The Complete Guide: From buying guitar to playing songs with chords

Dear All,

INTRODUCTION:

I have learned guitar the harder way.. without any tutions.. so i hv faced many problems.. but it gave me a wide vision of wat to do.. wat not to do.. how to approach.. Here I am putting my 7 months experience.. and in the perspective of a newbie.. trying to put it all.. Here it goes..

BUYING THE GUITAR

Start with a good accoustic guitar,the hollow one.. i feel Hobner or Givson will do.

TUNNING IT

Many approaches r there..but i follow..this ( or else u may use guitar tuner s/w or a pipe)..
start from the thinnest string thats E..tune it with a reference.. then play the E note in the next string B.. that will be in the 5th fret.. play both E notes together till u get the resonance in sound.now E and B are tunned.. Proceed like this.. play B string open then G string's 4th fret note that is B.. till u get the resonance.. Proceed this way until u reach the thickest string E. Ur guitar is now tunned.
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AIM

To play any song with chords and sing along.

ITEMS REQUIRED

A perfectly tunned guitar, a chord chart table ( u can get it from google or PM me ).. internet access and the most imp. determination to do it... Thats all.

THEORY

I m not going to discuss much of the theory here.. u can get it easily and read many books.. they don't help u much initially. There r six strings.. E A D G B E starting from thickest to thinnest.. each note has a sharp key.. except B and E.
consider any scale.. there r 12 notes.. like for C scale.. C C# D D# E F F# G G # A A# B.. we have minors also associated with notes and combination of minors and sharps too.. we have chords of sevenths.. too.. No need to go for suspended and augmented chords now..


PROCEDURE

1> Start with simple chords..
NOTE: don't try barre chords now..
easy practice will be playing A C D E F Am Em G.. (i m putting B out because i preffer it playing with barre chord) Go on playing these chords repeatedly.. reducing the time gap between change of one chord to other. Newbies face biggest problem here in changing chords fastly.. exercise is for ur left hand.. for right hand.. try different strumming patterns.

2>Believe me onething.. there is no well defined or algorithmic way to strum.. it shud come from inside ur mind.. listen the song many times and use ur feet to feel the rythm.. actually feeling the beat needs god gifted ears.. some ppl can do it once some take months to do that... but it the another big problem which may dissapoint u.. but don't give up.. keep practising

3>once u can get a little bit mastering in the above 2 steps.. u r ready for playing songs..goto step 4 else goto step 1.

4>Here u can make a choice between how u want to begin.. Chords or Tabs.. I will suggest u to go for chords.. this will motivate u more if u r a singer and playing chords need more practise then tabs.. so go for chords.

5>I will suggest u now to choose the easiest song.don't go for songs with sharp keys.. good one will be Papa Kehte hain from QSQT or Take it easy by eagles.

u can get chords in IGT (for hindi ) and A-Z Chords.com for (english)

papa kehte hain : G C Am F.. keep the pace

take it easy : G C D Em A ( combination of these )


6>BARRE CHORDS.. there is no escape from barre chords.. one day or other u hv to play them.. any chord that can b played with simple chords can played barre.. u need to stretch ur fingers accross the fret board.. initially painful but don't ever give up. Why barre chords ? becoz u can't get the effects like muting using open chords.. but to add open chords sound better when u just go for plucking..

7>Once u r familiar with barre chords.. its time for u to play.. # keys.. A# C# D# F# G# and minors Bm Cm Dm Fm Gm and combinations.. A#m C#m D#m F#m G#m.. (note its better to play B and F chords always barre )

8> Now go for songs like..

Pal Pal Dil ke Pass : C# B F# Abm Ebm ( a combination of these)

Hote California : Bm F# A E G D F# ( follow this pattern)


9> Now its time to go for power chords.. suspended chords.. augmented chords.. chord of sevenths.. use the chord chart.. to play these..

10> Now u can play any song.. u want..

some good ones..

summer of 69 , bheege hont tere , who the fu.ck is alice, when u say nothing at all, words , please forgive me , breaking my heart , evrything i do i do it for u.. Anjane Kyun ( by strings ) use power chords there..


11> Now stop downloading chords.. By this time u have already developed an ear of music.. Listen to the song u like many times.. get into the beat.. find in which scale the song is.. find the root note..find the nearby chords for that scale.. even if ur scale is wrong.. ur relative chords need to be correct. if u find the exact scale.. then shift the scale by the difference between root notes. u will end up with perfect chords.


12> Just Chillllll.............................


Note: this post was totally based on my experience of learning and i posted the way i found it comfortable to learn.. so ur opinions may differ.

Frnds.. if atleast one among u find this thread or the post useful... plzz let me know.. i m also planning for a tutorial on tabs.. depending on the feedback.



vishwa

 

Vishwa, it's nice to see that you have started an useful thread!!
Keep going man.. :beer:

 

great going dude. noobs will love it.

frankly, there is already a good tutorial on tabs, so it'll be better to link it here rather than type a whole thing again.
dont know the same about scales. maybe you can cover them as well.

a sugesstion--you can make a repository of all important articles for noobs by placing links and comments in this thread. so that in future instead of going thru search function noobs just have to read this thread.

 

good work. u wont believe i was just going to ask for a tutorial on how to guess the chords for a particular song.

 

Very nice work Vishwa. i always thought you were simply restricted to chit chat lounge. reps for you

 

hey mate thts rilly gud,i dun av a tutor aswell i sit in my room n do d same stuff ,its rilly difficult 2change to a different chord like from a to d but i no slowly m gettin bettr .......i can play only one song feel it in my fingers by wet wet wet ,hey wat if i tune my guitar other way i strt frm the 6th string n go down to 1 do u no wat i mean,well any ways things which u av explained up ther is rilly gud apreciate tht........if i evr face problem vll mail u thnx a alot kip posting jus wanted to how long u bin playing?..........
cheers
~SaNjU~

 

Good Work Bro..

Reps4u

 

thats exactly the way i did it
but i didnt have anyone to show me the way ,i had to find my own
im at step nine now


but you dint put anything about soloing
thats imprtant too

 

Thanx to All.. for liking the post...

I was not able to devote much time to IGT. becoz of hectic work schedule last week.. so i m replying late..

@guitar boy: my all threads r useful.. in some form or other

@the_wizard: 1st of all thanx dude.. u know i really mean it... i don't think giving some pointers or links.. will be helpful here.. it will do nothing but confusing the newbies.. i agree lot of materials r already there for tabs.. so i don't think any need is there for me to post a tutorial on tabs.. but if u ppl want then i can go for it..

@gnr311982: i will help u more if u still face come problems in finding the chords of any song.. PM me if u need any help.

@diva : i was never restricted to CC Lounge only.. i have approx 30 threads already in Tabs submit and Music and other forums..

@shakeit2wakeit: first of all.. ur id is simply gr8.. ok.. I m always there wenever u need any kind of help from me.. just pm me.. don't feel dissapointed if u r learning by ur own.. i personally feel.. the best way to learn anything in this world is to learn by urself... learn by mistakes..

@vini.. My sis i love u.. for ur evry appreciation...

@ambush: its gr8 that u r in step 9.. it is the most imp step for advanced guitaring.. it will take some time to get perfection here.. i m also not perfect.. keep practising.. thanx..


For all those who r learning by their own.. lets help each other.. and lets rock together...

 

yup u cn do ur very own guide...the thing is there are many good tips and tricks available throughout the site...but the noobs hav to go through a very painful procedure of searching and stuff...maybe u can include most of the basic tutorials here...and provide links to threads which u cannot cover...we can have a decent tutorial and a repository incase ppl want to refer sm other article..

 

^^ sure.. i will try that way..

 

for those looking for chord chart.. u can try this link...


https://www.guitarnotes.com/guitar/notes2/ultimate11.shtml

 

hey dude u really rocks!! u ve given some nice piece if advice!! thnx a lot

 

well i think it won't be of too much ise to absolute beginners.but thats in no way vishwa's fault.you can't complete all the guitar lessons in one post...

and for the chord charts there's a good free software called guitar alchemist free.also you can try out https://www.all-guitar-chords.com

 

hey vish gr8 thread there ..then howcome ur still "infamous round here"??ok..i guess this is the zillionth time am askin this on igt..but can u help me with the strum pattern for john mayers 'daughters'?

 

thanks frnds for ur love and appreciations.. hey @rocksta i haven't heard this song.. let me find it first..

well why i am infamous ????? :think: thats a very good question.. but don't u think being infamous is also a form of famous.. from the other end.. well thats a big story.. once i stole 160000 points from someone here is IGT.. and as a reward i got those red dots... but i love those red dots... :beer:

 

yeah.....being infamous is also a kinda famous thing. like a typical rockstar. and talking of rock stars i am fed up of hearing on tv, in serials and movie songs (neal n'nicki) that "i am a rocktar" . puhleez .....do they even know what a rockstar is made of. just by being famous you dont become a rockstar!

 

Thinking :think: about the ingredients that a rockstar is made of.. just kidding..

 

For Chord Chat u can also try the following....

https://www.chordie.com/chords.php

For beginners this is enough as a guide... this site also those who have finger to the fret problem...

 

Thanx Leo..

Mods or BJR is it possible to make this thread sticky.. if u feel this can be helpful to beginners.. i think this can help a newbie alot.. as I tried to summarise evrything in one single thread..