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From zero to guitar hero? Sure, why not.
I know that this is not a crafty project as such, but I though it fairly relevant, and still a 'project' as such :)
I'm no guitar expert (I'm not even very good) but these are the steps I've taken to teach myself guitar, without paying for lessons, or buying those stupid teach-yourself books. This how-to is at least a start :)
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Step 1
The very first thing, I suppose would be to get a guitar. You can buy new one, a second-hand one, or steal it from your grandma's house, like I did.
(You could even buy a ukulele, which is smaller, cheaper, lighter, and easier to play.)Next, make sure your guitar is in tune. There are plenty of videos on youtube explaining how to do this, so just search and you will find :)
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Step 2I'd start off learning tabs from sites like ultimateguitar.com; doing this first will help your fingers learn the shape of your guitar, the frets, and get you used to wiggling them around in a certain way.
Each 'line' if you like, represents a string, and the numbers refer to wich fret to plonk your fingers in.
It's pretty simple to understand, but the hardest thing is getting your fingers to move in the right places at the right times. As ever, practise makes perfect. -
Step 3The next thing you could do, is to make your very own chord chart. You can find various ones on the internet, but they're not always exactly what you want, and besides, copying out the tables will help you learn.
Practise each chord, starting with the simple ones (A, C, D, etc) and getting harder as you get better. -
Step 4Next, find the chords for a song you know and like. Print it out or copy it onto paper.
Go through each line, slowly getting used to the changes between chords and such. With practise, you'll soon be belting out tunes.
("I'm a Believer" is one of my favourites, and the chords are pretty simple- a steady starter)
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Step 5As you get better, you can learn more songs, perhaps buy an electric guitar and amp, join a band and become a world-wide superstar.
Just make sure I get a credit in the album cover! (Only joshing)
Except I stole the guitar from my bf
my boyfriend started out teaching himself on a one string guitar, and found that most ramones songs fit into that bill nicely. so maybe a bit of punky nonsense if you're into that sort of thing.
i generally prefer chords to tabs, and the one song i can play, even if i'm drunk to hell and don't know where my elbows are is house of the rising sun. if you google it, you should find the version that has a cute picking technique, and you can start out with just strumming the chords, and as you learn the pattern, incorporate the wavy picking.
does that make sense?
other songs that are easy for chordy-types tend to be cheesey R&B or pop songs. I learned 'apologize', it's quite nice without the icky words. ah, and 'i kissed a girl' has the same chords as the aforementioned 'house of the rising sun', all you need to do is learn the words and you can whip it out around a campfire (very funny, everyone suddenly recognises it when you get to the chorus and cringes)
as a general rule, find songs you like, and maybe slow them down or take notes away so they're easy to play. once you get the hang of it, speed it up, and you'll be jamming in no time
i hope that helped a little
If you search for a song on ultimate guitar, you can choose between tabs and chords
I recently started learning tabs off ultimate guitar - the site that you mentioned - and it's so much quicker to learn that way, especially if you play a youtube video of the song whilst looking at the tab to help you work out how to play it.
I'm so glad someone had the good sense to post this; I think a lot of people are put off by guitar at first because it seems really difficult when you first start off. You've helped show people that with practise, it's actually super-easy ^o^
One question though; are there any good sites that you recommend to find chords for songs? I looked around but I couldn't find any.