Learning to play electric guitar.......?

Question

i am trying to learn how to play the electric guitar, but i decided to try and teach myself. im getting confused because there are the chords and the scales and a BILLION other things to learn, but i dont know which ones to use when im learning new songs......HELP!!??!!??

Answer 1

I taught myself and to be honest you don't have to go by every single little thing the books tell you. To be perfectly honest I just bought a guitar (actually it was a birthday present), bought some basic gear and went from there.

As I went on I learned what to do on my own like the scales and how to play them. Although to this day I don't know their names or whether they're minor or major I know their fret notes. If I can do this I'm sure a lot more people can.

I also found out that as you go along you always learn from others who play guitar and what to do. I myself have committed to the self-teaching method and only ask a few questions when I take my guitar in for basic maintenance. Everything else has been by ear and never from anyone else but me.

To do this you just have to keep on playing until you find a style that suits you. I learned right off the bat that I was a rhythm guitarist so I decided to use drop-D tuning and it sounds fine. You just have to keep on learning and find your own style. If you just keep practicing you'll get better and better and if you also experiment on acoustic and the piano you can also find some very cool chords to play.

Answer 2

If you're not planning on taking lessons from an instructor, you might consider still following a course of study. There are lots of book series and DVD series that guide you through the way an instructor would.

The discipline of doing things and learning them in a set order is really good for you, especially at first. So even if a book tutorial has lots of boring stuff you don't really want to do, in your first year of learning, you'll want to bite down and learn it anyway. You'll never know when you need it.

Answer 3

you know what? when i was 12, i taught myself electric & acoustic guitar, drums, bass, flute, and recorder. you'll get there, it's just mindboggling at first- you'll get it. but what i used to do was practice the chord diagrams over and over. try this site.
www.ultimate-guitar.com
it has the best song tabs.

Answer 4

I tried to teach myself and I gave up becouse its so confusing. I guess some people don't have that natural born talent.

Answer 5

Well for me it was getting to know my chords, it was through that, that I started learning my scales through chord chemistry

Answer 6

Listen to a song, and try to copy the tunes by listening. You'll get it.