Life after beginner's guides

Hello, my name is Jaime. This is my first post. (I somehow feel like I'm starting out on AA...). I've been unsuccessfully playing guitar for a long time, but never became proficient. Now I'm back on it and trying to learn the right way. Anyway, enough about me...

What I would like is suggestions on what to tackle after the 2 beginner's guides? I searched around for suggestions on the forum, but I couldn't find any (might be a user headspace error on my part). I have mastered the 2 guides and found them very useful and now I would like more!

Thanks,

Jaime

Originally Posted by: wastebasketWhat I would like is suggestions on what to tackle after the 2 beginner's guides?

What do you want to accomplish? If you can think of some specific skills, goals or things you want to learn, then I am sure one or more GT instructors can point you to tutorials that wil help you achieve it. :)

I am in the same boat as you. I just started playing 2 weeks ago.
I also just joined here 2 weeks ago. And i have found alot answers to my questions i had, but never had to asked them. They had already been asked.

I am following the beginners lessons 1, and 2. But still on lesson 1. But i looked at the execises, and added the spider legs. To get my fingers moving. And added the C major, and A minor scales in there also. I also started playing with the metronome. Boy, i should have started using it from the beginning.

By the way, this is the best link (site) i have found on how to learn to play the guitar.

stocz2

Welcome new players!

I agree with Christopher (CSchlegel) - if you could tell us what style(s) of guitar music you'd ultimately like to be playing, then we can help point you in the right direction as to what to study next.

Lisa McCormick - Guitar Tricks Instructor

Thanks for the responses. I guess part of the problem is that being a beginner, I'm a little bit clueless as to what I really want to accomplish.

I like all styles of music, from rock to latin to classical guitar and everything in between. But if I had to choose, I would probably want to start out with rock and pop.

I've tried multiple methods, but they usually either end up going too fast or too slow. I would guess that a lot of people that come to this site are in that same boat.

I really enjoyed going through the beginner's guide because it offered a structured approach to introduce all the elements of guitar playing and I was hoping there was a continuation to that method. In the absence of that I would guess that I would like to build up my chord repertoire and learn to incorporate licks into the chord progressions.

Again, being a beginner, I don't really have a grasp on what I really need to do next. And there is so much information on this site that it's really overwhelming to look at.

P.S. I did find the guide on the 12 bar blues progression very useful and enjoyable. Maybe more of that would help.

Oh, and sorry about the winded message...

I'll join in with Lisa and Christopher :)

Since you found the 12 bar blues interesting, let's start with that. Motivation is key so we'll use something that you have an interested in. Here's a list of blues tutorial for you

Christopher Schlegel

http://guitartricks.com/tutorial.php?input=170
http://guitartricks.com/tutorial.php?input=189
http://guitartricks.com/tutorial.php?input=218
http://guitartricks.com/tutorial.php?input=251

Lisa McCormick

http://guitartricks.com/tutorial.php?input=503
http://guitartricks.com/tutorial.php?input=379

Doug Fearman

http://guitartricks.com/instructor.php?input=16587

Doug has an extensive catalogue of blues tutorial. A lot of them are for the lead guitar. What I suggest is to use the sort by options and sort the lessons by difficulty. This will help you find the beginner lessons. You know how you said most methode were either too fast or too slow. Well that's the best part of www.guitartricks.com, you can sort everything out and concentrate on lessons at your level.

Take time to really work on Christopher and Lisa tutorial before moving on. They cover a lot of the basic knowledge of blues and techniques of blues.

Additional material From Christopher, for later on :)

Blues Orchestration series
http://guitartricks.com/tutorial.php?input=151
http://guitartricks.com/tutorial.php?input=222
http://guitartricks.com/tutorial.php?input=263
http://guitartricks.com/tutorial.php?input=274

I hope this helps you out.

Let's us know how it goes.

Thanks Benoit! I'll give those a whirl and I'll make sure to post an update as I go through them.

Jaime

Hey man,
I took lessons for years and tought myself by trial and error for more years. I'll tell you something that will really help you. Take something you know. Like you said you learned a minor scale in A minor. Take a tape recorder and record yourself playing a simple 3 chord progression. Record it just playing the same thing over and over and work on improvisation. It takes a mechanical shape that you've learned and teaches you the beauty of phrasing and licks and so forth. Another thing that will make you grow quickly is learning songs by listening. It will take you forever at first, but the more you do it, the better and faster you will be. You wont be just book smart, you'll teach your ear as well. I recommed ACDC. Very simple but also cool.

Great advice! I'll give all that a try as well. Also, I love AC/DC!

Thanks,

Jaime

Originally Posted by: JJ777Take something you know. Like you said you learned a minor scale in A minor. Take a tape recorder and record yourself playing a simple 3 chord progression. Record it just playing the same thing over and over and work on improvisation.

No need to create your own backing track (unless you want to as it's own exercise to improve your skills). We've got plenty of them in the Jam Station: http://www.guitartricks.com/jam.php

Also, this suggestion from JJ777 is top notch advice. No reason to put off learning to improvise until later on; the sooner the better. Try these tutorials on learning to improv if you are interested (backing tracks included!):

http://www.guitartricks.com/tutorial.php?input=483
http://www.guitartricks.com/tutorial.php?input=491

Also, I created backing tracks for 12 bar blues in all 12 keys in two different tempos (slow 80BPM; fast 120BPM):
http://www.guitartricks.com/tutorial.php?input=406

Let the improv-soloing begin!