Self-teaching methods

Hi all, i just started learning guitar and have been teaching myself for about 4 mths. First though a little background info: i played piano for about 5 yrs and am pretty good. However ever since i got to college i decided to take on guitar and am teaching myself to play. I learnt all the basic open position chords but later became bored and started learning scales.

FFrankly i dont know if this is the right way to start leafning guitar, by playing scales that is. Eventually i will get myself a teacher but i jsut wanted some advice on how to proceed and if i am going in the right direction. I really want to play jazz and blues guitar and some of those chords look plain HARD! So i decided to learn scales anmd how to build my own chords from them.

If nothing here makes sense please tell me :) I really dont know how to get my question out any better. Thanks

I'd say, go to your closest public library and flip through some books on guitar methods. See what clicks.
Recently I have subscribed to a guitar magazine that comes with a cd -- I listen to the cd, when I hear smth that I want to learn, I read the article and start practicing.
And again -- no pain, no gain. To move forward, you have to try and play those aweful chords. It will take a while, but you'll get there.
And have fun!

Besides learning just the open chords I would also include learning the bar chords which are a bit difficult to play at first. Learn to play each Chord in atleast 3 different position on the fret board. This will become very handy later when you need to play quick chord changes.

Just a thought.

Happy guitar playing!!

Allan.

heh,I cheat and strum E A and D while I scramble my ring finger to G on most bar chords.

Sure practice is great (scales and chords)...but it's easy to get bogged down and lose interest. I'd recommend learning real songs, songs you listen to and think you'd be able to handle. For instance, someone who has never picked up a guitar before could handle "A Horse With No Name" by America. Tom Petty, ZZ Top, and Pink Floyd all have some simple easy to play songs. First progression I ever learned however, was Heartbreak Hotel.

The other recommedation once you get your fingers broken in, is to play with people, be it a bassist, drummer, or another guitarist. Nothing improves you're creative skills quicker in my opinion. Drum loops and/or a simple metronome are essential for practice too.

I'm learning how to play guitar pretty much only from this site. There is so much informatin, lessons, and people to ask questions.

Like R. Shackleferd said, learning songs can be a good start, it forces you to learn new chords and a gives you a taste for different styles, depending on what songs you choose to learn.

Read. Read everything you can. Reading will show you capabilities with the guitar, technique, and most anything else you'd want to know. And if reading makes no sense then do 1 of 2 things.

1. Read it until it does make sense (it's weird, like a lot of exposure to something and it'll suddenly click... for me it does anyway)
2. Ask someone to speak in lamen terms.

Thanks guys for all the advice, i really needed them. Yes it does get very frustrating just learning scales and chords without knowing what the heck to do with them. I mean, i can play the major, minor and maj/min pentatonics easily but now what??

Plus we can scratch out those barre chords for a while...so darn painful i almost wept over a simple thing like going from C, F and G and back again.