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Original message:171 days 10 hours 37 minutes ago

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Member: Evev12

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I've been reading & watching a lot of interviews lately and it seems like most of the great guitartists of today all learned in a very similar fashion...or at least started out learning in a similar fashion. First off, it seems like they can all just about nail the exact moment they were inspired to play the guitar, whether it be seeing someone in concert or hearing a particular song for the first time - I just found that pretty interesting. From there it seems like most of them really didn't have any sort of method or systematic system for learning at all - they simply listened to the songs they liked, played by ear, tried to copy them and bought books of chords and scales and just sat down and memorized them (not knowing what the relationships between them were).While most of them seemed to make a conscious deciscion at some point (usually years later) to go to school or hire an instructor to teach them the theory they were lacking, they all seemed to pretty much learn in a pretty playfull/unorganized manner. That being said, I've really been tempted to go about it the same way. I'm the kind of person that always has to know "why". If you tell me these are the notes in this chord, instead of just playing it, I'm probably going to ask why those are the notes. I'm starting to wonder if my curiousity is "killing the cat" so to speak - in fact I'm prettty sure it is. I'm really considering shifting my practicing to mimic more of the way the greats seemed to have learned - just take a song or 2 at a time, work them out, play more by ear, simply buy a chord book and learn the 200 or so chords, and forget about why they're constructed the way they are. It just seems so much more free (and fun) and I'd finally have a plan (as chaotic as it may be), instead of trying to figure out what I should practice for the day. There would be no more questions...just work on learning those chords and work on your songs...that's all you have to worry about. I know it all may sound a little juvenile but all these interviews got my gears going. Am I completely wrong here?

On a side note, if anyone knows of a good instructor in the NYC area, please share. Thanks!

Reply:171 days 9 hours 49 minutes ago
Member: Steve Aguilar

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2008
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Do you think if jimi hendrix was born now would people really care or listen as much I doubt it, alot of it to me is the scene or enviorment your coming up in,my next question is what exactly do you define as a great guitarist?

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NGR - "Any culture that teaches you to kill people in order to get to heaven is a bit twisted anyway. Indoctrination at its finest." JFK "My fellow Americans, ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country. "

Reply:171 days 9 hours 25 minutes ago
Member: jobabrinks

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I think that if Jimi Hendrix had never been and he was like 25 today, he'd be a good local player doing blues rock in whatever city he was in, who may or may not be signed somewhere along the road. I also that if Hendrix posted solo lead clips here, people would think he was good, but nobody would even notice. Technical skills is what catches most people's attention.

Reply:171 days 8 hours 52 minutes ago
Member: evol666

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Um, without Hendrix the world of guitar would be very different. He put the word electric in electric guitar and changed a generation of players. Not to say there weren’t other guitar players pushing volume (MC5, Stooges, Velvet Underground), but Hendrix made it accessible. On top of that he was a great player.

To debate how Hendrix would be viewed if he had been born 25 years later is silly. The landscape would be too different.

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One thing you don't do is let the singer have creative input on any fucking thing, because they're useless - Noel Gallagher

Reply:171 days 4 hours 39 minutes ago
Member: Steve Aguilar

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2008
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Well yeah thats what I mean I compare great players more to there era or time, because for each I find there are many great players 60s 70s 80s etc.....

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Reply:106 days 17 hours 36 minutes ago
Member: Marshall2288

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I believe that if Jimi would not have died in his prime and was still alive today he would't be much of a big deal. He would be in with Page and Clapton in the "yea man they are cool" catagory. Not the "Holy crap he was the best" category. Same with Randy Rhodes and Kurt Corbain.

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At first if you don't succeed.....don't try sky diving

Reply:171 days 9 hours 40 minutes ago
Member: jobabrinks

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I started off pretty much learning majority by ear. You could sit there for hours looping a chord progression or lick and only pick a few strings. Obviously, somebody that starts off learning tabs and scales while chained to a metronome is going to advance faster technically. I did it that way because that was fun for me, taking songs I liked and learning them by ear and I think it helped, I can figure out most stuff quickly by ear, but I should probably be better technically at this point in my playing. I hated playing scales and practicing difficult licks and I still do. I think balance is the key. And yes I do I know several teachers in the NYC area. I've taken lessons from many of them, a few for some years. Message me, and tell me where you are looking and what type of music you want to play, and I'll let you know if I can help you.

Reply:171 days 9 hours 36 minutes ago
Member: Jesse

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Everybody learns in different ways so my opinion is as long as your satisfied by just winging it and not asking why then I say hell ya go for it! :)

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Reply:171 days 8 hours 31 minutes ago
Member: Hammerman

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Learn in whatever way keeps you interested. If I were to actually study music, I think I would lose all desire to play, but that's me. I play for my amusement, and if anyone here were to hear me he/she'd be amused! The best landmarks for improvement for me are the times I go back and hear old songs and find little nuances that I'd missed when I originally learned it. Always more difficult to learn something if you never have the guitar and the music you want to learn together at the same time. lol

Reply:171 days 7 hours 26 minutes ago
Member: JTC

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Personally, I wish I had learned music theory early in my guitar life. In my experience, playing by ear and just learning riff's was the long way of getting to where I am today. And I'm no where near as proficient as I would like to be.

I do remember the exact moment wanted to play guitar. I was 9 years old and listening to my uncle and his brother jam on the front porch of my grandmothers house. He was blasting out Beatles tunes and classic rock songs and singing and everything and It just hooked me. My uncle still gig's today in local clubs and stuff. Still doing the exact same style of music as way back then.

Now it's about 30 years later and I'm still playing. 30 years and I'm just barely getting content with my guitar skills.

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Hero's Conquest - JTC

Reply:171 days 6 hours 26 minutes ago
Member: Linus Maximus

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I think it depends on what your trying to do. Anytime you learn something new about the guitar you advance. Understanding music theory, fretboard memorization, etc. will always make you a better player. Personally I believe that anything you do constantly you tend to do well after a while. If your constantly motivated, (understand that we all have our uninspired moments, days, weeks), and you keep trying to learn something new, it's like anything else, you will get good at it. But many players are not interested in being a shredder. They'd rather be a great songwriter. Look at guys like Johnny Cash, Bob Dylan, Tom Petty. Not exactly guitar virtuosos but they were able to make one hell of a living as musicians. I do believe that learning theory and being able to read music is the best way to go, but again it depends on what your trying to do in becoming a household name.

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Reply:171 days 5 hours 2 minutes ago
Member: mister_poop

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maybe you should start questioning why you're learning guitar. your motivation or inspiration. i just got the 'itch' or the 'bug' and haven't been able to put it down for over 15 years now. at first, i was playing all day everyday until my fingers bled. now i just play whenever i feel like it which is a few days a week for an hour or so. i never had any formal training. just buddies showing me how to hold the pick, strum, and fret. i bought books thinking that i should learn theory but after trying to read the stuff, i got bored and used the time to play more. personally, the desire comes and goes but never burns out....

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heaven is a les paul, a pair of emg-81s, and a dimed carvin x-100b half-stack.....

Reply:171 days 3 hours 46 minutes ago
Member: farlow

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This is one of those threads where everyone is partly right. I've heard brilliant players with no formal instruction - Tal Farlow - and I've heard players like John Williams who study for 20 years but, without someone writing out the sheets for them, could bore paint off a wall.

I trained as an Adult Educator and the first thing we were told was the difference between Adults and Children when it comes to learning. (I'm not trying to be rude to all the teenagers on this site, but current brain studies show that, in brain development, childhood lasts until about 25!) Children (I'll say young brains -sounds less offensive) can tolerate a lot of rote learning and can absorb information delivered in this way. Adults learn by relating new information to their stock of life experience. An adult will ever bother to learn pages of facts and figures unless they can see a direct relevance to theit own lives.

In short, if you are under 20, study theory, scales and chords now, while you still have the ability to absorb that stuff. If you are over 25, you are probably better off learning a song, then, once you can play it well, go back and analyse the theory behind it.

One last point: "all the guitar greats learned the same way" !@?$?@?!?$?%
You've clearly never heard of anyone outside the Rock world - or do you simply consider that only rock players can achieve greatness? Even within the Rock world, you've obviously never heard of EVH, YJM, Vai, Petrucci. Maybe those players don't count as "greats".

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Reply:170 days 21 hours 30 minutes ago
Member: David Zaldivar

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Evev, for every guitarist who says that, there's probably another one (or 2) who would say the opposite.

One of the most ignorant things musicians sometimes say is that learning music theory will hold them back. Absolutely untrue! Beethoven, Mozart, Chopin, Mahler...they were definitely not hindered by their extensive knowledge of theory, where they? Granted they didn't play guitar, but for some beginning musician to say "my creativity would be stifled if I had to learn music theory"...no, and I cringe when I hear it.

How are you practicing now? I strongly suspect that something is wrong with your method, and you're blaming it on the theory aspect.

You NEED to be making progress and have a clear goal in mind (ie, learning to read music, learning how triads are constructed, learning all the major key sigs, minor,,learning the whole fretboard..etc etc etc).

How are you practicing now?

Reply:110 days 7 hours 15 minutes ago
Member: Mihai

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I`m very new to the guitar (actually the first instrument i ever picked up), though i`m at the late age of 20. I started because its a major piece of the music i prefer, i chose it for fun, to entertain myself and the people i have near. My main study material so far has been a "Guitar for Dummies" book + DVD and i got the basic chords and basic techniques from there. So far, only thing i use from the book are some very simple songs, an index of 96 chords and some basic chord progressions. I`ve tried my best to keep the chords so far and have a nice strum, not like a monkey or like i`ve been improperly fed. I have the the chords for several modern songs. My practice session goes like this: i start off with those basic chord progressions as a warm up, then move on to the simple songs, some not really sounding as they should because i cant figure out the strum pattern, the way it is in the book just sounds wrong to me. Then i move on to some simpler songs i listen to a lot and try to play those as well as i can. After that i just try to make stuff up and have a good time, or keep having a good time and this method has really done something for me in the past month or so. I can now change those basic chords as fast as i wish, at most times. I just do that until i get tired. I think i`m gonna move on to scales soon, and whatever else that book suggests. I use it more as a guideline, a place to start. Having a teacher or a strict schedule would just take away the fun for me and i would get bored or frustrated and quit. I`m in no hurry with my guitar, not planning on a music career. I`m aiming for a PhD in psychology in a few years from now.

Until i feel i can't manage by myself i`m not going to look for more help than i can find on the internet.

That's just how i feel about it.

Thanks for reading :)

Reply:110 days 4 hours 5 minutes ago
Member: drakbots

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playing guitar is like talking, you dont need to be a grammar genius to talk, same as you dont need to be a theory major to play music. Sure knowing all that stuff can help, and i know that some people cant listen to music without learning all the ins and outs of the theory behind it.
I think its a good thing to learn, even if you dont understand it 100%, your apreciation for music will skyrocket. Plus you can wow people with it, even simple stuff like saying what mode your playing in hahaha. But its not necessary, some people just accept music for what it is, and some people wanna know whats going on behind the scenes, nothing wrong with either one.

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Reply:109 days 12 hours 37 minutes ago
Member: Leif

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I think there is so much for a newbie to cover and all of us but here is a good start.

1. Learn the 5 basic boxed in or chained patterns just to get going but then forget them!

2. Take all scales up and down the neck and play using 3 to 4 notes per string. Most scales that are presented to you are not presented as 3 notes per string or not all of them but you can turn them into this. When you have done this learn how to go from one position to the next and solo in between.

So I think the best thing to do is solo in your first position, then solo in your second and then solo combining the two before you move to position three and write out the thre notes per string and move up to the next position when you hit the root...

A good way to learn any scale inside and out is to learn it across the bridge and not in a caiged pattern..This is a great tool right here for you to write out all your scales.

http://www.all-guitar-chords.com/guitar_scales.php

3. Practice picking tecniques on one or two strings using hammer ons and pull offs. Between hammer ons and pull offs.

4. Practice combining the different modes in different positions so you can play in any key anywhere on the neck..Then learn not just the scale but techniques or practice to chord tracks within that scale.

5. TIMING! Man, practice your timing with a drum machine or metronome and also practice it with tracks to keep your feel.

I think the above is a good way to start learning but after that get into learning other people's music, picing techniques, chords, chirdal harmonies etc...I wish I started this way instead of playing with my boxed in pentatonics for so many years.

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Reply:109 days 10 hours 50 minutes ago
Member: new2stringz

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I wouldn't go as far as to say his (or mine as I discovered) method has issues. I find a learning style fits me till a point and then I need variety to move on. I started learning from DVDs and the internet, went to an instructor, group classes, casual playing with multiple people and am now going back to an instructor. Value what you get from each method and try not to just methods to quickly... I was juggling them at one point and was making no progress anywhere.

Reply:109 days 10 hours 30 minutes ago
Member: jesus bikerfreak

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As far as the whole Hendrix discussion goes, Hendrix was great because he was original and for his day he was technically superior. Everyone after him benefits from his innovation and builds off of his technique. Much the same way Robert Johnson was the foundation of most of the great modern rock and blues riffs. Technically, in this day and age, he might not be thought of as so special, but without him there is no "this day and age" as we currently know it. I believe everyone does learn different, but the truly great ones have that extra something; the special gift or natural talent. I would also add, there are many really good guitarists that lack the drive and discipline to be one of the great ones. Frankly these are the guys that disappoint the most. Sadly, they have a gift, but never seem to be serious enough to develop it. It drives a guy like me crazy; a guy who wants to be great, but is lacking in gifts and\or talent. To be truly great you need some measure of both. However and in my opinion the raw talent, that special gift, is the usually the deciding factor.

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"If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice." - Rush

Reply:109 days 7 hours 1 minutes ago
Member: Evil Kitty

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This debate has been waged a thousand times and there really is no winner. Is it better to self discover or learn? Do the untrained players play with more emotion and the trained play with more skill? There might be something to this. I really depends on what you want to accomplish. I began with a few lessons and then learned the rest either on my own or on a need basis. I tend to hear a song in my head (original music) and then it is about putting it to paper - or recording - and then improving it. Sometimes to find a missing chord or transition would require learning something new. When writing the guitar solo sometimes a new trick would be needed (be it a sweep, a run, tapping, bending, harmonics etc...). That being said I did know music theory as I played some piano before I ever picked up a guitar (it's funny how now I am a much better guitarist then a pianist). I have discovered new songs sitting in a dark room hitting random notes.

I would say you have to learn however is easiest and most natural to you. I personally prefer more feel to proficiency - running some fast scales over chord progressions bores me. That said - proficiency is not bad - someone mentioned Vai and Pettrucci - both know mountains of theory and still play with soul.

Treat it like tecnology - plug and play and go from there. Rock On!!

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Moslem or Christians Mullah or Pope, Preacher or poet who was it wrote Give any one species too much rope And they'll f*ck it up.

Reply:109 days 6 hours 56 minutes ago
Member: Evil Kitty

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When I used to teach guitar I would start showing my students a simple 3 chord song (think Iron Man) just so they could go home and feel like they were accomplishing something. Then I would get into more theory based lessons using other songs to demonstrate.

The number 1 thing I recommended to them was getting into a band (if they could) with players who were better then them. The fear of being embarrassed by your peers will push you to practice and learn and improve faster then you could ever dream.

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Moslem or Christians Mullah or Pope, Preacher or poet who was it wrote Give any one species too much rope And they'll f*ck it up.

Reply:109 days 6 hours 55 minutes ago
Member: this dying soul

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you mentioned that you often were compelled to know WHY something works the way it does rather than just accept it and seemed to think it might be holding you back.

I say if you are that interested in why things are what they are, go with it. The more you understand about music theory the easier it will be to express yourself because you won't be fumbling in the dark so much looking for the right combination of notes or the right chord voicings or the right chord progression.

On the same token there is something to be said for experimenting and stumbling upon something you never realized would work...some believe knowing theory limits you on this approach, but that all depends on how someone uses their knowlege. The less theory you know, the more there is to discover using this approach to learning, but the only reason why is because you also have to discover the stuff that a person who has learned the theory may already know.

Even if you know theory, you can still experiment or stumble onto something new and there is nothing wrong with it. Many great musicians do it...there are many jazz artists who have a knowledge of theory rivaled only by classical musicians, but lots of things they've played resulted from either mistakes that worked or someone tried something that was different from what conventional theory has taught them (once you've learned the so-called rules, the next step is to learn how to break them and remain musical).

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Reply:109 days 6 hours 11 minutes ago
Member: Bobby Fioretti

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A good mix of all the methods you've heard about is probably the best way to do it.

Obtain what is usefull, discard what is not.

Reply:108 days 11 hours 13 minutes ago
Member: Rhythm Strummer

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Cool discussion, i think everyone has a valid point. I for one wish i had studied more composition/theory/ear training back in college. But only music majors could take those classes, and i wasn't one, though i played alot of guitar. I'd love to be able to get some of the ideas in my head notated onto paper, without the guitar in hand. I listen to alot of guys like Michael Hedges and Pierre Bensusan and am amazed by their compositions.

Reply:107 days 23 hours 32 minutes ago
Member: Mr. T!

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I remember reading a survey of interviews with a number of great guitarists and it was uncanny how many of them said something like, "I listened to everything I could get my hands on by [insert favorite guitarist here] and learned a number of his solos note for note." One example was Wes Montgomery's ability to play Charlie Christian solos note for note and was hired by Lionel Hampton because of it.

And anyone who has attended Berklee knows that transcription is a religion there.

“A musician must make music, an artist must paint, a poet must write, if he is to be ultimately at peace with himself.”

Reply:107 days 53 minutes ago
Member: this dying soul

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Mr. T, that's definately a good way to go, transcribing solos and learning them note for note. The thing one has to be carefull of is the situation I found myself in about 10 years ago...if you don't start doing this with several artists; you become a clone at some point.

I was a Tony Iommi clone for a while until I discovered Hendrix and also took on the challenge of learning Randy Rhoads material. I still never did well with learning Randy note for note, but I did get a few licks out of there that stopped the Iommi clone thing.

Basically learn as many note for note solos by as many artists as possible and you wil build a repetoire of licks and begin to develope your own sound.

of course, it does help to learn theory also. I find it helps when trying to figure out what licks are going to sound ok.

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Reply:103 days 4 hours 46 minutes ago
Member: Brooklyn

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We all have our inspirations, and for me it was Prince.

When Doves cry. When I first saw that video I have never before seen or heard anything so exciting, different & new. It was then that i knew I wanted to be a guitar goddess, although it has taken me ages to act out my dream. I am there, I love it and the sound of the electric guitar is a force to be recond with.

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Brooklyn Knight

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