[quote="Simplex"](Animals) House of the Rising Sun.[/quote]

That song is effing win, just for the chords alone.

[quote="Blank"][quote="Utsuseru"]Any suggestions on how I could improve?[/quote]

PRACTICE

[/quote]

I do, it's just that I don't know if I'm doing it right.
I sometimes practice from my Guitar Method Book, I try at tab, and do finger excercises, but when I try to play a song from tab and chords, I have a really hard time.

I recomend making a song or two, learning a song of two. Warming up by practicing them. Then get out a metronome and jam, making sure to challenge yourself and experiment. Then when you feel like you're done, do another run through of the songs. Thats how I do it and it's working out for me.

If you come up with something you like practice the hell out of it, throw flar on it, take it in different directions. Its important to play stuff you have fun with because if you actually use it in a song you're gonna play it ALOT.

when it comes to learning a song. I think someone already said this. Start slow. start by reading either the verse or chorus riff and learn it slowly until you got it. Play the hell out of it. Then buckel down on the next part.

I'm mostly a rhythm player/vox so my practice technique may be different from others. But this is just what I found works best for me. my motto is "practice alot, but have fun practicing." it shouldnt feel like work to play the guitar.

I have been playing for a year now and I started with a teacher who wasreally awesome. He was really chill and taught me the basics really well. I learned chords, a few scales, and some blues. After I stopped going with him, I just started looking up tabs and playing whatever I wanted. I can play a few songs decently and i may play with some friends at school that wann amaek a band. I didn't know what to do for a while. Should look up some scales, new tabs, or make my own stuff? That' swhen I stopped playing for like 2 weeks, then just decided to learn new songs and go on from there.

I woudl say I practice everyday for like an hour so it's not that bad. When I sprained my ankle last week, that's all I would, so it wasn't so bad staying home all day

Utsuseru i woudl say practice switching from chord to chord a lot, it's really hard at the beggining, but after a lot of practice, you won't even have trouble going from chord to chord
Heres an excersice I use to do to practice.
Play the chords in order and when you hit D7 go back to G
G Em C D7

Let me know if it worked

Alright, I've been "playing" guitar for about a year, but I haven't been taking lessons and haven't progressed very much. I was thinking about teaching myself, but I don't think I have enough basic knowledge. Should I start taking lessons again?

Utsuseru

Ive been playing for roughly 2 years, at about a year, i sounded decent. but see decent is what you consider it to be. Decent to me was when i could play a cover and it sounded like the song, ( obviously not always difficult peices) but i couldnt make my own solos, but after learning the penatonic scales, i could. so...what imi getting at is decent is what you let it be.

Also i think having people to play with makes a big difference. I had good people all aroudn to play with, wheter to just jam, or ask "hey how do you do that?" or learn a song together or anything. It really impacted my plyaing, also the competition amongst eachother to get better. Teachers are good but it really depends on the person teaching you. If you can read tabs, learn tabbed scales/modes ( I have some i could write out for you) and learn the basic chords and all and then you can make your own songs.

One more thing, i believe learning to play bands you like help to emulate their sound and mixing other bands sounds together to 1. Learn the neck and wehre notes are, 2. where notes are on the neck and how they relate to one another, 3. new chords and how they go together. ( songs have def helped me learnw hich chords go with what and new chords to play and how they can relate) Guitar is easy to learn, hard to master.

if your interested theres another easy exercise you can do to get better playing for alternate picking and jsut making sure you get good qualitly sounds i guess. lol

[quote="Busterkun_Scarecrow"]Guitar is easy to learn, hard to master.[/quote]

Guitar is also easy to make platitudes about.

[quote="sheerheartattack"][quote="Busterkun_Scarecrow"]Guitar is easy to learn, hard to master.[/quote]

Guitar is also easy to make platitudes about. [/quote]

i think the same applies for Othello. Too bad no one knows what the fuck it is. So yeah. Let's never say that again.

[quote="skoolyardpunk"]i think the same applies for Othello. Too bad no one knows what the fuck it is. So yeah. Let's never say that again.[/quote]

Hah, When I started playing the guitar some two months ago I decided I should be able to play Bob Dylans Po' Boy in three months. The funny part is that it has a verse that goes something like "Othello told Desdemona 'I'm cold, cover me with a blanket'/'By the way, what happened to that poisoned wine'/She said 'I gave it to you, you drank it'" Great song, actually.

For now, I have learned a little bit of picking, Smile intro/verse from Keitaros tab is nice 'cos I love the song, but I still occasionally mute strings by accident.

Acoustic chord strumming is starting to get easier, but I have found chords like Fm, F#, Gm etc. challencing because the G-string just doesn't want to be still and sound nice under the barre finger.

I'm looking forward to get an electic guitar to play with.

I started maybe 2 years ago, and only recently would I say I'm [i]decent[/i].

When I really got serious was when I saw Overburn's youtube vids, maybe a year ago.

For graduating to "Decent" status I've rewarded myself with a CIJ Fender Mustang (it's coming in the mail). Yay!

I'm pathetic, I try to practice, then get confused/know nothing about what I'm doing and trying to play tabs and eventually give up. I'm really sick of being in a constant state of wanting to learn, but not knowing where to start.

[quote="AWPJudy"]I'm pathetic, I try to practice, then get confused/know nothing about what I'm doing and trying to play tabs and eventually give up. I'm really sick of being in a constant state of wanting to learn, but not knowing where to start.
[/quote]

I keep thinking this thread is sexually-themed.

Took me 'bout an hour.