learning to play

[dynu]

Is somewhere on this site a full, step-by-step course for a total beginner to learn to play? I searched and all I could find for beginners was stringing and tuning the guitar.
If you dont have such, could you point me to some good starting place ?

Thanx

[zeb985]

Im not the best of guitar players so there are probaly alot of people out there that could answer this question better but I recommend ebay.com. they have a guitar begginer computer program that you can purchase for pretty cheap. It teach some of the basics and starts you off slow and picks up gradually. The songs you will learn are mostly older ones and arent probably going to be what you hoped to learn but the value isnt the songs but the learning of the material and getting your fingers going and learning how to change chords smoothly and timely. But how ever you choose to start out make sure to have fun its what its all about.

[educatedfilm]

You could be a cheapskate like me when i first started out, and go to some free ware sites, and find "chord finder" programs, which pretty much teach you chords... and then you could come back to this site, learn how to read tab, then get some tabs.... That's similar to how i started out...
Good luck... :)

[Psycho Amram]

find someone to show you few basic chords, the way to build chords and some basic theory n notes.
practice practice practice.
find out how to read tab (that's pretty easy). get tabs of songs you'd like to play.
practice again. practice again. practice again.
that's what i did and i'm happy with it. :)

p.s
never give up. don't get frustrated over some songs you possibly can't work out just leave'em alone for a while and get back to them when you're ready.
you're likely to find out that even after you practiced 5 hours in a row, your fingers ache like hell and you're bleeding over the strings you can't put your guitar aside.

[jrl2479]

Try this site. http://www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~desmith/guitar/chords/chords.htm
It's a site posted by Dan Smith. Very helpful and free.I'm a beginner myself and from strumming exercises and finger picking to octaves and the chord theory he is very descriptive and thorough. He also offers audio streams to hear the correct exercise or sound. They will not play for me but a great instructional method, as if he was there giving you the lesson.Tell me if you enjoy.

[zeb985]

Thanks to jr12479 I went to Dan Smiths sight today and got caught up reading alot of what was on his sight. JR12479 is right this is a great sight. Their is alot of information here and Dan Smith explains it quite well. I especialy liked his essay on Chord Leading. Jr12479 I dont know about dynu but I got to tell you the zebster digged it!!!!!

[jrl2479]

Happy to share the info. Every time I go to the site, I learn something new. Tons of info on this site.

[dynu]

Explain this to me: what is this bull**** with Warner Bros. not letting him publish tablatures ? (D. Smith that is). Since when are tablatures copyrighted and then why havent Dune (Who Wants to Live Forever), Fugees(Killing Me Softly) and others featured - as far as I know - by the same Warner Bros been sued yet !? I really dont get this. I mean, you can play any song, written by anyone, put it on tape, CD, whatever - that's just fine. But if you make the tabs public - you're in deep **** ! Is this not just another way to burry good old music in favor of new, money-earning "artists" such as eminem, papa jr. or dr. dre !? They certainly have no tabs to be stolen !

[jrl2479]

I believe you're on to something with the money theory. It made me mad to see a collection of great songs specifically for a begginer like me. I was raised on the sound of the seventies. The seventies and late sixties were the revolution of music that I choose to acknowledge as critical.We had bands like BTO, CCR, and Ten years after.
On the other hand through posts like this and The OLGA as Dan Smith tells you to try, a company cannot stop the flow of music. They did intimidate Dan. Think about that the next time you buy something with their name on it. With peer to peer file sharing, download and burn, and save some money.

[Zeppelin]

actualy as you may know, there was a big fuzz over olga few years ago, and they had to close down few of their servers and most of the tabs there became illegal somehow,
i think this is realy realy stupid, but the big companies rule the world...