Guitar tips you wish you knew when you started playing

[Eric***]

I have been thinking long and hard about this. I have 2:

1. Learn to play what you like - I started with lessons and played music I wasn't interested in. 2 months in when I couldn't play anything that sounded like music, I quit and didn't pick up guitar for almost 2 years until...

2. This one might be debateable and I'm wondering if anybody will roll their eyes about this. Learn Powerchords first! - I wish I learned power chords right off the bat. They sound awesome, you can make so many songs off of 2 string power chords, they teach you all of the E and A string roots, they set you up for soloing in the right key, and the E shape barre chords fall in right easily because you're almost already there...

I had so much fun with powerchords when I first learned them, I couldn't put the guitar down. I was making up riffs, trying to figure out classic riffs by ear... It really opened up the world of guitar for me. To this day, if I'm having trouble with a chord progression, I will sometimes work it out in power chords if I can.

I think both of those are really good bits of advice. In fact, I think I'm going to tell my friend who is currently learning that he should focus on power chords a bit more.

[Tig***]

I have been thinking long and hard about this. I have 2:

1. Learn to play what you like

2. Learn Powerchords first! - I wish I learned power chords right off the bat.

Excellent advice!
I'd add that like power chords, learn the basic chord shapes and experiment by moving the shape around to different locations on the fretboard.
From there, learn barr chords using these shapes.

[NWBasser]

Don't operate in a vacuum.

I mean, music is usually a team effort and it's a very good idea to play with other musicians as much as possible. You'll learn a lot this way. You'll learn even more if you play with guys (or gals) that are better than you are.

Playing with a band is a completely different experience than by yourself.

[R_of_G]

Don't operate in a vacuum.

I mean, music is usually a team effort and it's a very good idea to play with other musicians as much as possible. You'll learn a lot this way. You'll learn even more if you play with guys (or gals) that are better than you are.

Playing with a band is a completely different experience than by yourself.

It's such good advice, and yet I always found myself very intimated in those situations early on with players I knew were significantly better than me. I often had to consciously remind myself that (a) aside from being great musicians, they were also my friends, and (b) they were thoroughly familiar with my skill-set at the time and still wanted to play with me. There's a recording I have from a little less than two years into my playing. I was playing with three friends, all of whom had played since they were teenagers, one who toured for years with assorted blues acts, one who could play any instrument you handed him, and one who was just a damn good guitar player. What I hear on that recording is that for the first few minutes my playing is very stiff and hesitant. By the second jam, I was playing much more comfortably and it's audible. You can hear when I must have reminded myself that I was there to have fun, not impress anybody. By the third jam I'd swapped my guitar for my friend's bass and brought them a good 5-6 minutes of solid funk to do their thing over. It's amazing what ignoring your self-consciousness can do.

[Plymman]

I'm learning guitar after playing bass for years and it's making want to learn bass properly from scratch again. I only ever learned patterns without theory and have picked up so many bad habits!

My main tip is to learn the simple stuff and don't move on until you've got it nailed. Its easy to want to play the lead lines and solo away before you're ready.

Play chord after chord until you have the transitions completely perfected and concentrate on perfecting your rhythm. Learning how to hold a solid rhythm is the cornerstone of good playing. I've been so frustrated (as a bassist) over the years at the amount of guitarists that can solo/noodle/shred like a pro but just can't work tightly with the bass and drums.

Oh yeah, i almost forgot, don't turn down a university scholarship because your band is going on tour.

[Spinshred]

I wish that I know that there many good starters electric guitar for a starter like me at that time,Because even in my three years of learning how to play, I'm just using an acoustic not a real one because I can't afford to buy a stratocaster.

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[Perfect Stranger]

Take up stamp collecting instead....

[jpfeifer]

1. Treat music like learning a language ... listen to those players that you like and try to copy their phrasing and note choices ... like learning to speak in some other language. This is where the music is. Learn the theory to help you understand the music, but the theory/scales are NOT the music, just a way to make sense of the structure. In the same way a dictionary is not a story, just an explanation of the words. Focus on story telling with your playing, not the dictionary!

2. Use earplugs at loud concerts and turn down those stink'n headphones! You will regret it when you get older and your ears start to ring.

3. Buy the best equipment that you can afford and hang onto it. Don't settle for cheap stuff that you're not happy with. One good guitar is much better than owning 3 crappy ones.

4. Spend time developing your sight reading skills on the guitar. It will help you to communicate with other musicians, and can also help you get more opportunities to play!

5. Make goals for yourself to help focus you on where you want to go with your music. Find a new song or lick to work on and always have something to be excited about learning. Never stop finding things to learn.

6. Sing! Don't be afraid to develop your vocals ... get over the fear. You will get more opportunities to play with musicians as a guitar player if you can also sing harmonies. It's also fun!

7. Write your own music! It helps you to understand how things fit together. It also helps you to listen to music in a new way, appreciating various aspects of other songs than just the guitar parts (production ideas, chord progressions, interesting bass lines and drum grooves, etc)

[bleakerthanyou]

Whether it's because I had a convoluted sense of pride or some other reason, I never took lessons. While I did not have an instructor, I DID scour bookshelves and once the internet became prominent, I scoured that as well and tried to soak up as much info as I could.
Every theory or method book I've ever picked up starts off in the same place.....reading the staff. I still can't read music, and you don't have to read music to understand guitar theory, but my problem was one that could've been solved easily if someone could have just said it to me in the right words. I attempted to understand modes repeatedly and I failed miserably at it until certain lines on the page kept jumping out at me. Like a lot of people, I totally ignored a lot of sage advice in the beginning because no one explained the "why."

They said focus less on lead guitar and learn rhythm. They said learn chords and intervals instead. They said practice with a metronome. They said a lot of things I didn't listen to.

And here I am, 16 years later, begging noobs to step around those same pitfalls.

A friend once told me to learn and UNDERSTAND the major scale. He said everything has to do with the major scale, but that seemed ludicrous to me at the time. Now I know. It doesn't matter what you're playing or in what key, it comes from one of the major scales.

So i taught myself the major scale and finally had a breakthrough regarding modal playing. I've played and written music for years, and all the mistakes i'd ever made in skipping proper instruction became very apparent when I started learning modes, because I would take songs I've written and try to reverse engineer them to see how my chord progressions fit into the modes, and I felt helpless.

So take lessons if you need it and ask questions always. I could play pretty well before I ever knew why any of it worked, and I wouldn't recommend that path. If you want to play lead with the greats, then learn the how and why of chord construction, and you will find that you're ability to solo and improvise will improve greatly without even specifically working on it.

and maybe the single comment that helped me break through when trying to understand modes: "Any time there are two major chords one whole step apart, you know that HAS TO BE the 4th and 5th notes of the PARENT MAJOR SCALE."

[Tig***]

Very good stuff, bleakerthanyou.