what are good beginning guitar practice lessons?

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bball_1523

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I have no idea how to practice effectively!

-Usually I play my guitar a few times a week, not once a day because sometimes I get lazy and forget and a lot of times I'm just too busy.

--Anyways when I play guitar I start off playing some thrash metal stuff like Metallica and such and then maybe I'll practice an easy scale. Then I play the 1,2,3,4 up the strings to the 12th fret, picking up and down, usually I do it once or even half of it, because I get bored of it.

--Then I start playing battery by metallica or something fast and heavy and I get bored and put away my guitar.


-I need advice on what I can do to get better at hitting chords, scales and faster picking (palm muted too downpicking too).
 
play along to a CD. not what is being played, but make up something to go with it.
 
Here are a few suggestions..

-Warm Up. ALWAYS. You can do serious damage to your hands if you don't start by playing slow exercises to get the fingers warmed up. The 1,2,3,4 exercise you mentioned is a good thing to warm up with. Start instead at the 12th fret and work your way down and then back up so that you slowly stretch your fingers properly. Also, start slow and gradually move faster. You don't need to spend much time doing this exercise.. maybe five minutes or so.

-You said you wanted to work on picking. Try http://www.guitarnotes.com/notes/noteget.cgi?picking_speed for some great exercises for fast tremelo style picking. Tremelo picking takes a particular technical approach that involves not so much emphasis on working the wrist as it does keeping the wrist locked and moving the forearm back and forth (much like strumminng an acoustic guitar). These exercises not only help with your picking, but really work your fret hand too. The faster you pick, the faster your fret hand has to move to keep up the pace. Unfortunately, this particular site does not deal with sweep picking, but learning this technique will also increase your left hand coordination. I spend about thirty minutes a day working on these exercises.

-I would suggest going through your cds and finding other stuff you want to learn and try to pick it up by ear. It doesnt have to be guitar either. It could be a piano part or a sax part..

-If you want to learn about scales, do a search on the internet for modes for guitar. You'll discover that each mode has its own flavor which may make your practice routine less boring..

Basically, the idea is to have a structured practice session where you allot portions of time to work on those things you need improvement. I would recommend starting with warming up and picking exercises, then move onto learning new music and/or modes. Save the most enjoyable work for last.

Unfortunately, improvement usually comes with just a lot of practice. But even just a half-hour of structured daily practice can do wonders. Practice also has to be consistent in order to be effective: at least try to practice on the same days each week, if not as many consecutive days as possible. In my case, I don't like to push myself to practice on Tuesdays and Thursdays because of all the other crap I have to deal with, so I at least stick with practicing Friday thru Monday, and then again on Wednesday. Be warned though: faster picking will only come with constant repitition. If you really can't practice every day, then either put this kind of work off until you can devote that kind of time, or play while doing other things, like watching TV.

Cy
 
Thanks for the useful tips, I need to take that advice into good hands.


-How can I work on hitting a chord clearly, usually I can't even switch from one chord to another, without messing up.
 
Cyrokks advice about playing in front of the TV is a good one, once the rest of the family get used to it. After a while you're not even aware all the time that your fingers are moving around the fretboard. You can't get bored that way. I'm no speedpicker and probably never will be, but I'm getting faster, even though that isn't even my primary goal.
The magazine Total guitar has a "Beginners special" just released. Looks like a good place for you to pick up on some things and get a variety in your practice.
 
bball_1523 said:
-How can I work on hitting a chord clearly, usually I can't even switch from one chord to another, without messing up.
Click to expand...

I'm not sure what you mean by "hitting the chord clearly", but if your concern is that you can't get all the notes to ring when you strum the chord, then you are not pressing down hard enough on the strings. Also, be sure that you are placing your fingers just behind the fret.


Find a song that you like where the guitar part involves individual notes played in each chord. Good examples include "House of the Rising Sun" and "Sweet Home Alabama", the tablature of which I'm sure is available online. Even better would be to learn a song that involves basic fingerpicking like the too popular "Stairway to Heaven" or "Blackbird" (although, "Blackbird" may be too difficult). Songs like these require fast and clean transitions between chords. You would start extremely slow (get a metronome if you don't have one) and work your way towards the established tempo.

Learning to move from one chord to the next is one of the hardest things to accomplish when you are just starting out, and it will take quite some time before the transitions start to snap and feel natural. The optimal situation would be to practice chordal movements on an acoustic guitar, but if you only have electric, then just keep the tone clean.

Cy
 
Speaking of the TV and your guitar...
Make sure that you are tuned up to concert pitch first.
Then play along with the melodies of the show themes and commercials.When I was a kid,the fun shows to play along with were Munsters,Flintstones,Dick Van Dyke,Lucy and many other memorable musical themes.If you can develop an ear for melody,whatever style that you play in will be enhanced.Picking themes out by ear is an important skill to learn.
 
Cyrokk said:
I'm not sure what you mean by "hitting the chord clearly", but if your concern is that you can't get all the notes to ring when you strum the chord, then you are not pressing down hard enough on the strings. Also, be sure that you are placing your fingers just behind the fret.


Find a song that you like where the guitar part involves individual notes played in each chord. Good examples include "House of the Rising Sun" and "Sweet Home Alabama", the tablature of which I'm sure is available online. Even better would be to learn a song that involves basic fingerpicking like the too popular "Stairway to Heaven" or "Blackbird" (although, "Blackbird" may be too difficult). Songs like these require fast and clean transitions between chords. You would start extremely slow (get a metronome if you don't have one) and work your way towards the established tempo.

Learning to move from one chord to the next is one of the hardest things to accomplish when you are just starting out, and it will take quite some time before the transitions start to snap and feel natural. The optimal situation would be to practice chordal movements on an acoustic guitar, but if you only have electric, then just keep the tone clean.

Cy
Click to expand...

- I can kinda play chords, but I always mess up on switching from one chord to another, for example: Pennywise - Alien; they have fast chord transition, and I always mess up and sometimes the strings sound different and fuzz, or don't even play at all, maybe I'll hear a harmonic, lol.
 
yeah, that's what i thought you were referring to. You just need to press down harder on the fretboard to make the strings ring. And messing up between switching chords just takes practice to fix.

Try playing only one note of each chord until you can do them clean, then add one note at a time as you progress..

Cy
 
To clean up your chords you might try arpeggios, that way you hear each note clearly. Work on chords that are cloce together and have similar finger positions to start with then expand as your strength ( to hold chords longer ) and dexterity ( to use more chords ) increase. Don't get discouraged, we've all heard those same fuzzy and buzzing chords. Time and lots of practice will eventualy make them sound better.
 
bball_1523 said:
- I can kinda play chords, but I always mess up on switching from one chord to another, for example: Pennywise - Alien; they have fast chord transition, and I always mess up and sometimes the strings sound different and fuzz, or don't even play at all, maybe I'll hear a harmonic, lol.
Click to expand...
Start off playing it at the speed where you can play it perfectly, no matter how slow that is. Then gradually increase your speed. If you increase the speed and start making mistakes again, then slow down. If you play fast and make mistakes then you're ingraining those mistakes.
 
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