How should I start learning to play guitar?

[carlfernandes]

In my opinion it's always best to start in the following way

1) Learn a few basic chords and chord progressions. e.g. C, D, E, A, G
2) Learn how to strum these chords in a nice progression
3) Learn a simple song using tabs... e.g. Oasis - Wonderwall [I think the first song I ever learnt]
4) Learn a few more "easy" songs
5) start building up technical ability with a metronome, learning a scale and playing it to the beat of a metronome over and over


You will quickly get bored unless you learn a song end-to-end I think... since you're into metal it will be difficult to find a decent song to learn at the start as they will be tougher than other genres.

Some decent metal songs I learnt to start with, that weren't too technical:
Papa roach - last resort
system of a down - sugar

[axel_f]

^ Early Sabbath has to be the easiest metal to learn from beginning to end. Iommi was my first teacher, lol. The best part is, anyone who doesn't play thinks you're amazing when you play Iron Man.

[fxramirez]

Sorry for the huge delay, work and school take up most of my time so I had almost forgotten about this thread.

I will go ahead and take everyone's advice in that I need someone to teach me guitar, I spent a lot of time trying to figure out all the theory on my own but I didn't know how to apply it to my playing.

Thanks for all the feedback, the funny stuff too hahaha.

[satchmo72]

Originally Posted by axel_f

Plus, how are we going to come up with new styles if people keep teaching each other stuff? It's counterproductive. That's why I removed the dots from my fretboard, I'M THE BOSS OF ME!

This is funny, BTW, thats called Jazz.

[worldrecordholder]

I always felt the most guitar teachers milked their students time. Meaning they would teach a bunch of useless crap to string lessons on longer (*this is from someone who has professionally taught guitar).

People learn in different ways.....some NEED teachers to show them what to do, others can learn from just playing (after learning some basic fundamentals IE correct hand positioning) and others learn best from tab.

Me....

A very long time ago I was given the Ozzy Osborne Tribute to RR complete TAB book. 100% novice but had a 5 min. explanation of TAB.
By shear desire and force of will I learned most every song in the album note for note (*with the exception of 2 songs)

After that experience it gave me the muscle control and dexterity to play just about anything, and learned theory, scales and other along the way.

Funny thing is that I still play quite a few of those old tunes!

Again...

What works for you and others may be different. The most important thing is to start with a guitar that is properly set up. I can not count the times a young student would come to me and their parents gave them a guitar that was unplayable....and I was expected to teach them on a guitar I couldnt play!

---also.....have fun, never make it work.

~JH

[MatiasTolkki]

Originally Posted by axel_f

^ Early Sabbath has to be the easiest metal to learn from beginning to end. Iommi was my first teacher, lol. The best part is, anyone who doesn't play thinks you're amazing when you play Iron Man.

Iron man is probably the greatest song ever for a noob (me being one, only been playing for a year). Judas Priest's Breaking the Law is crazy easy too

[notofthise4rth]

Guitar teacher is your best option.. but a good one!

[63Blazer]

If you can play by ear and jam with people that's the easiest way.

But it can never hurt to learn how to read music with guitar as that will open up many tunes you may not have a CD or video for. Reading music and checking out stuff I don't know is what I am doing late in life and wished I could have attended proper sight reading much sooner. It's never ever too early to work on reading single note melodies.