Yay! Today I finally got my FIRST guitar. XD I'm starting to learn today, so far I'm just learning on the limited resources on youtube. Does anyone have any tips for me or any suggestions on what to practice?

congratulations! I hope you enjoy your guitar and continue to play for years and years. Take your time with learning the basics such as chord fretting, making smooth transitions, and letting all the notes ring out properly. It will help with your technique while also building your confidence in playing. If you're starting out, why not play songs by your favorite artists? like YUI for example ;). I think Rolling Start might be an easy song to learn. Good luck!

first guitars are awesome :lol:

learning from youtube should be an okay way to learn but if you think the guitarist in the videos you watch have funny hand positions or are doing something that doesn't look normal than make sure you don't learn their bad habits!

otherwise...practice and ignore the first few weeks when your fingers hurt and the guitar doesn't sound as good as you think it would and enjoy :)

I got my 1st guitar about a week ago. Im not an expert but something that threw me off was that my guitar was not in tune. So i guess make sure its in tune.

yup. making sure your guitar is in tune is a very must in the beginning.

coz being able to make the right sound on your guitar is as important as anything to fuel your drive in learning guitar. So, be equipped with a tuner or have someone tune it for you. =)

well..

for me...you can practice songs..easy ones..although i've started on a bit so hard ones...it's still a good idea on learning the basic ones..

chord switching...tuning maybe..

just keep practicing...you'll need it..

Easiest practice for chords switching is C and Am chord. Their structure is only 1 finger difference.
Practice with only moving that one finger switching between the 2 chords while strumming. Any strumming pattern will do. Easiest is all down strokes.
When u're quite confortable with that, practice lifting all yr fingers away from the fret while switching and forming the other chord. Always aim on doing this as it improves yr chord switching.

Waw, youre great at teaching tsunvun.
Hm~~. Next time , i will ask you all about guitar.

Heheh.
Thx for the lesson.

Welcome to the gitbox (aka.guitar) family! :guitar

I think 'I remember you' is a nice starting song.. there are no barre chords.

oh man..i really can't wait to buy my first guitar after finish my exam..i'll try to practice "i remember u" song after i get my first guitar.

hm...my first song that i've ever ever EVER played was skyline...hehex...maybe you can have a try with that...there's no barre~ :lol: guess it might be easy as most of YUI's songs have barre?? Its just my opinion though =/

happy playing guitar too! :guitar

mmm .... skyline eh? never really look into that song. Maybe I'll do that tonight when I get home.

Woahh. I haven't been on for awhile and I didn't expect many responces but thanks!

But I've got this problem right now... My guitar is a classic guitar -Jose Ortega Emilio- and I am 100% sure it sounds different from an acoustic guitar. I went to one of those online sites for tuning a guitar but its like... different, its a minor difference but its still noticeable, so I have no way to tune it except trying to tune it as closely as possible. Any suggestions? Also I'm getting a strange sound when I strum the strings, it sounds like static from a speaker. Maybe its just me, I'm going abit crazy. XD

A classical guitar, in nature, sound different than an acoustic guitar because of the shape, size, and strings used.

If you use those online sites for their tuning samples, they usually have the sample sound from an electric or acoustic guitar. It is still possible to tune your classical base on these samples.

You need to turn up your computer speaker so you can clearly hear the sound that you are tuning with. Give the guitar string a solid pluck and then slowly adjust that string to match the sound. If you have a matching sound, it will seem like your guitar sound fades into the sample tune from the computer speakers.

As for the static sound from strumming ... if you're talking about the buzzing of the strings, maybe because you didn't press on the string close enough to the fret, the vibrating string may create a buzz.

This is not to discourage you from learning the guitar, but later, you may find it a bit difficult to hold some of the chords (e.g. G chord, barre chords) on the classical because of the wider neck and the higher action (the space between the string and the fret).

An acoustic steel string does sound different from a classical. Classical guitars use nylon strings.

Tuning... hmmm..... If you have a piano or something it'll be easier... Tuning machines will be the most ideal if you have no experience in tuning.

hi,,i'm an absolute beginner, i started to play guitar since last januaary,, heheh but until now i still have problem with F chord,, (it's a barre chord, right?-sorry if i'm sound stupid..lol) so, any tips??

Go buy a capo, it'll make that chord really easy @_@ I can't hit that chord either......so i need to buy one too... that's the only tip I have ^^" sorry, not much help

There are a lot of ways to fret an F. Barre chord is one of them. You can do it open string too. Pressing 2 string rather than 6 strings at once.
--1--
--1--
--2--
--3--
--x--
--x--

Well that is an alternative but not a very healthy one. :P
You can't escape from barre chords forever. :(

Hey, I think I've solved my tuning problem. My friend came over a few minutes ago and he told me to tune by playing the string AND holding down the 5th fret. I never pressed the 5th fret before so thats probably why it was so different. :) As for the buzzing noise, it probably actually was holding it not hard enough. Thanks for the replies, it really helped a lot!

I've got a new problem now. :P What is a barre cord?? ==;;

Barre chords are chords which acquire you to press all 6 strings at once.

oh no! barre chords! woe of the beginner guitarists, such as me when I started off. Phew.

Now, after 7-8 months, they still haunt me. Especially if I play it on the acoustic...I'll get blisters. Wee. XD

But the only way to overcome this is to keep barring? Build up the strength on that index finger. What I do is just barre with my index, and move it up and down the fret, while making sure they sound right. So, after long, I guess it does get easier to barre. Now, learning blues, it's even more essential! Thus, there goes my fingers. XD

Another thing is place your thumb which acts as a pivot on the middle part of the back of the fretboard. It will give u more levering and strength.

wow good help,,thnx..

wow that bit helped me get the F chord! Well... heaps better than I could do before. Thanks so much ^^ Stupid barre chords should NOT exist :( Surely they could have come up with something easier but still sounds good... what am i thinking O.o

Haha, thanks for the tips man! I already knew about that thumb thingo from one of the youtube videos, but its becoming a habit that I put it on top of the bar thingo. -Forgot wat its called... the bridge or somthing. Haha-