Self Help

Perhaps this is sort of an oxymoron...but I may need help in self teaching myself the guitar. I got a guitar book by Wolf Marshall. I think that it is a good book and all, however, I'm not even 1/4 of the way through the book and I'm trying to learn 1/16 beats and a whole bunch of stuff. The book is good to learn the fundamentals, but all at once?? Where do I go? Find a book that will teach me Mary Had a Little Lamb? That would be fine with me honestly, I have to start somewhere, I would prefer to play any song as opposed to fragments.

I have given thought to lessons, and I am in a large city (edmonton, ab) however, cost is somewhat of a deterant(not that I am a cheap skate...).

Any thoughts...

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to all!

Yes i started with a book called
GUITAR METHOD Book 1 Beginner with my techer and with a teacher you get really far in it real quick
This Book leads onto
GUITAR METHOD Book 2 advanced
*The first book teaches you the really basics in learnin Guitar ,eg Parts of the Guitar,correct seating, arm positions and finger positions etc.
*How to read nots and tabs
*tunings
*Quarter nots, whole notes rest double stops
*time signatures
*teaches songs like the song of joy, Blues, House of the rising sun, Dark eyes, Hall of the mountain king, Botany Bay, Silent Night, When the saints go marching in and many more!!!:D

Just dive in man, you'll swim. You definately could start off learning little kiddie songs like Marry had a Little Lamb: I did, I worked all the way through the Guitar Method books that SoS talked about. They helped me in two ways:
1) It gave me the necessary basics of playing the guitar such as holding it and strumming and picking (now that I look back, those songs make great alternate picking excercises).

2) It gave me the drive to learn stuff on my own. So while I was learning Simple Gifts, I was also learning a powerchord version of "Wild Thing", which at the time I thought was so cool.

However I do recommend you get a teacher. It is very important to develop good habits and not bad ones. Remember, it takes 7 repetitions to form a habit, and 70 to correct it. I think... where did I hear that.. anyways. Get a teacher!

Where do you want to go musically?
Do you want to play the blues, or classical guitar, or shred like hell?
You need to set those objectives, because the path will be different. James is right, you need to have a teacher, find the right one, according to your personal goals, and trust him, he has gone along this path before you...

I would like to become diverse in the music field.
I would like to play BTO-Takin' Care of Business to Everclear - The Back in Town (also an oldie) Even some ACDC, my musical taste is quite broad. I just hope to have fun and to be able to play for friends.

try to find a teacher that has the same tastes as you do then...

Most big music stores have a crew of teachers you can choose from, to book a half-hour a week with. At first you'll be getting homework assignments that are meant to guide the practice that you do on your own. That's pretty much what you're looking for, yes?

BTW, i live in Calgary.

I would also recomment the Guitar books recommended by SoS. I thought they were useful as far as they went. I would also recommend the free online guitar lessons provided by Dan Cross on the About.com website. When I was teaching myself I found that alot of the explanations etc on this website were very clearcut and helpful. An advantage of this site is that you learn to play more contemporary songs (Mary has a Little Lamb isnt the most inspiring song to learn!) this had another benefit as I got interested in a couple of bands I hadn't previously heard of whilst doing these lessons.
At the end of the day though I think I have learnt more in a couple of weeks with a decent teacher than I would have in a couple of months on my own.

Hope that Helps

Neal