Kenn Bell asked:




Many guitar players would like to know how they can learn to play the guitar by ear. The good news is that once you understand how to do it, playing the guitar by ear can be a pretty easy skill to learn. When you play by ear you can learn new tunes much quicker and remember it much more easily than if you did not already know to play by ear. We are going to talk about what you need to understand in order to play by ear.

First of all you need to understand how to find out what key a song is in. You can figure this out by looking at or listening to the chord progression.

Every song is played within a key. You can find the key by looking at the major scale associated with the key you want to play in.

For example, the key of “C” consists of the following chords; C D E F G A B C .

So generally speaking, if a song has a progression of “C”, “E”, “G”, it’s going to be played in the key of “C.”

Once you figure out what key the basic chord progression is in, any solos or licks accompanying the song will generally be played in that same key as well.

So if the song is in the key of “C Major” you can generally solo in the “C Major” scale and it should fit in pretty well.

Learning to play by ear is an art and not a science, but with a little practice it can easily be learned

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David Smithe asked:




Most beginner guitar players start out the same way. They learn a handful of chords, and in no time, they can strum and sing along to some of their favorite songs. That’s where most aspiring guitarists stop. They never take that next step in guitar technique and learn to play guitar leads. There is a huge difference between rhythm and lead guitar. Understanding and mastering the difference is challenging, but here are some tips to get you going if you are interested in learning to play guitar leads.

Tab

If you haven’t already done so, you need to learn to read guitar tab. Guitar leads are tricky, but tab can lay out the ground work for you to learn riffs more quickly. Once you have mastered the difficult transitions and improved your dexterity, you might be able to start writing out your favorite guitar solos that you hear in tab, or you can create your own new ones, and get them down on paper so you can come back to them later.

Repetition & Technique

When you are learning to play guitar leads, you will need to practice often, and find exercises designed to improve your speed and dexterity all over the instrument. If this is your first attempt at playing guitar above the 6th fret, you’ll want to invest in some technique books that have exercises for becoming more nimble high on the neck of your guitar. Start slowly, and increase your speed gradually. Practice certainly does make perfect, and you’ll have to commit to playing the same licks and exercises again and again until you could practically do it in your sleep.

Listen

As with any aspect of music, it is important that you do a great deal of listening to artists that you enjoy. Focus on bands with strong lead guitarists who will inspire and motivate you to practice, and they might give you ideas for making up your own licks. Choose recordings from quintessential guitarists too, even if they aren’t your favorites, like Jimi Hendrix, Eric Clapton, and B. B. King. Even if you aren’t interested in their genres, you’ll have a better understanding of how the guitar is supposed to be played if you exercise your ears along with your hands. Learning to play guitar leads starts with knowing what a good one sounds like.

Watch

Perhaps one of the trickiest things about learning to play guitar leads is that part of the process is know what to do with your hands. By watching live DVD performances and attending concerts, you will get the visual education that you need in order to understand how to master playing lead guitar. The combination of watching and listening will make it easier for you to engage in self-directed study as you learn to play guitar leads.

Learning something new is always challenging. If you want to take your guitar playing to the next level, it will take determination, and more importantly it will take a great investment of your time. Learn to read tab, practice and repeat technique exercises often, listen, and watch, and you’ll be laying down killer leads in no time.

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JasmineXx asked:


Do any self taught guitar players remember how they learnt to play guitar, any tips are useful… )

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Nathalie K asked:




More and more people are turning to the internet to fulfill their desire to learn how to play a guitar. There are an array of products available on the net for teaching how to play a guitar. Some are not too bad, some good and then there is a few really excellent ones.

These programs can have you on your way to playing a guitar, whether you have absolutely no experience or have some and want to continue on your quest to master the guitar.

Learning how to play a guitar does definitely involve some work from your side. The work is necessary, but if there is no fun involved, well then much of the work is wasted

Before starting out it is essential that you work out a regime, putting aside a certain amount of practice time daily. This does not mean that this time must consist of continuous playing without any break. This is also a time when you renew your views of your guitar and yourself. Have at least one aim when you sit down to practice and try to reach it.

Part of learning to play a guitar is examining your attitude towards practice time. If you know that you are a person who struggles to get work done, it would help a whole lot if you set out a specific time and stick to it.

If you are not getting some of the things right that you have been working on, maybe it is time to take one step back. You will only make practice more fun and not feel grumpy or overwhelmed. Believe me, you will get there and when you do, you had laid a much more solid foundation than most guitar players who move on to quickly and being to play a guitar but not properly.

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Steve Krenz asked:




Robert Johnson was one of the greatest blues guitar players of the 1930′s, and as such he is considered one of the “grandfathers” of rock and roll. He traveled around the Mississippi delta area playing and singing, and recorded 29 songs in 1936 and 1937. Despite the fact that his career seems quite limited when compared to contemporary artists who tour the world and release a new album every year, Johnson’s impact on popular music cannot be denied. Eric Clapton, Keith Richards of the Rolling Stones, the Allman Brothers, and Jimmy Page all mention Robert Johnson when they are asked to name their musical influences. Johnson had an undeniable talent, and his life and career have some valuable lessons to teach anyone who has dreams of following in his footsteps. If you want to play guitar like Robert Johnson, here are a few dos and don’ts.

Do use any resources you have to learn music. Robert Johnson loved music from the time he was very young, but as the son of a sharecropper he did not have access to music schools, fancy instruments, or private teachers. He did make the most of the musical equipment he had, though, and found a friend who could teach him how to play the harmonica and Jew’s harp when he was still a young boy. He and his friend began using these simple instruments to accompany one another while they would sing new verses to popular songs that they made up as they went along. They never failed to draw a crowd when they sang on the street corners, and it was a great way for Robert to learn what things would please an audience and develop a stage presence. As he grew older, he went to other musicians that he knew and asked them to help him learn to play the guitar. He never received any formal musical training, but his inquiring spirit and his ability to learn from observation helped him to understand the structure of chords and harmony that he needed to replicate the sounds that he heard. If you are fortunate enough to be able to pay for music classes, take advantage of them and use your knowledge to make yourself a better player.

Don’t be discouraged if you aren’t successful right away. Robert used every opportunity he had to listen to guitarists that played at roadhouses and taverns in his area. When he gained some confidence, he brought his own guitar to the gigs with him and hung around, just hoping for a chance to join in on a jam session with the pros. For years, they discouraged him. It seemed like every time they let him play Robert would break a guitar string or commit some blunder that would not go over well with the audience. Instead of giving up, Robert moved to another community where his reputation as a bungler would not follow him and kept practicing. He would work in the cotton fields just enough so that he could support himself and spend hours and hours every day playing his guitar in the woods until his blues solos sounded the way he thought they should. He then began to travel from town to town and played for the tips that people would throw him as he stood on the street corner or in the town square. People were appreciating him more and more and the early criticism he had heard mattered less and less.

Don’t be afraid to be different. The more Robert traveled, the more his confidence grew. He was soon adding tricky rhythm patterns to his guitar solos and using his feet and legs to stomp out accompanying percussion sounds. He created an entirely new sound that was admired by people in all parts of the south. Little did he know that guitar players would still look up to him 70 and 80 years after he was gone. If you learn some lessons from Robert Johnson’s life and work, they will surely help to make you a better musician.

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Ricky Sharples asked:




An excellent way you can learn to play blues guitar is by listening to the work of the pioneer blues musicians and learning their material. The music you will be learning will consist of riffs and licks you can use as a basis for your own original approach to your music. The feeling that listening to the great blues guitar players generates is something unique to them, and hopefully you will be able to communicate to your own audiences on an emotional level too. Of course blues music itself carries an emotional element in the form of the “blue note” which brings a sad feeling to the minor pentatonic scale.

I will now mention briefly some of the techniques you will be using when you learn to play blues guitar. Of course, no one technique is exclusive to any particular discipline, but the ones I am listing will be your means of communicating your own blues to your listeners. There are a techniques for playing notes without picking the string with the plectrum or your right hand fingers. First, String Bending which means bending the guitar string with the fingers of your left hand to alter the note you are playing up or down. Or you can press on the string, pluck the note and Slide it up or down. If you pick a note at the first fret and remove your finger with a pulling action it will sound the note you just played followed by the sound of the open string. This is called a pull-off. Likewise you can pluck a note and while holding it with the first finger, slam the second finger down on the next fret. That is a hammer-on.

These techniques are a lot easier to do than they are to describe, so make use of on-line videos to watch guitarists execute these techniques. You will also be able to see when blues guitarists play single-note scale passages and when they prefer to use arpeggios, but that will take some practice at listening.

B.B. King is a blues legend who you should look for in videos and in tab collections. He always surrounds himself with top class musicians who are at the top of their form. His songs always have that spark of spontaneity as if he was making up the words and music as he goes along but there is never a hesitation over a lyric and never a note out of place. Songs include Beautician Blues, Five Long Years, Just like a Woman, Riding with the King, Rock Me Baby, Sweet Sixteen, Three O’Clock Blues, The Thrill Is Gone, Why I Sing the Blues, You Upset Me Baby.

Another obvious choice to emulate is Eric Clapton, one of the greatest guitar players the world has seen. His music has always been based in the blues even though he has successfully ventured into rock, reggae and ballads. Standouts among many great songs include After Midnight, Hide Away, Bad Love, Badge, Before You Accuse Me (Take A Look At Yourself), Cocaine, Cross Road Blues (Crossroads), Forever Man, Hard Times, Have You Ever Loved A Woman, I Ain’t Got You, I Can’t Stand It, I Feel Free, I Shot The Sheriff, Lay Down Sally, Layla, Let It Grow, Strange Brew, Sunshine Of Your Love, Tulsa Time, White Room and Wonderful Tonight.

Chuck Berry was one of the first artists to add that intangible element to blues music which gave the world rock and roll. Johnny B. Goode, Maybellene, Rock And Roll Music are three of his songs included in the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame. Others are Back in the U.S.A., Little Queenie, Roll Over Beethoven, Sweet Little Rock and Roller, Too Much Monkey Business, No Particular Place To Go and Carol.

As you listen to these artists and try to read and play the guitar tabs of their music, you will find that the technical side of learning blues guitar is not so difficult. Good luck with finding that bluesy feeling!

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radrico asked:

So i decided to make a video to help early guitar players learn to play guitar as soon as possible. Here is a VERY basic starting point.

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Mike P Hayes asked:




Learning to play guitar is a process, and there is no finish
line. How long does it take to play guitar, is a question
students often ask their teacher. How long it takes to play the
guitar depends on what your definition of guitar playing
is!

The last few decades has seen a remarkable growth in the
popularity of rock music and guitar playing has become pretty
attractive for many.

Today the guitar is everywhere; a versatile instrument – adapting
itself to almost any kind of situation, Victimized by it’s own
success, it has become something more than a musical instrument –
like the swastika before it, it has become the symbol of a social
revolution! The ultimate emblem of grooviness! It is now an
object unto itself!

Guitar enthusiasts are so often blinded by the symbol that they
remain deaf to the world of musical wonders that lie beyond their
blinkered six-string field of interest.

Many teenagers exist who aspire to become rock superstars, but
there is also a section who wants to learn guitar playing just
for sake of it. But many of them end up losing hope of learning
guitar since they don’t find the best way to learn guitar.

How long does it take to play guitar? If you can answer the
following questions and make these important distinctions you
will have a good idea.

QUESTION ONE: How do you view the instrument?

Do you want to be (a) guitar owner, (b) guitar player, (c) a
musician who uses the guitar for musical expression?

Essentially there’s three levels of involvement with the guitar:

1. Guitar owners – to qualify you need only to have enough funds
to purchase the instrument, for these people the guitar is simply
a toy, like a computer game, or fashion accessory. How long does
it take you to play the guitar if you’re in this category? About
5-10 minutes max. The important thing here is to “be seen to be
playing the guitar”!

2. Guitar players – players in this category are often very
dedicated and speed many hours practicing their instrument.
Mostly self taught, they learn almost exclusively from guitar
tab, and their friends. How long does it take to play guitar in
this category?… these players understand it’s a lifetime
journey.

3. Musicians who play guitar as their chosen instrument- players
in category two focus on guitar playing skills, whereas
level three players understand the whole scope of the musical
landscape. A good musician not only plays their instrument well,
they understand and can intelligently discuss all music.

These players:

(a) listen to all types of music

(b) read about all types of music

(c) study all types of music

How long does it take to play guitar in this category? Again,
it’s a lifetime of hard work and discipline. What’s the
difference between category two and category three?

Level two players must have their instrument in their hands to
communicate ideas, whereas, musicians who play guitar as their
chosen instrument know and can discuss, the qualities which make
Herb Ellis or Barney Kessel a great jazz player; why Duke
Ellington is a jazz innovator; Michel Legrand a great composer
and orchestrator. They know why good symphonies are good and bad
symphonies are bad; they know why good pop or country songs are
good (musically) and bad songs are bad.

QUESTION TWO: Are you internally motivated or externally
motivated?

Externally motivated players usually give up playing the guitar
once they realize that they are responsible for their progress.
these players quickly move on to the new ‘hip’ fad (only to give
up on that as soon as things get a bit challenging).

An obvious example of this type of externally motivated player
and their associated problems and disappointments is with the
recent popularity of computer games where people pretend to play
the guitar.

Despite PR claims from computer games companies
that their computer guitar games improve the player’s rhythm
and hand dexterity, professional guitar teachers worldwide have reported
that guitar computer game veterans have been disappointed when
confronted with the real-world requirements of hard work and
delayed gratification. They expect to jump into it and learn it
as quickly as they learned the game, and they realize that they
can’t.

I’ll assume if you have read this far you’re more interested in
category two or three!

needless to say that only internally motivated players make it
into category two and three.

QUESTION THREE: What is the source of your information? common
knowledge or specialized knowledge?

Today it is not a question of information on any particular
subject, after all we live in the information age, don’t we? To
accelerate your progress on the guitar and rapidly decrease the
time it takes you to play the guitar, what we need is specialized
knowledge to help us assemble the relevant knowledge to achieve
our goals.

The first thing to understand is that learning guitar is
something that takes a long time. how long it takes to learn
depends on what you want to learn.

Learning guitar is hard work but it’s really important to have
fun and have your guitar make cool sounds while you’re learning
all the hard bits. The main thing you have to consider when
learning how to play guitar is who is teaching you how to play
guitar.

How long does it take to play guitar? It depends on what you want
to achieve.

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danny asked:


I really wanna be like awesome guitar players, like the guy in Hannah Montana’s band. What’s the fastest way to learn guitar really well? Like as good as him?

I need to learn how to play several of Hannah Montana’s songs in 2 months so I can perform at my school’s Battle of the Bands.

I think we’re gonna win.

Help! Post some links, or books, or guides on how to learn fast. There’s so many strings and places to put your fingers, it’s overwhelming.

Thanks.

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