Like able to strum and sing along without a pause.

I tried to learn guitar and seems like alot of people think it’s easy. But i have difficulties playing while singing. Is this normal? What should i do to improve? What are the basics a beginner should learn before jumping to the advance of singing and strumming together?

It’s just a matter of practice. You have to learn the chords well enough that you make them and change them automatically while you’re singing. This is why you start with very simple (stupid) 2-chord songs like Skip to my Lou and Ten Little Indians.

Also it’s easier in keys like A or D, so you don’t have to struggle with the dreaded F chord. F isn’t really hard, but it takes some concentration.

Just keep plugging away, you’ll get it. It’s not as hard as it might seem at first, so don’t get discouraged.

my cousin just gave me his electric guitar and i wanted to learn how to play it but there is no place around where i live to get lessons…some people in school can play the guitar but they are all boys and im too afraid to ask them to give me some lessons so i would like to know how long it usually takes to teach yourself how to play electric guitar?

Here’s a breakdown of the stages of guitar learning and the approximate time it might take you to get there.

- Playing Basic Chords - This is usually the first benchmark most new players reach: The ability to strum and switch between the basic guitar chords. At this point you don’t necessarily have the chords memorized and aren’t able to play many songs, but you’re managing to fret and strum them. This level can be reached within one week.

- Playing easy songs - You’ve mastered more guitar chords and have been practicing them enough that you’ve got most of them memorized and are able to strum and switch between them without too much hassle, and without looking at the fretboard when you do. This means you can play songs! This level can be reached in two to three weeks of daily practice, though for many it might be longer.

- Playing Barre and Power Chords - We’re moving right along and you’re advancing to a level where most self-taught guitarists never go. Barre Chords are much more difficult than open chords and learning these takes extra practice and a whole new set of strength in your fretting hand. It’s possible to play most barre chords in two months, quicker for some who practice a lot.

- Fingerpicking - The ability to pluck individual strings and play simple riffs (short solo pieces on individual strings) is a new skill your strumming hand needs to learn. This can usually be achieved in two to three months if you start to learn and play easy guitar tabs.

- Lead Guitar - A Lead guitarist is the guy or girl who’s got the audience at his/her beckoning. Playing solo’s and using techniques like slurring, vibrato and palm muting is a whole new set of rules and I’d give it three to four months. This might be way off depending on what kind of music we’re talking about - playing acoustic solo’s might take less time, but playing rock or metal solo’s will probably take longer.

- The improviser - A guitarist that can improvise riffs and solos on the spot (and in the middle of a song), have moved from the realm of amateurship to being a pro or semi-pro. Depending on how much talent you have and what you’re musical background is, this might take anything from six months to a year.

Please note that these time lengths are given as a very broad estimate and aimed at people with little musical experience. If it takes you longer than a week to learn the basic chords, don’t get upset. These times are not set in stone and you have to learn and develop at a pace that’s natural and comfortable for you!

http://www.pluckandplayguitar.com/how-long-to-learn-guitar.html

I’ve looked everywhere on the internet and its just too confusing. and doesn’t sound right when i play it. And i don’t have one of those things that goes around the fret of your guitar.

There are several ways to play it that don’t require a capo. The most common way is to play a basic A chord with your last 3 fingers and move it up a whole step and use the index finger to play the 1st string at the second fret.
—2—index
—4—pinky
—4—ring
—4—middle
—x—don’t play
—x—don’t play
This shape is like an A chord moved up 2 frets. Another common variation is the B7 chord. It is played like this:
—2—pinky
—0—open
—2—ring
—1—index
—2—middle
—x—don’t play
This is a very common chord and it works very well with E and A. Another common variation is to play the F chord at the 7th fret (When you move the F chord up to the 7th fret it becomes a B chord)
I might suggest getting a good chord chart at your local music store and maybe a capo too, they are both inexpensive

Discipline when you are practicing the guitar is very important. Learning to play the guitar is one of the most rewarding things I have ever done in my life but it was also one of the hardest. The reason that I became proficient with my instrument is simple. I practiced, and I practiced a lot; every day in my bedroom from the age of 16 (I’m 25 now). I spent most of my time practicing the fundamentals: running up and down scales, changing chords and trying to improve my repertoire of songs.

Sometimes it was easy to make time to practice because I was in a good mood and I really wanted to play. At those times I could spend hours just listening to how cool it sounded when I changed from the chord D to the chord G. But on other days it was my discipline and desire to play and improve that made me practice and develop as a player.

There are two main factors when it comes to discipline in practice: practicing regularly and practicing well. Both of these are important to address.

Practicing regularly is the most obvious and easy to do. Basically you should play the guitar every day. These don’t need to be mammoth, three hour long sessions. 30 minutes will generally be fine if you are focused during that time. Doing regular, small amounts of practice is far better than going all out for hours once a week. I know that in a busy life it can be hard to make the time to practice but honestly 30 minutes a day is achievable for anyone. There is no set time that is best to practice but I prefer to do it in the evening simply because I find playing the guitar is a relaxing way to wind down after a stressful day.

Practicing badly is a more common and difficult to address problem. This is something that affects even the most experienced player. This problem has several causes and solutions.

• Playing the same thing over and over every time you play. I am a firm believer that you should play something perfectly before you move on. BUT, once you know how to play something you need to move on and keep challenging yourself.

• The opposite is also a problem: moving on too quickly. You should practice so that you play a piece well before you go on to the next thing. Playing perfectly and accurately is an excellent habit for any musicians to have.

• Not focusing on developing all parts of your musicianship when you are practicing. I like to split my playing into parts. For example I might spend 5 minutes practicing new scales or chords, 10 minutes working on writing new music for myself and maybe 15 minutes learning a new song or part of a song.

• Playing things too fast when you first try and learn them. This can cause you to become disillusioned with your playing when you are trying to learn a new song. Most guitarists, including myself try playing a song at a slow speed before trying it a fast pace.

Practicing properly and regularly is the best way to become good at anything including playing the guitar. This requires discipline. Not only discipline to practice regularly, but also discipline to stay focused and on track when you are practicing. If you stay disciplined with your playing you will develop in to an excellent player.

Learn Acoustic Guitar NOW With FREE LESSONS

michael
http://www.articlesbase.com/music-articles/learn-acoustic-guitar-onlineits-cheaper-and-quicker-1259349.html

I have just started to play the guitar and I need some good easy songs that would help me get a good grasp on the guitar. Websites and Links would really help. Thank You!

www.ultimate-guitar.com is good.
As for easy songs, just try out Oasis songs. You can practise getting used to the basic chords in their songs before moving on.

I took 8 lessons this summer so I know some basic stuff. The lessons were getting quite pricey, so I decided to drop them. =(

I am really passionate about learning and I was wondering if anyone has any experience on learning the guitar on their own. Are there any useful websites? Is it possible to learn it on your own? Would I be gaining more from my private lessons with an actual teacher?

Its quiet possible to learn guitar on your own, I haven’t had a lesson in my life, yet I am an avid guitar player. Besides the basics are sometimes the hardest parts to learn, which you have already covered.

Hears a list of some useful site and such…
1. Youtube, it has lots of instructional videos on how to play songs and various techniques for guitar.
2. 911tabs.com, it is a great web site that provides links to the best quality tabs of whatever song you are looking for.
3. GuitarPro or Tuxguitar, both are programs that you can input tabs into and hear the play back. They both include other instruments as well so you can play along with drums and such. Tuxguitar is free!
4. Look up the user rockongoodpeople on youtube, they have tons of great instructional videos on various songs and techniques and styles.

E-major is a very common key for guitar oriented songs. Many blues songs are written in this key and a lot of riffs can also be found. We will now explore some of the exciting open chords you will find in this key!

We will start this guitar lesson by playing the most common E-major chord:

E: 0/6 2/5 2/4 1/3 0/2 0/1

What type of tab notation is this?

I use this type of guitar tablature notation because the more common tablature staffs are sometimes displayed incorrectly on article sites.

The first number indicates the fret to press down. The number after the slash shows which string to play. For example, 2/5 means: Press down the second fret on string five.

This E-major chord can be slided to various frets on the guitar creating a lot of nice sounding chords.

In order not to complicate this guitar lesson too much I will use a very easy notation only showing which fret to put your left index finger on with the assumption that you use the most common left hand fingering for this chord.

Here you have the fingering I am referring to:

Index finger on 1/3
Ring finger on 2/4
Middle finger on 2/5

The other notes in the chord are on open strings so by sliding the chord we will now create a lot of different guitar chord progressions that can be used as intros to songs or in other ways.

We will call the E-major chord previously explained for I because I is the roman numeral for one and the index finger is on fret one in this normal E-major position.

If we slide the chord up so that we preserve the chord shape and place the index finger on fret 4 we will call the chord IV because this is the roman numeral 4 and roman numerals are often used to indicate positions on the guitar.

This sliding will result in a chord sounding like a mix between G-major and E-minor actually Em7.

We will now slide the chord up to position VI and we will get a new nice chord sounding like A-major.

Time for our first chord progression:

I / / / IV / / / VI / / / I / / /

We will now add just one more chord by sliding the E-major chord up to the eigth position notated VIII. It is a B-major chord with some spices added.

Time for a new guitar chord progression:

I / / / IV / / / VI / / / VIII / / /

Of course there are many other possibilities. You might have come up with other ones already. We will now try a flamenco flavoured chord progression. We will use the F-major chord with some added notes.

We will find this special F-major chord by sliding up the E-major chord just one fret. We will notate this chord position as II.

Time to listen to the flamenco progression:

I / / / II / / / IV / / / II / / / I

Try a rassgueado

Rasgueado is a strumming technique that can be used in conjunction with the previous chords.

Rasgueado generally uses only one digit (finger, thumb, etc) for each strum; this means that multiple strums can be done more quickly than usual by using multiple digits in quick succession.

Let us make a fist with the right hand fingers. Try to make one finger at a time explode on the strings. For example in the order pinky, ring finger, middle finger and index.

There are two remaining progressions for you to explore. The first one with the E-major shape moved to the eleventh position meaning as you already know that the left hand index finger presses down fret eleven. This will result in a D-major chord with some flavours.

Here is the guitar progression:

I / / / XI / / / VI / / / VIII / / /

In the next progression we will use a version of the F#7 chord by sliding the E-major up to the third position:

I / / / III / / / VI / / / VIII / / /

These are some of the exciting guitar chords you will find in the key of E. This key really gives many opportunities for the inventive guitarist to find interesting chord changes!

Peter Edvinsson
http://www.articlesbase.com/music-articles/guitar-chords-open-chord-progressions-in-the-key-of-e-120973.html

I don’t even play guitar, I’m just using it because I’m making a song into an orchestra piece and I somehow made the play button, stop button, etc. disappear and this program is too big and confusing to be able to figure out on my own.
Wow what a waste, I just figured out how to make the toolbar re-appear DX

there goes your 5 points hahahahahahaha

How much would you have to practice? 2/3 hours a day?

Yup give it up. Your too old to learn anything at this point.

Put on your 7Eleven apron and face the rest of your life!

In this world with all kinds of styles of music and bands, finding someone to teach you what you really dream of playing is kind of tough. The problem is finding a teacher who’ll give you a good guitar lesson that doesn’t include all the stuff that really doesn’t matter when it comes down to just playing a song.

You can practice for many hours to replicate your favorite guitar player playing style, but when you have the proper instruction you have the path to get to the point of playing fluently you will be able to copy the style and get it down.

Some play fast and narrow and others play wide and slow, this is how you learn how to use different vibrato techniques, practice and more practice. Once you’ve achieved a basic understanding of the correct notes and sounds you are ready to start learning how to tune by ear. The traditional way of learning guitar is by taking private lessons from a guitar teacher. The number of choices is overwhelming, ranging from distance instruction learning or online lessons. Today there are many options to learn how to play instruments whether you like rock, jazz, rock or classical music, these are just a few of the many types of music.

The key to mastering the guitar successfully is in making the chord changes which will help in playing the instrument. They are the C major chord, G major chord, and the D major chord. You should spend hours practicing chords and scales forms and all the while making sure that each note sounds perfect.

But you will find that if you use these simple scale forms in conjunction with an appropriate chord progression this will sound good more often. A chord progression based on the A minor chord will sound good with A minor pentatonic and a C major chord will sound good with C major scale.

When learning how to play the guitar, often many people form and create bad habits which does not help with the playing of the guitar, they need to work twice as hard to switch to good habits and get back on track.. These bad habits are easy to overcome once the person realizes that he has them and becomes familiar with the proper way to play the guitar.

You know the saying, practice makes perfect. But it is something you should try to incorporate into your practice as regularly as possible if you want to see a real improvement in the solos and melodies you make on guitar.

David Marc Fishman
http://www.articlesbase.com/education-articles/learning-the-guitar-81887.html