I’ve been teaching myself since Christmas of 06, so a little over a year now. I got my Fender Acoustic in a ‘starter pack’ back then, and played so much that within 3 weeks i could get through my first song WHILE singing. By Nov 07, I was able to play most intermediate level pop songs off the tabs while singing without any practice at all, and i was itching for an electric. My GF (who got me the acoustic) bought me a Fender Strat Standard and a really nice Vox Practice Amp with lots of different effects and distortions to play around with.
I havent recorded anything for about 8 months, and im a lot better now than I was. I also have a lot of tips to share on being self taught.
1.) Start acoustic. Not as fun, sure, but much harder. Makes moving to electric easy.
2.) Save power chords for later. Learn the real ones, and buy a capo to play a LOT of popular songs using full chords.
3.) Ask for pop songs that are familiar and have very few (and simple) chords in them so you can learn something. Try Free Fallin’ by Tom Petty (with a capo on 3), so ridiculously easy.
4.) Strum hard until you get a feel for holding the pick and not dropping it.
Not essentially intense sessions. More along the lines of jumping the gun trying to playing songs I like, regardless of layout. Baby monster steps, I guess.
Time to back the trolley up. Back to C, A, G, E, D practice. :tup: Up and at 'em!
On one my my guitar books, every letter has a flat note next to it like this
6=E flat
5=A flat
4=D flat
and so on, so what does that mean? I have other books in which songs are labeled as half step down, so I’m gonna assume this is another way of writing it?
Oh, ok, since I’m self taught, I was kinda confused, also, sometimes it would say like a song is in drop D or drop C tuning, so how would that look in the method that I posted?
By drop C, I assume you’re talking about tuning every string down a full step, then dropping the low string another full step. In the notation you’re using, it would look like this.
6: C
5: G
4: C
3: F
2: A
1: D
All it’s really doing is telling you which note each individual string is tuned to, rather than the more typical method of telling you how many steps down it is from standard tuning. I suppose each method has it’s pros and cons.
Oh, ok, gotcha. I forgot to ask, how would that also look if it was just with the flat notes? Would a whole step down, like the C you posted, have 3 flat notes? I dont know if it makes sense;
6: C (Flat Flat Flat)
5: G (Flat Flat Flat)
4: C (Flat Flat Flat
No. A note flatted twice would just be the next note down. In other words, it doesn’t go E, E flat, E flat flat. It goes E, E flat, D, D flat, and so on.
My Jaguar. Now with battle damage and novelty ROCKBAND guitar strap!!
I’m probably going to buy a tele and a new amp after i get my tax returns. Don’t really know much about amps. Whats good for an apartment setting with no real ambition to play publicly?
If you’re not planning on playing live or in any kind of band situation, have you considered going digital? You can plug in headphones and just use an amp simulator.
Suggestions for a good stand for my acoustic? There’s so many on musiciansfriend and the reviews are all over the place. I love my gig bag, but I haven’t been going out lately and it’s a hustle to unzip the bag and pull the guitar out and it’d be nice to just reach over and grab it out of the case.
Baby monster steps, I guess.