[Music] Learning Guitar - Electric

[Kardezar]

What's a good song to try and learn first? Or a good technique?

[brabal]

first? as simple as posible. i started out wiht nirvana songs and it worked quite decently (yes i play bass but its about the same imo)
cinda depends what type of guitar you wanna learn to play. types of music with tips

metal rithm - good right hand controll. (also works for bass )
metal solo - start out with the thing i dispise. chords. its good for your finger placement and picking tips.
jazz - chords
anything.. chords

unfortunatly chords are important even if you think youl never need em. google has some chord charts and just start out randomly. and dont be afraid to keep the guitar close so you can grab it alot and often.

[Fearme]

When I first learned guitar I worked my way up from using a classical guitar. The christmas after that I got an acoustic guitar, and the christmas after that I got an electric. This allowed me to get all the technical parts out of the way before I jumped into jamming.

If you truly want to learn the guitar well, like brabal said, start learning chords. Once you do that it opens up a huge world of possibilities. The first song I learned was Time of your life by Green Day. The strumming patterns are a little hard for someone just starting out, but it's good practice. Also, try learning Kryptonite. It'll help you learn how to bar chords, and help you practice your picking.

You can head to websites like ultimate-guitar.com and look up tabs; once you have the basics down you can just keep learning. It's really important to have a good foundation though, never be satisfied with just power chords and songs to get girls with

[Sanctioned]

I've been playing the guitar off and on for awhile and lately when I just get in a lull and don't want to play I bring up Trace Bundy - Dueling Ninjas.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XyY4LNkxOW0

I'm not putting this here for you to watch and say wow I'll never do this, because I sure as hell realize I'll never be able to play this song or really anything this guy does. But he's absolutely amazing. Every time I watch him I'll say damnit I can't play like him but he makes me want to play just to expand my guitar playing. If you can watch Trace Bundy and say he doesn't blow your mind I don't know what will.

[Kashydan]

for "easy starters", go with:
as your absolute first song to master: lady in black from uriah heep its 2 chords - when you get the feeling that you can nail this, you can nail any of the following:

- the white stripes - hotel yorba (simple chord progression, but speed and precision are key)
- anything by nirvana, preferably from nevermind (strumpatterns, simple chord/powerchord-progression)
- "whish you were here" and "wall pt.2" from pink floyd (chords, advanced, minimal fingertricks)
- anything by rammstein, but especially "links 2 3 4", "sonne" (most albums just are 4-5 powerchords total, so fingerplacement is easy, it's the rhythm and right hand that matter here.. you can learn basic techniques like palm-muting, extremely basic slides and hammer-ons, all in a very simple and still fun-to-play environment)

when you have mastered these, go on to
- queens of the stone age - in my head (modern rock-package, more for the feel than technique..and it has a simple,but greatsounding solo and interlude)
- dreaming of you by the coral (offbeat-strumming, basic beat-package)
- ac/dc - back in black (feel the rock course through your veins, riffs and the basic rock-package)
- sweet home alabama by lynyrd skynyrd (tapping,moar chords,licks,gives you a base-package for acoustic/folk)
- system of a down - in this particular order: (this is the metal-package)
* spiders ("unusual" chord progression, simple tricks, more aggressive picking, slides)
* sugar (picking, precision and speed)
* aerials (deeper precision picking, developing a deep feeling for rhythm)
* toxicity (all of the above - and actual licks that sound awesome)

after these.. you're free to get on with just about any note-package / tabs that you stumble upon..i'd recommend to take a look into guns'n'roses and the foo fighters for more sophisticated technique-training if you like to cover/playalong...
from then on it's just understanding how to place your fingers to play along something, or how to get that particular effect/sound/scream out of your gal. and it gives you enough in-depth-knowledge of the basics so that you can just go on your own way
if you want to go into jazz jamming, just learn your chords, scales and the circle of fifths ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circle_of_fifths ) so you can progress from any tune into any else.
even if you dont like jazz... do it.. it helps.. biiiig time


don't do the same mistake that i did, i chose "one" by metallica and "paradise city" by GnR as my first 2 songs... my learning-curve was one hell of a ride

[Badpaladin]

How could somebody not like jazz?

Anyways, an easy song with simply chords is the best route to go when learning something new. You learn both left and right hand control, which you require to move forward. After that I would suggest picking up a more versatile song that has a mixture of chords and "leads" (or whatever you want to call them), from any genre. Jazz, Rock, Metal, Funk, etc will all suite your needs there. Personally, I would go the classical guitar route after a while because you'll learn things that you never even thought possible ... but then again, I'm the type of guitar player who doesn't play for anybody but himself anyways.

Find whatever you're interested in the most and have fun.

[gossipgirlexoh]

Smoke on the water

[ruke]

This is a good topic for me as I'm a beginner too (electric guitar as well). Coming from the piano side the guitar still sometimes confuses me with the pentatonic scale.

The song that keeps me motivated trying is this one:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6VAkOhXIsI0

[Danits]

http://www.justinguitar.com/index.php
Good site for free lessons.

http://www.guitarcardio.com/
Very interesting site that I just discovered. Great for learning scales.

[Apoc11]

The song that keeps me motivated trying is this one:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6VAkOhXIsI0

Never heard this before but it is indeed truly awesome. Very motivational! Makes me want to actually learn guitar, I have one but just let it sit. Don't really have the time to learn it. Gonna try to make some now^

[Badpaladin]

Never heard this before but it is indeed truly awesome. Very motivational! Makes me want to actually learn guitar, I have one but just let it sit. Don't really have the time to learn it. Gonna try to make some now^

There's always time to play guitar, just cut it out of WoW/forum time!

[Hraklea]

The best way to learn is to play what you like. You'll get tired to play "songs for learning" very fast. Just play the music you enjoy.

[Kardezar]

The best way to learn is to play what you like. You'll get tired to play "songs for learning" very fast. Just play the music you enjoy.

Haha thanks, but that'l be tough. I like heavy/hard to play music.

[Grinco]

There are few songs which sound amazing and are pretty easy to play. I remember when I started playing back in 00 or 01's I first learned on:

AC/DC - Hard As A Rock

Iron Maiden - The Wicker Man

Deep Purple - Smoke On The Water

And also there are many many other great songs which are easy to play such as Paranoid and some Green Day songs (which are faster though).

[Badpaladin]

Haha thanks, but that'l be tough. I like heavy/hard to play music.

Well, the good news for you is most of the stuff that sounds hard to play is actually pretty easy! You could learn most metalcore/hard rock and a good dose of more standard metal songs within two years if you practiced a lot. Jazz, classical and tech-whatever stuff would take longer, though.

[Mustakrakish]

Come as you are, easiest song to learn to play. Also, Seven Nation Army.
If you really wanna build up picking hand endurance, try out Creeping Death and Disposable Heroes by Metallica. People will say Blackened and Master of Puppets is harder, and they are hard, yes, but the first 2 require insane amounts of picking endurance.

[Zawkon]

Come as you are, easiest song to learn to play. Also, Seven Nation Army.
If you really wanna build up picking hand endurance, try out Creeping Death and Disposable Heroes by Metallica. People will say Blackened and Master of Puppets is harder, and they are hard, yes, but the first 2 require insane amounts of picking endurance.

Four Horsemen is also good for alternate picking amongst changing strings.

[Badpaladin]

Come as you are, easiest song to learn to play. Also, Seven Nation Army.
If you really wanna build up picking hand endurance, try out Creeping Death and Disposable Heroes by Metallica. People will say Blackened and Master of Puppets is harder, and they are hard, yes, but the first 2 require insane amounts of picking endurance.

I raise you Stormrider by Iced Earth if you want picking endurance.

[Mustakrakish]

I raise you Stormrider by Iced Earth if you want picking endurance.

Just listened to it, just played it - great song, no doubt, but a lot of those are gallops and just tremolo picking, and about 3/4 of the song was. Creeping Death played 'properly' is all down strokes, iirc, 208 bpm, somewhere around that region and it's 6.5 minutes long, Disposable Heroes has it's hard fast parts and it's roughtly 8.5 minutes long.
IE Creeping Death and Disposable Heroes require more picking endurance.

[Badpaladin]

Just listened to it, just played it - great song, no doubt, but a lot of those are gallops and just tremolo picking, and about 3/4 of the song was. Creeping Death played 'properly' is all down strokes, iirc, 208 bpm, somewhere around that region and it's 6.5 minutes long, Disposable Heroes has it's hard fast parts and it's roughtly 8.5 minutes long.
IE Creeping Death and Disposable Heroes require more picking endurance.

Yeah, that's Iced Earth's style. I dunno, when I was learning I found repeated gallops to be more taxing than lots of downstrokes, mainly because of precision issues that came with endurance.

No doubt that Creeping Death and Disposable Heroes requires some serious wrist action, though.