Learn to Play Guitar

Topics Covered:
- Hobbies - Their Value
- Make Music Your Hobby
- Making the Big Decision: Guitar Or Keyboard ?
- ( Or Drums or Bass? )
- Deciding Between an Acoustic and an Electric First Guitar
- Finding Your First Guitar
- Starting Out
- Practicing

I'm a believer that almost everyone should learn to play a musical instrument. Doing so has added much to my life and my enjoyment of life, not to mention my understanding of the music around me and my appreciation for it. There is a body of scientific evidence that playing an instrument challenges the brain much in the same manner as doing puzzles, etc., and consequently improves brain function long into adulthood and old age. Don't know about you, but I need all the brain enhancement I can get!

Furthermore, if you sing along, the evidence is that you get about the same exercise as a swimmer would. Now, I'm not so sure about that statement's validity, but I know I sure sweat hard when playing and singing hard at a microphone, almost as much as most drummers with whom I've performed, and those dudes can work up a good sweat doing a one hour set of songs.
I've also noticed I do not sweat nearly as much if I'm not singing, only playing guitar. Heck, I've even worn sweatbands on my head while performing, especially after I saw Mark Knopfler (of Dire Straits) do it in front of thousands of screaming fans.

Everyone needs a hobby. Too many (men, usually) retire from a lifelong career to find life can be boring. Many seem to die soon after retirement, I've noticed. You can only mow the yard so many times a week.
So I recommend every man and woman, boy and girl - find a hobby. And being the "practical male" that I am, I recommend you choose a hobby whereby you can potentially make some spare change.
Woodworking is a great hobby for that. So is music.

And "spare change" it is! I've always said music is a great hobby and a lousy profession. Case in point: My son, age 33, has his college degree and his day job. But his one true love is drumming, ever since I taught him basic drumming on a full kit at age five. Playing drums gave him a fulfillment that school, playing tennis, work, and even girlfriends couldn't give him. The kid is good, damn good. He even moved to the "live music capitol" of America (Austin, Texas) so he could thrive in his "night job" of playing with a band. He finally teamed up with some talented musicians (of which there are plenty in Austin) and their resultant music is more than commendable, it's very good! And what is the payoff after two years of playing with these talented fellas, solo and group rehearsals, investing heavily in equipment, etc.? They play for FREE most times. Some nights they might come home with 25$ each for their work. Some gigs actually require the band PAY to PLAY, in order to get the exposure in front of the audience. This practice of a band having to actually pay money to be allowed to play was started in L.A. years ago because of the sheer number of bands clawing for the chance to play music . The practice is spreading, I fear. With music, it's not usually what you know, but who you know in the business that might propel your band to the next level. It's usually all a matter of luck or timing, not talent. Sad, but true. Talent helps though, no doubt. Music's a great hobby, but a frustrating profession. So take it up as a hobby, and if it turns into more than that, it's gravy.

I've tried learning keyboard (synthesizer/piano) and it is harder to learn, in my opinion. If you think you might really be a songwriter, then keyboard is probably the better choice, what with all the beautiful tones, emulations of real pianos, organs, strings, etc. that a good synthesizer can deliver at a modest cost. You can now-a-days do anything - ANY sound you want! - on a good synthesizer, except for the human voice. And Stevie Wonder does even that on his $150,000 Synclaviar! With the addition of a sequencer, a synthesizer can play every instrument needed on an album! Real pianos may have ONE good sound, but they simply weigh a ton, and they are slowly disappearing for that reason. Songwriters should seriously consider learning to play a synth, one with semi- or fully weighted keys, tons of computor memory, a sequencer, and a lot of backing by the company and third party suppliers. You can get a used Korg O1W FD for $200 on eBay, but do your musical purchase research for most instruments and amplifiers on HarmonyCentral.com. It has tons of user reviews.

So why choose guitar to learn? As I said, it's easier to sound proficient on guitar, easier to learn the basics. I tried the adult beginner piano book, and after 3 months of boring drills and scales gave it up. But, back in 1965 at age 15, with an old Sears and Robuck Silvertone guitar and a $7.50 Beatles songbook, plus 4 weeks of practice, back in my bedroom (with my door firmly shut by my father!)- I managed to learn almost every song in that book. I was on my way to a lifetime of "pickin' and
grinnin'."

I'll get slammed for sure if I don't mention learning drums or bass guitar as choices. I've played both for over 25 years, and can summarize each easily:
In my experince, drums are the easiest instrument to learn, or at least learn well enough to quickly get started in playing an instrument. You can be playing drums in a week, IF YOU CAN REALLY LISTEN TO THE MUSIC- THE DRUMS, AND IF YOU CAN DANCE. Seriously, if you can't dance a little, sit down. Drumming is basically dancing with your hands. Then you add your feet. It's just easy to listen and copy a facsimile of what another drummer is doing on a song, especially if you stick with it. Drums are easy to learn if you can dance a little.
But you can't easily write a song on drums. They have their limitations. Not a whole lot of melody in drumming. What you hear with drums is what you get.

Drums are LOUD! (Do I hear a "Duh!"?) Even moderate volume drum practice can bother family, roommates, and of course neighbors so much, it has to be the foremost reason to not choose drumming as a hobby. If you live out in the country with nothing but cows around you, like I did when I got my first drum set, go for it!
Drums just feel good when you play. Drumming can be excellent exercise IF you're playing at live playing volume levels. I've broken a sweat many-a-time playing along with Bob Segar and the Silver Bullet Band. Try keeping up with them for 45 minutes straight!
But drums take up a lot of real estate in your house and your car. They're harder and take longer to set up, if you play out much. The drummer in a band is inevitably the hardest worker in the band, the first to arrive and the last to leave.

Bass guitar is fun too, with the added bonus of hearing a perhaps more melodic rather than mostly percussive sound in your music. But bass is hard to practice alone, at least to me. If you choose bass, you'll force yourself to play with other musicians faster than most any other instrument, because of that problem of difficult practices alone. Of course they make little black band-in-a-boxes now, like the Boss JS-5 JamStation, that you can play along with in hundreds of styles of music for around $300. I'd say something like that might cure those bass blues. Check it out. Some newer bass amps might have a similar device built into the amp, like some guitar amps have.
You'll need a decent bass guitar. Again, I recommend getting a vintage bass that will increase in value, unlike a new bass that depreciates quickly. Next best choice is almost any fair price on something like a Fender P Bass or a Fender Jazz Bass from Musician's Friend.com or any other reputable dealer. Basses are simply not as delicately built as six strings are, and luckily you can just order a bass from a reputible dealer, sight unseen usually, and it will turn out fine. I wouldn't order a six string guitar sight unseen. I'd want to check it out first.
In summary:
Seems bands are always looking for bass players, so I guess they are more in demand. Drummers, it seems, are everywhere. Mainly, I want to write songs, and you just can't do that on drums or bass. Here I have to mention that I once saw on T.V. a bass player competition of some sort that blew my mind. The contestants played Chopin and Bethovan sonattas on 5 and 6 string basses with such talent and beauty I was amazed. It turns out that quality bass, and perhaps any instrument, is what you make of it, what you make it do, what you coax out of it, and what you put into it.

THE FIRST GUITAR
So, what does it take to get started on guitar?
A decent guitar and motivation to learn how to play it. That's all. Here is how to go about it:
Find a decent guitar by deciding first how much you can afford. If you are serious about learning guitar and have the bucks, I recommend a vintage guitar, a collectable with years of playing on it and a "good vibe"- a feeling of being loved in its wood. A collectable vintage guitar will actually INCREASE in value each day you own it. So, if you outlay $400 to $700 for this instrument, you also just made an investment that will acrue value over time. If you buy almost any new instrument, it will decrease in value the moment you walk out that store's door with it. It's now a used instrument, just like buying a car. Choosing a vintage guitar is a topic beyond the scope of this piece, so I won't try to cover it here. But I will tell you to do your research on the topic before parting with your hard-earned dollars. There are fake vintage guitars out there. Always bring a real guitar "expert"- someone who has been playing for years- with you when you go to look at guitars.

If, like most, you want to get started on guitar as cheaply as possible, then your best bet is a used, inexpensive guitar, the cheapest being one stored in YOUR Uncle Bill's attic. Check with family to see if they want to keep that dusty guitar in the family and will consider giving it to you.
Next, I recommend friends or acquaintenances with used guitars. They may have bought one, tried taking lessons on it, and given up. Now it's used and priced accordingly, usually around 50% of what the owner paid. That's how I got my second guitar, stored under a friend's bed. I still have that 1967 $40 Harmony guitar, and love it more than any other I have owned.
Like most cheap guitars at that time, it came with no way of adjusting the neck for playability, and when the years of my abuse took its toll and the neck bowed so much the steel strings became unplayable, I put nylon strings on it. It has a wonderful, soft, warm tone and is so easy to play with no finger pain that I recommend anyone frustrated with finger pain from playing switch to nylon strings, unless they can endure the pain until they build up callouses on their fingertips. I know the guitar wasn't "designed" for nylon strings. I don't care. Sure the spacing between the strings is narrower than the standard "classical" guitar, but I find that a benifit, not a detriment! It's more like the spacing on the rest of my standard guitars.
I heard a fellow guitar player at my weekly jam session say recently that he got three decent guitars that week from pawn shops, all available because of the downturn in the national/worldwide economy. If you've got the cash to spare, now is a good time to shop your local pawn shops, it seems.

One more point. IF you think you might be "playing out"- in a room larger than your living room, or on a professional or semipro level, GET AN ACOUSTIC/ELECTRIC GUITAR. These guitars can be plugged into an amplifier or PA system with ease and produce great sound, but they don't have to be plugged in to work just fine. I much prefer the plugged in sound of my Martin accoustic/electric to the sound of my near vintage Martin D-35 with a microphone on it. An acoustic/electric will only cost a few dollars more than the same guitar without the electronics, so strongly consider this option. Some even have a guitar tuner built into the electronics. Now you're actually saving money because I strongly recommend you get a guitar tuner with the purchase of your guitar. The old days of tuning with a pitchfork tuner or pitchpipe are done, thank goodness! A $20 digital tuner will help you sound so much better on guitar that it will actually increase your practice and playing time over playing on an out-of-tune guitar. Get a tuner.

Why do I recommend getting an acoustic guitar over getting an electric guitar? On the first night of owning my first electric guitar (a 1964 Fender Stratocaster) I actually tried to give it away to a friend going out my front door. He was probably leaving because of my awful sounding playing. I was playing through a used 1965 Fender SuperReverb amp that I still own, and playing with no effects, other than a little reverb. I could fairly play an accoustic, but my electric playing sure couldn't prove it: It sounded horrible! Every mistake was amplified and louder than "to what I'd become accustumed", the acoustic guitar. In my opinion, it is much EASIER to hide mistakes with an accoustic, if for no other reason than at least you are not amplifying bad sounds! Fortunately, my friend knew I had had a couple beers and refused my offer, thinking it "was the alcohol talking." No, it was my sheer exasperation and shock at sounding so poorly. I now know a local guitar teacher that prefers his new students start on an electric guitar. Why? Because it is easier to play most electrics; the strings are usually set down lower. AND many modern, even inexpensive, small amplifiers come with lots of effects built into the amp! This can have the sound modified nicely with chorus, reverb, and subtle distortion to the point that a beginner can sound pretty good. He has a good point there.

It didn't used to be this way. Back in the day, just 30 years ago in the '80's, you got a cheap amp, as big as you could afford, then you bought 3 or 4 effect "stomp boxes" to plug into it to get your sound, up to sometimes 20 effects! I switched when the technology did and went with the newer, "all-in one stompbox"- the ubiquitous Digitech RP1. This added up quickly in extra expense. Plus I've lately given up using it because of the NOISE it adds to my guitar signal. I like a cleaner sound. Thus I developed my attitude about starting with a simple acoustic guitar. Times have changed, and maybe I need to change with them.

You decide then based on the volume you might need (but know that my Martin acoustic/electric can keep up with all but the loudest electric guitars) or the image you may prefer to convey (as electric players are viewed with scorn by some bluegrass, gospel, and even some country purists,) and obviously consider the musical style you prefer. Again, bring a true guitar player with you to help you pick out your guitar! He or she will check the guitar's neck for straightness, the string height above the fret board for playability, and the overall versitility and usefulness of the instrument. If it's an expensive guitar, then the tone of the sound will become important. One rule I've learned: a good electric guitar will sound good unplugged as well as plugged in. There's no need to plug in every electric guitar you have a passing interest in. Just play it unplugged and if it sounds really good that way, just wait until you plug it in! That's how I bought my '81 Gibson Les Paul Heritage guitar. I played 30 Les Pauls at a huge guitar dealer show, and I never plugged one in. The one I chose was the dealer's private instrument, used in his band playing days. And the action of the neck is incredible! It's a keeper.

While you're at it, go ahead and get a case for your guitar. I didn't and had to wrap my guitar in blankets, etc. whenever it left the house. It got scratched and beatup some. Find a case commersurate with the value of the guitar you place in it, and use it a lot. Either it's in the case when not being played, or hung it on the wall (out of direct sunlight- especially if it's an Ovation!) using a guitar hanger from the music store. Do NOT use garden/ garage tool hangers with a rubber coating making contact with your guitar. It WILL come off on the guitar I found.
Keep good guitars away from kids and not so good pets. Always unplug any electric or acoustic/electric before hanging it. I tripped over a guitar cord once and pulled my friend's Stratocaster right off the wall to the floor. Never again!

Now that you've found your guitar, it's time to decide just how to go about learning to play it.
You have a few choices:
#1 Take private lessons. They range from $40 per half hour down to $10 per hour around here. The $40 per half hour rate is at a local music store that has 4 or 5 small classrooms within its walls. The $10 per hour rate is for a fella that just opened a very small music store in a rural town 30 miles away from here. He needs the money more. There are poor, average, and excellent teachers, so ask lots of guitar students for their recommendations! Most teachers will want you to learn scales, it seems, no matter what instrument you want to learn. A few will teach you actual songs, thus motivating you more. It all depends on the teacher. An advantage of having a teacher and a set schedule is that you will practice more, knowing you will be "judged" soon by that teacher before he or she allows you to progress further. Most people don't like wasting their money, so they practice. Another advantage is that a good teacher will keep you from learning something that later has to be unlearned- bad habits. I used to make a G chord by using my thumb. That took two years to unlearn! Another reason for getting a teacher is that a good teacher will teach you how to practice by yourself so that you utilize you time wisely. It's easy to "wander" away from actual practice when you're having fun.
#2 Learn from a correspondance course over the internet. I know this is available now, as I have looked into it a little. The system I found was for around $50 a month. I have a LOT more to learn about this system before I will recommend it. They say you can send them sound clips of your playing, but it all sounds too "distant" for my tastes.

#3 Teach yourself. Ya, that's what I did. I can't say it's the preferred method, but it was the cheapest by far. Here's how I did it: Go out and get a "fakebook"- a songbook collection- of your favorite music. It will cost now around $25-30 for the songbook. Make sure there are pictures of the actual cords you will be playing and not just the cords' names (letters) above the lyrics. Your guitar playing buddy can look at the cords and determine if they are too hard for a beginner. If not, and you like the music, and you have a copy of most of the songs in the songbook so you can listen and learn from listening, get it. You'll enjoy playing the songs you like.

#3 Have a friend teach you. Even a beginner can teach another beginner. Plus it's a lot more fun than playing alone. The key to making progress is to make it a regular, weekly get-together with a new song added each time.

The best learning experience I ever had on guitar was back around 1972 when my neighbor and buddy, Bruce, would come over with his six string electric, plug into my amp and play bass on the top four strings while I practiced my interminably bad lead solos over and over to his patient bass playing. This went on for months. What a guy! I owed him bigtime! Before I moved away I found an old Fender Mustang Bass guitar, bought it and gave it to him. You should have seen the look on his face when I told him it was his. He still plays it today. Bruce is a geuius audio sound engineer that worked for 26 years for a certain major audio/ microphone company before they let him go in this recent economic turmoil. He is the author of 8 audio recording textbooks, one of which is in daily use in many classrooms in U.S. universities. He's written over 800 articles on audio recording techniques! He helped develop and design Garth Brook's headset microphone, yet they "had to let him go." The lack of loyalty to dedicated and talented employees by their companies is appalling. Sorry I'm off topic, but I'm not paid for this. I get to rant a little.

Approximate Costs:
----------------Low end------- High end
simple, used guitar free-up to $100---- $300
new vintage guitar $300 ----$1,000 and up!
new acoustic electric $300---- $700 and up
guitar tuner $20 ---- $80
guitar case $25 ---- $200
fakebook/songbook $25 ---- $40
couple guitar picks $1
used amplifier $100 ---- $300
new amp w/effects $250 ---- $600 and up

The Bottom Line:
So you can get started for around 170$ for a used guitar, a case, tuner, songbook, and a couple guitar picks. You don't need a strap. Standing is for performers. Any armless chair or stool will do for sitting and playing. In general, you get what you pay for. Not always. Just ask the guy that was given his grandaddy's old Gibson J45 guitar!
Have fun and you'll practice more. This generally has the effect of making you improve. (Do I hear another "Duh!"?) Next you'll get the inevitable compilment anyone who improves should get and obviously, you'll play more. The cycle begins. You get it. It feeds off itself.
Kind of like reading books. You learn more vocabulary as you read more, thus you comprehend more of what you read, causing you to enjoy it more, so you read more, and on and on. Get your cycle started soon, and start playing.

TURNING 60- Age Happens!

My mother said to not tell anyone that I turned 60. So you didn't hear it here. OK?

My thoughts on aging:

Turning 30 was not even noticed. Turning 40 WAS noticed, but easy to ignore. At 50 I paid attention; by then I had to use glasses to read and remove splinters from fingers. I hate losing "close" vision more than anything. I now keep inexpensive reading glasses in most rooms of our house and in the studio I just built. At 50 it didn't take much exertion for my body to protest; simply mowing the grass did the trick. Body parts wear out just like car parts do, I've learned .

I turned 60 on January 2 this year (2009)- and it seems others noticed it more than I did. Ya, my hair is whiter, my vision a bit weaker-though I passed my driver's license vision test with no glasses, and I've developed a compressed nerve root in a neck vertebra, causing some intermittent numbness and cramping in my left (guitar playing) hand. Otherwise, I'm not too bad off. I've been lucky so far, I guess. Real lucky. There are plenty of folks out there with serious medical conditions at my age.

So what am I doing right? Not much, really. I still (usually)enjoy doing chores, especially outside chores, being in the sunshine and the wind. I like setting goals and achiving them, both small and large.

I am a believer in Vitamin C and its ability to help slow the free radicals that race through our bodies and age us after age 25, about the year I started taking Vitamin C. I had read some about Dr. J. Linus Pauling, the inventor of synthesized ascorbic acid, who won the Nobel Prize for its invention. I learned that it didn't matter whether you take the pill version of Vitamin C or got it more naturally through different foods like orange juice, the body absorbs it all the same. It seems orange juice has about 50 milligrams of Vitamin C per "juice" glass, but you can easily get 250 milligrams in a single Vitamin C pill. At the cost of orange juice it was a no-brainer to take one pill per night. I chose bedtime to take my vitamins because many, like Vitamin C, are water soluable and are thus excreted soon after consuming liquids- like morning coffee! If you want a vitamin to be more effective, then my logic says to take it just before you begin a long period of rest with no liquid intake.

My current nightly vitamin regimin:

500 mg Vit. C - for the whole body, especially if you smoke!

1000 mg Omega 3 fish oil - for the heart and brain function

2000 IU Vit. D-3 - for the heart and mood

81 mg baby aspirin - for the heart

That's it. No medicines, so far. Like I said, I've been lucky. The Vitamin C has been a staple of my diet for 35 years, with few lapses. The baby aspirin has been added ever since 10 years ago when I started stressing over my students' passing their end of year tests and started having angina/chest pains. The heart specialist gave me the stress test and full heart imaging with the radioactive dye and concluded I was normal as hell. But the doctor did suggest I start taking the baby aspirin each night, that it wouldn't hurt. I've had no heart problems since retirement from teaching. I cared too much, I guess.

There has been a flood of positive research lately regarding the enormous value of adding Vitamin D to your diet. Sure, you can get all you need by getting in the sun WITH EXPOSED SKIN and no suntan lotion for 15 minutes per day, times 3 days per week. Some weeks I get plenty of sunlight. Other weeks I simply don't, especially in winter. Vitamin D suppliments have been shown to improve mood and heart function. It's hard to overdose on it, but easy to overdose on sunlight. (I've had 15 pre-cancerous "sun-spots" removed so far, some cut, some frozen.)

And, of course, fish oil has long been known to help the heart.

I've only been taking the fish oil and Vitamin D for less than a year. Got to admit my mood had seen some improvement.

I am relatively conservative regarding my belief in the theraputic value of vitamins. I'd love to get all my vitamins through my foods, but I don't believe our "normal" American lifestyles give us that much access to enough natural sources of vitamins. We tend to overcook and overprocess our foods. Suppliments do help some. I think almost EVERYONE should take a little Vitamin C every day, and add a baby aspirin nightly starting around age 50. The next one to consider would be Vitamin D. There's simply too much strong evidence that it helps the heart and mind.

And what am I doing wrong? That's easy: I am still a smoker. Simply put, smoking cigarettes is the biggest mistake of my life. I started smoking after I figured out I was not going to play college football, and I badly needed a way to stay awake all night to study for college tests, midterm exams, and finals. I found cigarettes and lots of coffee did the trick. I've never been the sharpest pencil in the pack, and studying all night enabled me to make the same grades or higher than my brighter roommates who rarely studied. (Of the four of us in one dorm suite, only two graduated, and it took Woody 5 years to finish his degree. But Woody was a very popular man on campus, and partied like one.)

The problem came when I graduated and found just why today's scientists consider nicotine addiction just as strong as heroin addiction- and just as hard to quit. After using cigarettes as a crutch for four years of college, I was and am still an addict.

Every year of teaching high school I told my story above to my students in hopes of deterring even one of them from starting smoking. All the other teachers I knew who smoked NEVER broached the topic with their students. My students told me repeatedly that I was the most honest teacher they ever had.

Ya, sometimes honest to a fault.

Quitting smoking is twice as hard when your wife or husband smokes. The process of quitting has to be timed perfectly to when both spouses want to put the cigarettes down, a hard task. Of course you CAN quit seperately. My mom quit long before my dad. It just takes incredible willpower, the kind I don't have. If I'm around a smoker while trying to quit, I'll bum a smoke. Or steal one- if it's my wife that's smoking. Sure am glad I never fell in love with alcohol, like so many have.

I recently came across the following:

"Someone had to remind me, so I'm reminding you too. Don't laugh.....it is all true...Perks of reaching 50 or being over 60 and heading towards 70!

01. Kidnappers are not very interested in you.

02. In a hostage situation you are likely to be released first.

03. No one expects you to run--anywhere.

04. People call at 9 pm and ask, did I wake you?

05. People no longer view you as a hypochondriac.

06. There is nothing left to learn the hard way.

07. Things you buy now won't wear out.

08. You can eat supper at 4 pm.

09. You can live without sex but not your glasses.

10. You get into heated arguments about pension plans.

11. You no longer think of speed limits as a challenge.

12. You quit trying to hold your stomach in no matter who walks into the room.

13. You sing along with elevator music.

14. Your eyes won't get much worse.

15 . Your investment in health insurance is finally beginning to pay off.

16. Your joints are more accurate meteorologists than the national weather service.

17. Your secrets are safe with your friends because they can't remember them either.

18. Your supply of brain cells is finally down to manageable size.

19. You can't remember who sent you this list.

And Never, under any circumstances, take a sleeping pill and a laxative on the same night."

You got to have a good attitude about life in general and aging in particular. 'Nuf said. Have a good, happy life. Trust me: It goes faster the older you get!