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Recently found myself the owner of a shiny new acoustic guitar and am very keen on teaching myself how to play. I want to play solo fingerstyle acoustic guitar stuff such as Michael Hedges.
Using a few websites at the moment to teach myself some basics but if anyone had any tips such as useful DVDs, books, learning methods etc I would shower you with praise, karma and other such niceties
I tried to learn acoustic guitar a few years back but always hit the problem of not being able to play properly with my right hand. Strumming is so much easier than precise plucking the frets and stuff were ok tho. I used a beginners book that i got from my local music shop ( which is where we bought the basic guitar too )
I did get a lot of music off the net tho as they had the score and a webcast of how to play it with it and that did make it easier. Bit like guitar hero but real ^^
I think I have been told in the past i have piano fingers so I always say that's why i flunked the guitar so bad
There are some guitar players on TF and I'm sure they will give you some good sources.
Oh and i just recalled there used to be an acoustic guitar learning programme on BBC you should have a search around see if you can get them off their site. They were aimed at kids learning so were easy to learn from.
I got a really cool book on acoustic guitar, mainly fingerpicking. Theres some chords, but its very hillbilly sounding shizzle.
Im pretty useless musically, but i managed to work my way through it and stuff. Came with a CD so you can hear what its all supposed to sound like. Left me being quite able to play some cool fingerpicking stuff, but totally useless at rock power chords and such.
I think I'll probably drop in to a local music shop as the selection of stuff on Amazon et al is not too impressive.
No joy in finding that BBC program however, any idea what the name was?
Most of the books I've used for learning guitar have been from Hal Leonard, purely 'cause it was the easiest one to get a hold of. They're not so bad really, fairly easy to follow and you can get them with DVDs and all that jazz.
I'm also quite fond of Rock House DVDs, they're pretty decent, and I also have a few books knocking around that are like "The complete learn to play manual of..." on lead and fingerpicking. You can get them from Amazon for like £15...
if your a total beginner try getting some proper lesson that is what i would do just to get hang of the basics
Tbh, while it's handy to have a competent player you can ask questions to, you don't necessarily need a teacher in order to get a handle on the basics. I started playing after I found an old acoustic hidden in the attic, printed out some basic lessons from GuitarNoise.com and thought to myself "hmm, this shit isn't so hard"...
Having someone who can play is useful if you're baffled by a tab for a song or need a demonstration of a specific technique. And music theory is pretty simple, you just need to memorise it.
I had wondered if I was shooting myself in the foot by not having lessons, but then I learned that Pierre Bensusan is self-taught, so at least I have a chance.
Thankfully there are a few musicians on my block so if I do need help with something, they're only a few doors away.