they should start off by learning theory... But really, who wants that? They'd smash their heads through their guitars soon enough and lose interest. I know I would... It's more fun starting off by learning to play a familiar song.

After that they should look into playing from tabs, fingerpicking and other more advanced stuff. I believe that at that point they will feel that they've learned a nice bunch of things about the guitar. This is the point where they decide wether that's enough for them or if they want to take it one step further. If it's enough, fine. Everyone's happy. If not, they most probably will want to look into some guitar theory and learn the "real" rules of the guitar. At this point the learning will be less forced, since they know some things about the guitar already, and actually want to learn the theory.

That is my view of how it should be done, because that's pretty close to what I've been doing and I'm happy with it.

Edit:

Oh, and to those wondering about which guitar to get. If it's acoustic you want, I am going to recommend the same guitar I have. Why? Because it's cheap and it's awesome and I'm biased. I've been amazingly pleased with it. In its price range it's probably the best guitar I've played so far.

http://www.thomann.de/gb/fender_cd60_sb.htm

There is also an electro-acoustic version of the guitar, which is the one I have. It's twice as expensive though and I've hardly ever had any need for the electronics anyway.

[DutchMarco]

I can't be bothered to read the whole thread (sorry), so keep that  in mind when reading this post. I must say that having a teacher is pretty much a necessity when learning (in my experience anyway) he can correct your posture, and point you to new directions needed to learn to play. And introduce you to new music.

If you insist on being self-taught, practice on ear-training, try to get your absolute pitch as accurateas possible. Mine isn't, and that makes playing off of what you hear quite difficult. So this is good advice for anyone learning to play any instrument, but if you're self-taught, it really helps you figure out songs you hear on the radio. And it willl also in the future help you to figure out musc you hear in your head.

Some other unrelated tips:
* CAGED. Learn these chord shapes as they are your guide to all common chord shapes all along the neck.

* There are several sites with all the scales you'd want to know, first stick with the simplest: pentatonic. And learn how that fits in with the barre chord shapes on the neck, it helps your ability to improvise while accompanying (comping) instead of strumming boring whole chord shapes.

* I fully agree with the tip to practice to a metronome, you could even count the beat (1-4) of all you do (like walking), that'll help you acquire an absolute sense of the beat.

* Try to learn some music theory, starting with how the chords are made up (learn about the root note, the third, the 7th , etc.), and how the chords themselves relate to eachother (learn about the 1-4-5 standard (the blues) then try to understand how this compares to songs YOU like (which aren't blues, I take it - Slayer isn't so well known for their genteel blues playing).
* I also agree a bit with the tip to start with an acoustic, but if you want to play metal, an acoustic is a very original approach, so you'd want to own an electric even before you get to the ability required by your taste in music. Even though you don't know enough to make a well-informed purchase (you acquire new preferences along the way, so you might want a singlecoil guitar having bought a humbucker one)but you can play your electric without amp as well, it'll be really soft, which your neihghbours will love you for, oh and don't fall into  the trap of "Slayer has 100W Marshalls, so I'll need at least 50 watts to keep up with them" (as if 50w is hal as loud as 100w!). You can learn all about small amps at http://www.ax84.com a cool site(you might find posts there from this cool, wise guy named DutchMarco But anyway, you can buy the guitar already and not an amp, which I would reccommend to a starter, as you'd probably be mickeying about making cool sounds with the amp instead of practising.

[Oliwerko]

Pablo - You have pretty much expressed the opposite of what I was talking about.

I see the advantages in this approach, and I understand that they are really big. You don't have to play when you don't want to. You don't have to play songs you don't want to. And you don't have to learn boring theory.

However, I am still on the other side. With regular lessons, yes, there are times when you have to go have a lesson and you don't really want to because you have better things to do. But when it's regular, it assures that you are playing "all the time", not just once in a while. You don't lose continuity. Yes, you have to play songs (well, it takes some years before you get to some real songs with most of the instruments) you don't want to. But these songs were written by experts and will aid you with your technical skill.

And the theory? Yes, it's totally boring. But there's no sweet without sweat and the theory is the sweat in this case.
Now it sounds that self-teaching is the best. You have said that people shouldn't start by learning theory. I don't know how it is on other schools, but on my school I started basic note theory along with the practical lessons (two different teachers - the theory was general, and the teacher teached only flute) and there were two lessons of flute and one theory per week. It didn't hurt that much. The theory was pretty much separated from the practical side. The "useful" theory was usually explained by the flute teacher.

Another things that can hurt when starting by playing a familiar song are bad habits. When you begin to be interested in the real rules you mentioned, it can be already too late. There are plenty of bad habits you can develop when playing (on any instrument, I guess). I had some big problems later just because of some bad breathing habit developed when beginning. If there was no teacher, I wouldn't be able to play many, many songs nowadays. This kind of "returning" to knowledge you should already have to play properly only after you are interested is pretty unconvenient in my opinion.

I completely understand your approach. It's more joyful and free. When you take the "book" one, however, I think you will be more "complete" musician. Not just here and there "amateur" knowledge (Don't get me wrong, I don't say that self-teaching is bullshit and only schools are "good", I just know many people that can play, but have some kind of weird half-knowledge).

I have to admit that the "book" approach has one disadvantage. You have to be really patient sometimes. It's not that fun all the way compared to self-teaching. On the other hand, you learn all the theory needed, all practical knowledge needed and avoid bad habits easily. I know much more people that gave up learning to play that were self-taught than people who quit the school. When you graduate on the school, you ARE a "complete" musician. I am not sure you are when you self-teach yourself.

Maybe self-teaching is better for people that know that they would crash their heads through the guitar, like you said?

[Ubel]

I actually do agree with all your points about the advantages of being taught by someone else and learning theory and all that stuff. What I wanted to point out is that starting off with theory is just completely awful and nerve wrecking (and not just in guitar playing), even though theory is very important

I think it's better to start off with the fun part, actually playing stuff, because that is what people want to do with guitars. This is for the sake of getting to know your guitar and getting comfortable playing it, becoming friends with it. After you have done this you can dig deeper into the theory because at this point you're also bound to be more motivated to learn it, unless you want to be stuck with the simple skills you have developed by learning playing random songs.

About the bad habits you mention... I assume you mean stuff like how you're holding the guitar or how your wrist is positioned. I really don't believe that there is one or a few specific ways of holding/playing the guitar. One should, and will play however one finds comfortable for oneself. I believe the guitarists will notice these bad habits if they actually start bothering them. Or at least read about them somewhere, you don't really need a teacher for that.

When you graduate on the school, you ARE a "complete" musician. I am not sure you are when you self-teach yourself.

Now, I have to disagree with this. A school degree doesn't make you any more of a musician than someone who hasn't graduated from such a school. If you know how to play and you do it constantly and understand how music works, you are a musician. And that's that. You wouldn't tell a painter that he's not a real artist if he didn't go to an art school, would you?

So, to sum up what I at least wanted to say: Theory is important and you should learn it. But you shouldn't start off by learning it. That just kills the spirit of playing and enjoying music.

[Blackthorne]

Heh.  I love how people are bitching about barre chords, yet talking about doing intricate tapping!  Heh.

I say learn all about chords - why barre chords work, how you need the 1st, 3rd, and 5th to make a chord and how you can add elements to barre chords to make them different chords (ie the 7th, 9th, etc.)

Practice your barre chords! 

Bt