Learning Guitar! Help!

[Shamrock]

I borrowed my friend's guitar for an unknown amount of time, and I am trying to learn it. If any of you musicians have techniques or help for me, please don't hold back.

I've been practicing for about an hour now, and my fingers hurt! At the moment, I'm just reading tabs, but I'm not able to slide from fret to fret and note to note.

I'm somewhat of a beginner, but I have musical knowledge rather than actual experience. I'm almost able to play the intro to Radio by Alkaline Trio which is quite possibly the easiest song ever, but I just can't get down the fret/note change.

By the way, the guitar I'm using is basically a beginner guitar. Like I said, any help would definitely be appreciated! Thanks HL2.net! D:

 

[Tarkus]

Daily exercises are essencial, and mandatory if you ever want to play more than just some chords.

You can start with the basic 1234 on each string, starting from the 6th string to the first (the 6th string is the fatest one). Play all the frets without raising the previous fingers, meaning that when you get to the 4th fret, you have eache finger on its respective fret. Do this very slowly at first everyday, it will take you far, trust me.

When you feel comfortable with this exercise, do the same, except starting on the 1st string and 4321 rather than 1234.

Besides that, learn every basic chord and pratice jumping from chord to chord, and also practice strumming up and down

edit - this here is 50 dollars worth of advice (if you were taking classes of course)

 

[Fliko]

Try to learn songs from ear, that will develop your ear a lot.

 

[Shift]

He just started, learning by ear comes later on.

I got where I am just by getting to grips with guitar technique and fingering first, which was largely down to playing a lot of classical guitar songs for a long time. After that I started reading tabs and then my guitar ability just rocketed from there.

But before you start playing you need to be commited to it if you actually want to get anywhere with playing, that means practising like crazy EVERYDAY.

 

[Emporius]

Practice
Practice
Practice

You know you're getting there when your fingers get hard

That is all

 

[Que-Ever]

He just started, learning by ear comes later on.

I taught myself to play by listening to CDs and tabbing songs. So I disagree.

 

[Tarkus]

You're talking about that finger-stretching exercise, right? I highly recommend it, but you didn't do the best job of describing it, really. I'd say this page here does a bit of a better job.

Cyberfret, in fact, tends to be a very good source for learning basic chords, theory, and other important things, but it's also a decent way to learn some more advanced techniques and even how to read guitar music.

Just don't learn too quickly. Mastery of (or at least confidence in) each step along the way is essential, or else you'll find yourself struggling later on because you don't have the fundamentals down.

Yeah I know -_-, obviously english isn't my first language, and even in my first language I have a hard time explaining these exercises

 

[Shift]

I taught myself to play by listening to CDs and tabbing songs. So I disagree.

Well suppose would be posible at the starting stages, depends on the song.

 

[Que-Ever]

Well suppose would be posible at the starting stages, depends on the song.

pop-punk is probably the way to go. Simple, and not super-****ing-grindcore fast.

 

[NeptuneUK]

Powerchord based riffs are, indeed, a good way to begin practicing.
Everyone learns things best in different ways, for some a guitar teacher will show them how to play and they will practice it and just get it! For others, various different self-teaching methods work best. Any sort of practicing will make you better but some ways help some people differently.

I learnt the best by repetitive fretting excercises to build strength, then I drilled the basic chords into my head so I could play them in my sleep. Once the basics were out of the way I learnt the best by listening to the songs I wanted to play like Que said and learning them first hand. This would work best for me because, in a similiar fashion to Trent Reznor I don't like being told what I'm supposed to and not-supposed to do musically. I like to experiment.

(No I don't want to try and be Trent!!! It just so happens that some people think I look a little like him... and I make electronic music.... and well basically everything else.... hah! but still! I had the same comparisons before I even liked NiN!!)

Trent, too makes his best stuff when he's been having a shit time and doing drugs. I think I'm going to listen to some 90s NiN!!! brb

I'm not going off on a tangent... I would say it's more of a cubic function diverging to and from positive and negative infinity! With some minor, yet useful interpretable data in between.... Bwaha I am quite stark-raving mad!

 

[Dalamari]

Try and play your favorite songs, keep doing it until you can move on to harder stuff. Repeat.

As for exercises and learning chords, that just kinda comes to you after playing for awhile, but they do help. I personally don't do any of those exercises, just kinda grab songs I like and practice at em.

Also, if you don't enjoy playing guitar, you're kinda ****ed, because forcing yourself to practice is the worst way to learn (derrr).

 

[Dog--]

First of all, don't rely solely on tabs, in fact try not to use them, only use them to play a cool song or whatever, but don't expect to learn much from them. Try to figure out songs for yourself (obviously only figure out songs based on your skill level)

Second of all, use the tippy tips of your fingers, it'll be hard now, but later on it'll be very worth it, you'll get nice clear notes, and you won't accidentally hit other strings or whatever. It'll also help you get amazingly more clear chords.

It's a good thing your fingers hurt, that means they will callus up, which it good.

USE YOUR PINKY. FFS USE IT!

Stick with theory, I know so many guitar players who suck ass, people think they are good because they can play some songs, but they only know tabs. I know one other person, other then myself, who is, honestly, the best guitar player in the school based on the fact that he knows theory (even other people agree he's best). He can make stuff up on the go, he can figure out songs using theory (it's easy once you figure out how to use theory to make a song). Just learn theory. Please.

Last - Have fun. You won't learn if you get frustrated, take it slow, if you get angry just take a breather for a half-hour, and try again. It's all about having fun, and hey, maybe you won't want to play a way someone tells you (like me with the tips), every guitar player has their own style, no one does things the same.