How I Taught Myself Guitar; What NOT To Do

Most people who learn guitar, do it by teaching themselves how to play. I was a self taught guitar player for over 6 years and there are a few things I would recommend you do, and don't do when teaching yourself guitar.
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The Complete Nashville Number System video course

Check Out My Guitar Tone Course Here!

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Line 6 HX Stomp Presets

Line 6 Helix & Helix LT Presets

Kemper Profiles

Impulse Responses (Helix, Kemper, Iridium & AxeFx)

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DEACON KNIGHT (my band):

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THE BACKSTAGE JOURNAL PODCAST:

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SHIPPING ADDRESS:
5805 State Bridge Road
Suite G90
Johns Creek Ga
30097

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My Video Rig (affiliate links)

CAMERA:
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LENSES:
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-Sigma 35mm f1.4

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SOUND:
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-Universal Audio Apollo X4

-Zoom H6 Handy Recorder

[rawgabbit]

The hardest part of learning guitar is getting used to sounding like garbage.

[jericowithouth]

Ad: Want to learn guitar? Wait don't click ski-
Me: Skip

[paulxaviercyr]

My advice, especially the teenagers...
"Go for it!!"
Don't be shy, don't let others knock you down and take unconstructive criticism with an "F'em" attitude.
It's ok to make mistakes, it's ok to suck, it's ok to be a beginner.
Keep practicing, keep playing and just go for it. Let your inspiration run wild.

[cw]

*leaves guitar open*

my cats : “ make sure you pass the tickets to our neighbors .. we’re gonna rockk tonightttt”

[bowdenmcallister]

One of my favourite quotes is “practice for 5 minutes then PLAY for 1 hour” and I live by that!

[kzK]

"leave your guitar out"
me being extremely lazy: way ahead of you😏

[RolandsDad]

Self taught for over 20 years, a lot of what is mentioned here is rock solid advice. I will add my own for those who care. Those who sort by "new" I love you. : )

I began with trash gear and getting ripped off as a kid, took a long time to learn my way around things. Tabs were a godsend, especially once I learned that you actually have a tuning! I trusted my ear and used (and still use) tabs as a great framework and let my ear do the rest. The hardest part was direction. What, when and how should I learn? Good habits and good technique aren't things you know if you are doing until much later down the line. A video or seven might really set you up well, but without a buddy or teacher it can feel a bit weird. If you have a chance to jam with friends, always take it, I've rarely had a bad time and I knew my limits were pretty easy to achieve.

Absolutely positively use every tool at your disposal like YouTube, tabs, whatever you stumble across if it's something you're serious about. There's no real "right" way to learn, and self teaching introduces you to all the hard parts faster, I believe. You find the parts that come naturally and the ones that stump you every time. Those are the ones that should be babied in the beginning but really hammered on as you genuinely progress. I had a penchant for things like pinch harmonics and triplets. I really struggled with getting my pinky involved and accurate picking in the early years. I got to a point where that had to be adjusted and focused on that exclusively.

As for your gear: sometimes you gotta piss with the cock you got. I did for a time, and you will feel like a new amp, guitar or pedal is what you need. In the early stages it absolutely likely isn't so. It might prevent you from a sound you want i.e. a Floyd Rose on an axe or maybe some delay from a pedal, but it becomes very easy to think a new sound will fix or change you. It gives a lot of inspiration but a month later you'll be in the same rut. I hid behind distortion for YEARS until I stuck with acoustic for an extended period. Then I got a tube amp which is unforgiving for mistakes, ditto delay. That screw up will replay until that delay fades out, baby. As you progress you will begin to know without a doubt what it is you want, then you'll reach the plateau of "gear queer" where you will want all the shiney's. It happens to all of us, inevitably. Play with your knobs and tunings and find how you can get a sound you enjoy with what you have.

Theory, learning your roots and chords will pay dividends as you progress. You'll hear a dude talk about some weird "Dsus7b add3# extra cheese" or whatever and when that makes sense, you're really ahead of us in the game. That's where I am, 20 years later. Don't follow my footsteps and you'll be better.

The ever so cliché, have fun. If it isn't fun, you'll quit. You're going to suck when you start. Those exciting moments of "I got it!" are key, even if they suck. If you mean it, you'll get over the learning hump quicker than you think. We all sucked in the beginning and played "smoke on the water" on one string. We all hated it. Our fingers hurt and always hit a wall where we wanted to quit. It passes, it gets easier and sometimes a fat break helps. A new tuning, a different location, whatever. I've got some faith. If I can learn, I promise you can. I went almost two years before I knew how to tune a guitar.

[arnoikke]

Timestamps:
2:02 Instrument ready to play
3:54 On use of tabs
7:38 Vibrato and bending
11:35 Learn you some music theory
13:42 Set goals

(somewhat based on post by Air conditioning unit)

You're welcome

[airconditioningunit]

1. Don’t keep your guitar in your case. Leave it in the open. Adds motivation
2. Don’t use tabs. Use your ear.
3. Practice bends and vibrato
4. Don’t skip music theory
5. Set goals and milestones

[ahabrawgaming]

Here is a little challenge for beginners, try to play "happy birthday" song without looking it up online on how to play it
just try to figure it out by yourself by experminating on your guitar, if you manage to do it...then think about it what else can you play? I know this sound silly but this will train your brain, ears and your left hand fingers on how to start playing songs by just listening to them.

[Metallizombie]

I agree/disagree with tab. If you trust people to pick things up by ear they might not ever get started and give up. Learning that first song or even first thing that sounds like something can be addictive

[MGUS]

I’ve been teaching guitar for many years, and I’m also self taught, and I agree with every single point you made.
I would only add that as a beginner, one shouldn’t force oneself to practice, there is such a thing as bad practice.

[DalisYn]

Learning by ear is so hard when songs have pedal effects.

[frit]

him: "don‘t skip music theory"
the ad under the video: "skip guitar theory - do THIS instead"

[pen]

I tried playing with my ear, but found it much easier to use my hands.

[jimboilard]

I'm 59 and started playing in '76. There wasn't much tab in the 70s at all and it was mostly wrong. Everyone learned songs by ear. We wore out LPs and tapes trying to figure out stuff. One way we developed the skill for figuring out songs was to play along with the radio. You had 3 minutes to figure it out and then you were off to the next song. After a while you get pretty good at it. Now we have all of these great tools at our disposal, YouTube, Spotify, PCs, lots of tabs, etc. I still try to learn songs by ear first, tab second, YouTube third, if I'm having a hard time. Also, play with other people. This is very important. Another trick is to play a note and then sing it while playing it. Provides major reinforcement.

[parabellum_]

Best quote: "plus, guitars are COOL. Why wouldn't you wanna have one in your room"
That's gold

[nehemiahzo_]

1. Pick a genre
2. Study that genre
3. Practice guitar concepts of that genre.

[geraldaugustus]

These are all great tips for someone who is starting out incredibly dedicated to the craft of learning guitar. But I taught guitar for many years (also after many years of being self taught), and the biggest hurdle for most starting guitar players is managing that commitment. Keeping the guitar out is a great nod to this, but some of this advice is actually terrible for that. The biggest one is, beginners should ABSOLUTELY use tabs if it helps them learn a song that they'll WANT to practice. Most people starting out wont have the ears to just "pick stuff up", so when you reinforce the idea that that's something beginners SHOULD be able to do, then when someone can't it immediately sends the message "well I guess I'm not talented enough/good enough/musical enough to play guitar", and 9 times out of 10 they quit. To any beginners, THAT'S NOT TRUE. If you can't learn your current favourite song by just listening and plucking around, OF FUCKING COURSE YOU CANT. Get a tab, get a friend who kinda knows it, watch youtube (which rhett does suggest). Do whatever it takes to learn the thing that you'll ENJOY practicing. Should you also try plucking things out by ear? Of course! And as you develop your ears and that skill you'll likely find it super rewarding and may end up writing some tab corrections yourself! But the messaging that if you don't do that you're learning guitar wrong is terrible. Also, forget about theory and vibrato when you're starting. I learned theory 2-3 years into playing and tbh, it was perfect timing. I understood enough about playing that the theory mapped onto the guitar in a way that had so many that's why" moments and made learning it really rewarding. I'm not arguing the relevance and benefits of working on vibrato and theory, rather saying, if you're here trying to get tips on how to get started out teaching yourself guitar, those things are not where you start.

[Alexios_CV]

Dont obsess over learning the guitar. Play something you love on it and the rest follow