How should I teach myself guitar?

Question

I may be getting a guitar for my birthday. I am 14. I do NOT have any experience with musical instruments. (I only know the G chord of a ukulele) I want to self-teach myself, what book or website would you suggest?

I do NOT want lessons.

Answer 1

Teach Yourself Visually Guitar is a good book.

But really, lessons are your best bet. You can get somewhere with teaching yourself (hence me giving a book title), but you'll develop some bad habits that you may not know about. A teacher will catch these quickly and effectively correct you. Plus, it's nice having someone who shares the same interest as you to talk about music with and stuff. You'll progress faster and learn a lot more with private lessons than with the greatest instructional book and website combined.

You can use books and the web for reference, in addition to lessons. That's what I do.

Answer 2

yeh, what these guys said, practice chords that you get from the internet and play songs with riffs to get fingering down, and also go to www.howtotuneaguitar.org , u can find an auto tuner there and if u go to "lessons", go to "how to read guitar tabs" it'll be easy to read and write music, also surf the site a bit and theres no such thing as an easy way to learn guitar, the websites that say that r stupid, and dont follow posture rules, u find out ur own posture when playin guitar by moving around and see whats comfortable, lastly go around the internet if u dont kno what a certain phrase is, i did the same, now i no what a palm mute and a muted slash chord is. by the way, if ur into hard rock and such then tune ur guitar to drop d, dont worry, howtotuneaguitar.org's tuner has that

Answer 3

i just turned 14 too. and i just got my first guitar. I was so so so mad that i didn't know how to play it or anything so what i did (because i'm a country girl) is i went on to youtube and watched people play...it really helped if you go to instructionals on songs to play then just copy their hand placements. then you go to an instructional that tells you where to put you fingers for different chords and you will soon pick it up. i also got a book from my bother who is off in college and he said that the book really helped him and he's only been playing for like 5 months and he knows a LOT! the book is called the "Guitar Method Book 1" its by Hal Leonard. and it comes with a CD. it's like a teachers book but it will help you learn a lot too...then when you learn how to read chord charts and stuff....you just go online and google the songs you would like to play's chords. i recomend ULTIMATEGUITAR.COM for chords or you could go to 911TABS.COM they also have a bunch of good stuff...well good luck (by the way, the u first start playing your fingers will hurt so soak them in hot water and put a lot of lotion on them so they don't hurt as much...and you'll tend to press really hard when you first start but you will come to find that you don't actually have to press hard at all...) if you need any help on anything or have any questions just email me at [e-mail] and i will help you...GOOD LUCK!

Answer 4

Books are quik, cheap and fast... i started 1 month ago and already have all my chords rememberd like a snap of a finger... The book was "learn to Play Guitar" from Barnes and Noble for $13

Answer 5

Tennis Chick,

I tried playing a guitar but b/c my hands are small I changed to a bass.  Alas, that was a long time ago and I longed so much to play the guitar.  So, I went for a ukulele and have never looked back.  

I did pick up a sale priced guitar lesson book with DVD from Barnes & Noble because I have a friend that said something about learning to play the guitar.  I think it's http://search.barnesandnoble.com/Beginne...  There are many others.

Here's a few of many sites on the internet that should be able to help you.

http://www.freeguitarvideos.com/

http://guitar.about.com/library/blguitar...

http://www.guitartricks.com/

Hope these help.  If not search "free guitar lessons" and see what comes up.  

If you ever want to play ukulele and need help, ask.

Enjoy,

CowUkeA

Answer 6

I would suggest getting lessons because if you teach yourself theres always the chance that you can develop some really bad techniques that later on will be very hard to drop...

If your still not wanting lessons search for it online.

Answer 7

Well you could start off, by learning chords off the Internet,

simple chords such as,

the Gchord, and Dchord,etc.

and practice with those chords.

Also,

go to sites such as ultimate-guitar.com to look up tabs from your favorite songs.

That can help with learning solos, and the rhythms of different songs.

Answer 8

I got my first guitar when I was 7, and I didnt have any experience either, so one way could be buying little magazines and all that, or you could first listen to easy songs like "Sweet Home Alabama" or something like that, and start finding sounds in you guitar that fits the songs, I STRONGLY recommend that you start with Beatles Songs, the first ones like "Love Me Do", "From me To You", and stuff like that, "A Day in the Life" has an easy intro, so you could start with that, then speed up with harder songs, slowly, calm down, and you'll be a good guitar player, so hope this helped man!!

/(XD)\