Worked for me.

Nico Adie wrote:Also, get a Peavey amp.

That is also how I started...

I got a Kramer strat copy and a Peavey Backstage Plus 1-10 combo fro Guzzardo Music in 1984.

Eddie Van Halen was endorsing Kramer at the time, and I thought he was the shit. I was 13, and I didn't know better.

Also, if you are buying a guitar from a store, fuck the gig bag and see about getting a decent case. It's a worthwhile investment for the times you decide to go take a few lessons.

Also, get a good tuner. I like the little Korgs for the cheap ones that fit in the case in that little chamber for the spare strings.

Then teach yourself how to tune WITHOUT the tuner by setting one reference and tuning up or down from that.

Instructional and inspirational:

I think early on, it might help to have an idea of where you want to be in one or two or five years. If you have any plans of playing fast or tricky stuff, it'd be in your best interest to build good technique from the beginning. That means playing using your fingertips, the actual tip tips. If you don't think you're gonna want to go beyond simple stuff like power chords or barre chords, then you don't need to worry about it.

Something I recommend to anyone who plays or wants to play guitar or bass is to learn how to mute the strings you aren't playing. If you're playing baseball grip, you can use your thumb to mute the low E string. And sometimes chords will require that you *not* use you fingertips, based on the shape you hand needs to form... then it's easier to use that fingertip to mute the adjacent string. Also, when playing with your fingertips, you can use the flat part to mute the other adjacent string. Man I wish I could explain that better.

I agree with the muting part. Try and develop an o/off approach like a drum so when your picking hand picks, your fretting hand lets the strings ring. Before you even learn to actually play a note, get that co-ordination with your hands as it will help loads.
Also, I always found the chord shapes really abstract when I started and couldn't get my head round the unrelated nature of them. It's good to understand that anything you play is a chord of some kind, just some are nicer than others. Try and learn a little about why a C is fingered how it is and how you can play the same chord in different places. It opens up the guitar and takes away some of that black magic part of things. Though it's good to keep a little black magic in there.

Good band to play along to: Nirvana. Especially videos as with him being a lefty, if you're a righty you just mirror the neck positions.

I've always found that oscillating between experimentation/exploration and book-learnin' is the best way to make steady and (importantly) useful progress since it prevents fatigue and stagnation.

From scratch I'd say spend a month or so just picking up the guitar and seeing what happens - get used the holding it etc.

After a month of that, do a month of actual book-related technique study, then another month of just exploring the instrument etc, etc

The first half of the freestyle month can usually be used to incorporate your recently learned techniques into something approaching a 'style', and the second half of the freestyle month usually dictates where you go with the following month's book-learnin'.

This way you're always learning (from books or whatever) stuff that you feel you genuinely need or want. You're usually ready for further study after a month of freestyle playing, plus your freestyle development has time to develop without being entirely hindered by 'correct' technique.

That's what I reckon anyway,

It depends on how well you know bass. If you know how to name notes, what a key is, playing chords will be probably the most challenging thing at first (I'm guessing, I picked up guitar first). At least it was for me. I'm not sure why Nirvana wasn't mentioned (or maybe it was but I missed). This is guitar learner heaven, and much (like, 100 times) easier to pick up by ear than Led Zep songs. Unless all you guys here are geniuses. Also, play by ear. Learn to play a song by ear, than look for the tabs if you're still unsure about something.

Yeah. Pick a grip. I say this because it's going to be hellish for you to try and convert a bat grip to a standard grip after a few years, so be sure you like using the bat grip before you adopt it.

Sure, after a while you'll start naturally switching in and out of a bat grip naturally....

Do you want to play guitar, or do you want to BE A GUITAR HERO? The choice is yours mang.

ubercat wrote:Yeah. Pick a grip. I say this because it's going to be hellish for you to try and convert a bat grip to a standard grip after a few years, so be sure you like using the bat grip before you adopt it.

Sure, after a while you'll start naturally switching in and out of a bat grip naturally....

I agree with the second paragraph but not the first, and think they directly contradict each other. I would say if you think you might ever want to push yourself and see what you're capable of, you should learn both grips at the same time starting as early as you can, and not neglect either of them. That way you'll get comfortable with both, and with switching as necessary, that much sooner.