Hey, New Axe Man

Sup all, came across this site by accident, but I am glad I found it. Just got a new guitar, and was wonderin if you guys could tell me some good excerises for an extreme beginner. Even though I am startin kinda late(I am 20yrs old) I really want to learn to play the instrument. Ever since I heard Megadeth's Wake Up Dead I knew I wanted to play guitar. Which I hope I can someday play. Due to my involement in sports and workin 40hrs a week I dont have too much time to play, or for that matter take lessons. But I try to practice at least 1 hour a day. You guys all seem to be very good guitar players, so any helpfull hints would be very welcome. And if it makes any difference I want to play Metal. I know it will take time and patience, so I am hoping to get started on the right foot.

Also on a side note, due you guys think the late Criss Oliva from Savatage was a great guitar player?

Later all

Sup dude... welcome to the board!

A few hints to get you going... hhmm... have you looked at the lessons and tricks on this site? The moderators and members all post different things here. I don't know how far along you are but I'd start easy. Megadeth is pretty tough stuff to tackle to start with. Go with some easy songs... AC/DC, Nirvana, older 80's power rock. This will at least get you going and help you to get comfortable with your instrument. On http://www.guitartrader.com there is a section that says lessons. it has a java (I think) app that is awesome for learning scales, chords etc...

let me know if you can't find it and i'll post the exact link to it.

Believe me, not everyone here has 40+hrs to play guitar (I WISH!!!!!) but consistancy is the key to actually progressing. Practice your scales nightly and SLOWLY!!! I can't emphasize that enough. If you practice sloppy, you'll play sloppy!

don't give up, it'll be a little while. The guitar is not the kind of instrument that most people can pick up and just "get it". You'll need patience and time. I promise if you give it those, it'll give you a lot more back.


Keep Jammin!

Mark

Practice atleast thirty minutes a day. It will build nerves, muscles, and callouses on your hands and fingers. Your fingertips will hurt at first, but after a few months you'll develop a pad on them. These are callouses. Have fun, and don't get discouraged.

Hey thx alot spanky, the site will defiently help. I won't try and tackle the Deth untill I am rdy. However a friend showed me a couple of sabbath songs to keep me busy in the meantime. Oh yea, could u tell me what a sweep is??

Thx Again

Listen to iiholly, that's a great tip.

Sweeping is a technique similar to strumming a chord, but you hit one note at a time and make only one note sound at a time. You strum all the notes with a down pick, making each note ring out and stop before the next one is played, and most of the time you come back up the same way you went down. It's a rather advanced technique that will take a lot of practice.

If you're an extreme beginner, stick with the basics, hammer-ons, pull-offs, bending to the correct pitch, sliding. Stuff like that.

Just make sure to be consistent with your practicing. Don't play 4 hours one day, and then not play for 3 days.

Also, when learning scales, the trick I like to do is watch tv with the guitar in my lap, and just play the scale over and over and over, without really paying attention, just hitting the right notes of course. But this helps you build your subconscious. Soon you'll be playing the scales without thinking about it.

Whew!

Depends on how much of a beginner you are, when I started out, I found one of the hardest things to do was to change from one chord to the next and have it sound clean and quick. Playing often is also important, try for atleast 30min a day, but also try to squeeze sessions in, even if they are only 5 minutes, it all helps.
This site (guitartricks) has lots of good excersizes on it, so maybe try them. also look at http://www.guitar-pro.com and download the demo version, it is a tab progarm that has musical notation and tab, and also midi playback options, so you can hear what the song sounds like, on this site there are links to many tab sites for Gp tabs.

Keep playing man, it is never too late to start, and with enough jamming you will get better.
One more thing, there will be times when you feel as if you have not progressed for months...I call these droughts...stick through it, you will always wake up one morning after a long drought and sudenly be much better

Welcome to the greatest hobbie on Earth

Hobby? It's a way of Life! All questions can be answered with a guitar in your hands, including "You next, Sandra?"

Thx for the site's they will really help

First things first, learn how to read tabs (I'm sure you've already tackled this). I'd start out simple, learning the open "cowboy" chords. Get good at switching between them. You'll be suprised at how quickly you can play something that "sounds good". Once you're ready to work on some lead guitar riffs and solos, I'd recommend this site, it helped me alot back when I was first starting out: http://www.worldguitar.com/start.html

A little tip:

If you play hard things, the easier will become even easíer. Play over your level often; dream theater, symphony X, yngwie etc. Even if what you play don't make sense because you can't play it fast enough to will improve your finger speed more than you would if you played just Twisted Sister

Good Luck!

I dunno, if I agree with that playing hard things idea, try very hard pieces by all means, but dont forget easy pieces aswell, you will get better by playing pieces better than you, but you wont nail them until you can play easy stuff aswell

Which Megadeth song would u guys think is the most simple to play?