Some really good advice here.

I found Youtube to be a goldmine of great advice from people like Marty Swartz etc. Once you get the basic chords down I found it helpful to start playing some straight foward tunes so you feel like you've accomplished something and as BadAnimal says, its always good for round the campfire to have a couple of good uns in the bag!

It generally takes more than several weeks. It may take several weeks to switch between three chords, but getting strumming, memorization, singing along...that tends to take months.

If you are looking for help with intermediate guitar or beginner drumming, go to thefretlessmusician.webs.com, and Our Services. There is usually some free stuff there.

Try to learn diatonic music theory as well as you can and learn the proper scales and progressions so that you can improvise. On top of that, all you can really do is practice practice practice. Learning the guitar is lots of hard work and dedication, but if you're not having any fun with learning the guitar, there's no real point for doing it in the first place.

1. Learn alternate picking into the ground.
2.Know your modes.
3.Know some chords.
4.Practice muting techniques, mute when you can.
5.Play some acoustic for musicality sake, plus the ladies dig it.

Im by no means an expert at guitar but i learnt everything from tabs when i first started! just played songs i like! But also considering what and why/how im playing it! Take note of that coz its very frsutrating when you decide to write your own song and have no idea! lol

When you practice, do it slow. Slow = more accurate = you can be able to speed up without worrying about hitting wrong notes.
It takes patience too. A lot

Hey guys,

Sorry to hijack this post. I've been playing for a year or so and I'm just starting to get into some serious fingerpicking but I find it pretty hard on the guitar I have (Ibanez V205SECE).
I'm looking at getting a little martin or baby taylor. Do you think downsizing to either will help me learn and make it easier or am I forking out pointless money?

Cheers!

I posted something like this elsewhere, but it's worth restating

I'm a self-taught player. I learned by ear and by tablature. Listening carefully and trying to figure things out will benefit you in infinitely many ways during your musical development. There's also a lot of great learning software out there these days: Guitar Pro, Power Tab, and Sibelius, to name just a few.

A valuable piece of advice I learned from Paul Gilbert @ a clinic years ago is to be patient, realistic, and allow yourself small victories at every step. If you set the bar too high too fast you will likely lose confidence, get frustrated and disappointed, and potentially just abandon your pursuit all together. Playing guitar is such an enriching experience. You wouldn't want to miss out on it.

One more thing: NEVER STOP BEING A STUDENT!!!!!

Now is really a great time to learn. With the advent of technology, there have never been so many resources for students to learn! Back in the day, if you couldn't afford a teacher you were stuck trying to figure it out for yourself!