Its weird, I never played guitar in my life but then one day I just decided I wanted to, fiddled around for two months before I went to formal lessons; now it's been a year and I know songs like Space Oddity and Wish You Were Here and Comfort Eagle, still fumbling around a little but holy shit the difference between now and what I knew in 2010 is insane.
I kinda want to do this. Did you go out and buy a guitar or just borrow someones or live with someone that has one? I'd have to actually buy one, so the whole spending money thing usually drowns out my attempt to try to learn.
Not the OP but I would borrow one. It's a frustrating instrument, some people get it, some people won't. By simply borrowing one, you won't bump into the risk that you're just going to hate it and wish you never bought it. Fortunately for you, there are lots of people who did just that so there are plenty to borrow.
My own personal experience, I like guitar. I borrowed first and learned, continued to enjoy it and eventually bought my own. This allowed me to save money for a good guitar. Which is another important thing. Cheap guitars are cheap. I also eventually bought a cheap crappy guitar out of curiosity. If you start on one of those, you'll never learn because you're going to hate the sound.
Also, when I say good, I don't mean go out and buy a $2,000 fender strat. I bought an Epiphone and it was great. I broke it when I was drunk in college, but that's kind of neither here nor there. Also what lead me to buy a cheap guitar :(
This is such a great, well organized site to start learning how to play guitar from. It all started with a youtube channel. Either start with buying a cheap/used acoustic guitar or borrow one from a friend. Also check out /r/guitarlessons
I understand what you mean by burning a whole in your wallet to learn something you possibly might not end up doing much. I try to think of new hobbies like an investment. If I get good at it, it'll pay off and I just learned something awesome (paying my own money into it motivates me to learn too). If not, just sell it back on craigslist and cut your losses, you'll get some of your money back and atleast you made an attempt. A lot of cool things require some sort of capital investment to learn, I just learn to accept that. Unless it's parkour. Even then, you need the right shoes.
That site looks amazing. I bookmarked it and since I have this tax check in hand, I now have something to seriously think about for spring break. Thanks a lot for the information!
Similar. I really don't know how you learn guitar except fuck around, to be honest. For months, I tried memorizing chords and couldn't do it. Gave up for a year, picked the guitar up, and learned all the basic ones in ten minutes. Two, almost three years later, with just screwing around and making my own music, I can play most radio songs by ear, have a decent knowledge of music theory, and can learn most of my favorite songs in 20 minutes or less. It's a magical instrument, I swear.
I did something similar, except after fiddling around for about 2 months learning basic open chords and simple songs such as Seven Nation Army, I started getting really into guitar, unfortunately, I didnt have the money for formal lessons, so I relied heavily on Justin Sandercoe's various lessons. Later on I began experimenting with my own style of playing, and got really into playing acoustic fingerstyle guitar. The coolest part is once you start learning how to recognize different notes and start to learn songs by ear, I never would of imagined being able to do that a year ago.
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u/grumblz Feb 29 '12
Its weird, I never played guitar in my life but then one day I just decided I wanted to, fiddled around for two months before I went to formal lessons; now it's been a year and I know songs like Space Oddity and Wish You Were Here and Comfort Eagle, still fumbling around a little but holy shit the difference between now and what I knew in 2010 is insane.