Couple questions...

Ok, I'm quite new to the guitar, I got one for christmas. A Martin D-28 (lucky me :P). I really enjoy Dave Matthews guitar, especially when he's teamed up with Tim Reynolds. I've been trying to learn some of their easier songs and I've gotten most of the fingering down for Crash. The basic intro chord looks something like this...

E --------------
B ---5---5------
G ---4---4------
D ---2---x------
A ---4---2------
E --------------

Ok so anyway when I try to play it, it sounds funny when I play the 1&6 strings along with it. But it doesn't have any x's... to mute. So does anyone know if the 1&6 strings should be muted, and if so... how? By palm or by left hand? Also in another song he has something like...

E---------------
B---------------
G101010-8-7-8---
D 8 8 8-8-5-5---
A---------------
E---------------

Or whatever... this isn't exact, just a basis for what I'm trying to get at. Would he mute the 1,2,5&6 strings, or would he just pick the middle 2 strings? I tried picking just the middle 2 with doing a full strum... and that's realllyy hard. I was thinking there must be some better way. But when I try to mute 1,2,5,& 6 I can't seem to be able to mute just those ones. So all in all, Is Dave just an extremely talented muter/strummer or is there something that I'm missing out on that might help.

Besides hiring a teacher, or going to a class or anything along that line. Can anyone recommend any good resources for learning acoustic guitar? Videos... books... or whatever. I learn best alone by reading and watching other people rather than having a teacher tell me how to do it. So if anyone could recommend anything that would be great.

If you just dove into learning the guitar, I would try some easier songs. For a beginner, DMB has some pretty crazy chord inversions, which will cause you to stretch farther than you're used too.

Try some easier songs, get used to changing chords and strumming, then dive back into it.

Learn the "cowboy chords" first. G, C, D, A and go on from there. Keep with it.

If there are no numbers and no x's, then you don't play the string at all.

Ok thanks guys... Yeah I know that one shouldn't start out with the hardest. But I started printing out tabs for a bunch of christmas songs and stuff. And then a few others from guitars.about.com and they were all really easy for me. And I'm 6'4 with longg skinny fingers, so the stretching so far has not been an issue to me. I can fairly comfortably reach most of the chords he uses that I've tried.

Originally posted by DMBFan86
Ok thanks guys... Yeah I know that one shouldn't start out with the hardest. But I started printing out tabs for a bunch of christmas songs and stuff. And then a few others from guitars.about.com and they were all really easy for me. And I'm 6'4 with longg skinny fingers, so the stretching so far has not been an issue to me. I can fairly comfortably reach most of the chords he uses that I've tried.

Playing guitar goes beyond how far you can stretch. If it was that easy then every tall person with big hands would play. DMB has complicated rhythms that you probably won't be able to pick up correctly as a beginner.