I do. I paid for a tutor for a while, as i always find it benificial to start off with human help so they can show you what you’re doing wrong. Books can’t do that.
Granted the chords and riffs can be learnt through books, but the things like palm muting can’t really be learnt accurately through books it needs the human touch so to speak.
Few possible reasons.
-You have small hands, so it’s a strain on them
-Your thumb is in the wrong possition
You’re putting too much pressure on them during the barre chords, when you do the bar chords use less force with your thumb.
More practice. The obvious one is that you’re still not used to it and it will pass the more you practice. Although if you have been doing it a long time it’s probably one of the other reasons.
i have been playing guitar for about 4 years and its alot of fun. for the beginners in this forum, if you are having trouble, fdont give up because it definitely pays off. its so cool when you achieve something really fun to play
Yeah, I play guitar. I have been playing about half a year. I am happy with the progress i have made because I play A LOT. about an amp… if you plan on getting serious with guitar, and plan on playing for years to come, go ahead and make the leap of buying a tube amp and not some shitty S.S. Believe me, i made the mistake and I wish i would have just saved up a few extra hundred dollars and bought a Peavey Classic 30 or a Fender Twin reverb. BUT if you don’t have the cash to go for that tube amp, get a good S.S. amp. one of the best ones is a Roland cube 30. thats what i have and it has the best clean channel than any other SS amp i have heard. it is about $225.
As for the guitar, spend more money on a good amp. you can have the nicest guitar in the entire world and play it on some shitty SS amp and it will sound like crap. a guitar is only as good as the amp its playing through. how much are you wanting to spend on your guitar by the way? i know a lot of good guitars around the $200 range. and when you start playing, you are going to become very stressed at yourself when you can’t play that favorite lick that you have. just try not to get mad. that is what leads players to quit guitar altogether. It almost happened to me. I would also suggest finding a guitar teacher for at least the first month or 2 that you start. believe me, it will start you off on the right track.
i wish i could find a good guitar teacher that i could see every day for at least an hour at a time, or at least, 3-4 times a week.
i am so sloppy…
what I don’t get is I’ve been working on the Enter Sandman solo for like a year, at first I was pretty good at it, like 2-3 weeks after trying to learn it, then I started sucking… so anyway.
there’s this 16th note scale run thing, and you’re supposed to pick almost all of it, not cheat your way through with pull offs, and, the other day, I DID IT it was like i was disconnected from my body and possessed, my fingers were flying, and I was like “how did I do that?”
because I had no idea how I did it, it’s like, a zen type thing, there was no thought… just playing.
and… I normally can’t do it… I can’t move my left fingers that fast to save my life…
Well, there’s hardly any more to it than the “Zen experience” you describled. Sometimes when you are in the right state of mind, the stars align and you connect.
Actually, if I’m correct, then that is exactly what practice should do. By practicing what you want to play, your finger muscles “memorize” where they are supposed to go. I’m sure you know that things don’t seem so hard once you’ve learned them, well you’re probably getting pretty familiar with whatever you were playing. You were probably relaxed so your brain could freely exercise what you taught it.
yeah… i guess somehow i’ll be able to do it more often…
it was that way when I was playing nothing else matters (great song! all people should learn it, not too hard, impresses the ladies [or it should])
i was like “i can’t do this, i do great then i start thinking and i screw up” and my crazy woman-friend … don’t think i’ve talked about her on here, she’s the “Megan” in my dream entries she was like “i have no idea what you’re talking about… I play better when I think”
i don’t see how anyone could play better when they think, unless they’re singing the parts in their head which I sometimes need to do to keep from being sloppy.
but when you’re not thinking at all, that’s when you kick the most ass, for me anyway.
oh and I think I might get an electric-acoustic soon.
I kinda play it out in my head before I play or like as I go. lol I can’t really explain it. but there are days where i cant get anything to sound good so i just have to put the guitar down.
I’ve been playing for a bit over a year now, self taught. It’s dissapointing at first that it really isn’t as easy as it looks but then it’s great fun when you can start doing what you want with it. I really enjoy making up my own songs, very rewarding
I play electric guitar 6 months, and i LOVE this instrument! It gives much fun, i love to play riffs from my favorite songs
My dad showed me few basics (how to play Smoke on the Water and Money…), then i started to download tabs to my favorite songs, and thats how my learning goes Some things (like palm muting) i learned from the net. I play mostly heavy metal riffs, and still looking for a band…
The fastest way I’ve found to increase ability is to just always always be playing your guitar, whenever you’re doing something that isn’t vital to living play guitar even surfing these forums, play guitar when you’re not typing anything.
I play the guitar, and I am a member of both the guitartricks.com and cyberfret.com guitar forums, although I haven’t posted on them in forever
I’ve been playing about 6 years now, I’d say I’m okay for how long I’ve been playing.
A few things I can tell any beginners out there;
Invest in a reasonably priced…but good (as in not a peice of crap) guitar. Epiphone makes some good ones, you could check them out.
If you’re going to take lessons, learn to read music. It is such an invaluable skill, which sadly most ‘musicians’ can’t even do…if you can read music you will always have an edge over other players.
Watch out for tabs on the net…most of them are wrong…which brings me to #4…
Listen close and develope a good ear. Good ears + reading music = one heck of a guitar player.
Yeah i absolutely love my guitar. I play around on it for at least about an hour a day sometimes more. I’ve been playing about 3 years now, im into metal, progressive, rock and shred and im currently training to do my 4th grade exam in rock guitar.
A real key to playing well is having a good influence. I listen to john petrucci (Dream theater if anyone’s heard of them) and the things he does really influence me and improve my style.
I play solos mostly and I also sing.
