I'm a Noob

Hey all, Just joined and so far I'm impressed. I have subscribed to other online lessons with very little success. I was impressed with the "Fundamentals" from the start. None of the other programs offered the basics in such a clear format. I've been playing for years, never knowing the basics. I can play a pile of songs but, didn't know why they were put together the way the are. Can't read music but, I'm excited to learn on this program.

Welcome aboard!! I started here a year ago with a background similar to yours. The lessons are great and have helped my playing tremendously. It's good to sure up the basics and fundamentals if you were self taught.

Check out the song lessons. The library is huge and it's a great way to expand your repertoire.

Have fun!!

Hey there! I'm new as well. The title of your thread drew my attention. One thing that I feel I should tell you is to never call yourself anything disempowering. Even if you're not completely serious, by calling yourself something like "noob" you begin to subconsciously drill that into your head and eventually believe it. Once you believe you suck you will never EVER get better. Call yourself great, call yourself a soon to be pro, and your playing will just seem to magically grow! And with this forum and these videos here, getting great is far from impossible! Enjoy!

Once in a while the subject of my playing/practice comes up in conversations. Well...maybe more than once in a while...I like talking 'guitar.' ;)

Surprising to me, I've had questions basically worded, "Are you good?" Although the query came from friends I was still taken aback...maybe because I was a little sensitive to trying to attain 'good' level. Or maybe what I thought the hidden question was, "You? Play guitar?!" :rolleyes:

Anyhoo, I found a response that fits me and tracks a little on Jeremy's suggestion above, "I'm better than I was yesterday but not as good as I'm gonna be tomorrow."

Hi Pothole814, welcome to the GT forum. It's really eye-opening to see how many songs share similar chord progressions.

Thanks for the feedback, good to know we're doing the right thing. :)

Well, in the week that I've been a member, I've gone thru the Fundamentals 1. I'll tell you what, I've learned a lot. One thing that has me stuck is that #$%@# B chord. I'm practicing it but, it is a long stretch for my fingers. Not giving up my any means but, IT HURTS. LOL I'm practicing the C Major scale now in Fundamentals 2 but, keep going back and working on B. I'm really excited to lean all the stuff I never knew. Thanks for all the positive comments. PRACTICE, PRACTICE, PRACTICE. I am dedicating 2 hours a day, 5 days a week to just this. We will see where I'm at in 6 months.

Originally Posted by: Pothole814I'm practicing the C Major scale now in Fundamentals 2 but, keep going back and working on B.

If I could make a couple of suggestions... First, make sure you're not hammering away too hard on any one thing. I was surprised to find out not too long ago that a number of instructors, including those at MIT, recommend working on one particular skill (like learning the C major scale or learning the B chord) for only a few minutes at a time. Then they recommend moving on to something else. It seems an impossibly short amount of time, but I've found it really works... ever notice sometimes you seem to start really well with something, then after 10 minutes you're actually doing worse, not better? It has happened to me, and I think its just that after a number of repetitions, your brain starts to get bored and you lose focus. I've found that just working on one specific thing for two to three minutes, with 100% concentration, I can improve relatively quickly.

The other thing is with the C Major scale, once you know how to play it, even in just one position, start putting it into service right away. What really cements a scale into your memory is putting it into a context of your own choosing... so if you can, get a backing track that's appropriate for the major scale, and solo over it... again, even if its just in one position, and super simple... use the scale, be creative, make up simple melodic lines over the music and have fun with it. If something sounds "off", check if its because you played a note outside the scale, or if its just an odd note choice from the scale for that particular part of the backing track. Doing this will train your ear to actually "hear ahead" the notes that you are going to play. So instead of just playing in a scale pattern and hoping that the notes you play sound good over the music, you'll actually start to anticipate what will sound good before you play it.

Essentially, you're familiarizing yourself with the intervalic relationships and not just the positions of the notes on the fretboard. If this sounds fancy and advanced, its not. If you play "Puff the Magic Dragon" by ear, how can you, without knowing the major scale? Well, its because you already know the melody so well, you can "hear" the intervals in your head before you play them, the same way that you can "hear" a perfect 5th just by thinking of the beginning of "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star". By soloing with your own ideas, even if you stay in one pattern, or one octave for that matter, you'll start to get a sense for how the notes of the scale relate to each other, the chords/bass lines you play them over, and what the resulting sound will be when you move from the note you're on, to the note you're about to play.