Guitar Megathread - learn-share-talk-lessons-tips-fun

[Dominik]

The F bar chord is like the yellow belt of chord positions.

Everyone faps over Suhr, Tom Anderson, etc. and rightly so but Ibanez has produced a few interesting designs over the years. Another one I found from the 80s — Steve Lukather sig model. I like it. That's a beautiful finish for something 35 years old and it's aged well. Could easily be from their 2019 catalog and if Martin Miller was playing it no one would have any idea it's from 1984.

[lowkey122]

It takes a minute but it shouldn't take too long. I suggest practicing the open chord transition C to G to E back to G and repeat.
If you're doing the F "bar" chord I suggest getting the open chords down first. The F bar chord is like the yellow belt of chord positions.

This is just my humble opinion but I wish I'd learned barre chords first. I know it might seem contrary to the way most people approach chords but I would've picked up notes on the fretboard so much quicker and been able to play along with songs sooner by learning two shapes vs having to learn a dozen different open shapes.

How long did everyone take to comfortably change chords? Three days in and C/F are the two basics that require me to individually move the fingers to them. Hoping for smooth transitions within a month.

A month is reasonable but to pull them off clean and without having to look might be different for everyone.

[SwimToTheMoon]

Fuark, index finger has a mad blister on the tip of it. RIP in pieces.

How long did everyone take to comfortably change chords? Three days in and C/F are the two basics that require me to individually move the fingers to them. Hoping for smooth transitions within a month.

lmao@u if you're not playing Shawn Lane chords by the first week

E-0
B-6
G-12
D-10
A -8
E- 5

[rollerball]

lol

[ChewYourFood]

This is just my humble opinion but I wish I'd learned barre chords first. I know it might seem contrary to the way most people approach chords but I would've picked up notes on the fretboard so much quicker and been able to play along with songs sooner by learning two shapes vs having to learn a dozen different open shapes.

I've kind of agree with you - BUT I always thought that Barre shaped open chords should be taught first. i.e. instead of fingering E / Em* / A / Am with you index/middle*/ring* you learn to fret with your middle/ring*/pinkie first*. Then you slide those open barre chord shapes down one fret and slam your index finger down and you are playing all open shaped barre variants. On day one you are practicing both open and barre chords.

You get a great return on investment - essentially you learn OVER 80 chords for the price of 7.

Also if you want to learn to speed up chord changes try:


It starts off too slow and gradually works up. You do this with any chord change 1x a day for a week and I promise you that your changes will significantly improve.

[z4v4]

You guys are wanting to make learning the guitar incredibly difficult by playing the most difficult beginner shapes first (or using the most difficult fingers first).

Most people would quit after a month if they're trying to play a C chord with fingers 2,3,4 or do a full F barre, and the ones who hang in there will quit once they realize how difficult it will be to make such fingerings functional.

Finally, anyone who actually got there would then have a 1st finger that is behind all other fingers, in a harmonic context, because its only use has been to function as a capo when playing chords.

There's a reason why books like Mel Bay, Berklee, etc., start off with 1 finger G, G7 and C chords, and once those are functional, add a second finger, make that functional, and so on until full chord forms are reached and functional. It's because it gets progressively more difficult as the skill level raises, yet the material always remains challenging but never seem out-of-reach.

A 5yo doesn't start off on a mini-piano keyboard trying to reach a 10th and practicing R 7th 5th 3rd voiced chord forms nor does an adult on a full-sized piano. Who wants to fight through that?

[Dave76]

lmao@u if you're not playing Shawn Lane chords by the first week

E-0
B-6
G-12
D-10
A -8
E- 5

Please forgive my ignorance. I can play each of those chords at several positions up and down the fret board using the three basic chord positions. What do the numbers after your chords mean? ie, I'm not sure what "G-12" even means.

[VTheKing]

Everyone faps over Suhr, Tom Anderson, etc. and rightly so but Ibanez has produced a few interesting designs over the years. Another one I found from the 80s — Steve Lukather sig model. I like it. That's a beautiful finish for something 35 years old and it's aged well. Could easily be from their 2019 catalog and if Martin Miller was playing it no one would have any idea it's from 1984.

[img]

I saw one of those for sale in my local classified, beautiful guitar but I have too many right now lol. Ibanez now uses the same finish in some of their Iron Label models too, they've really been pimping out their mid-range offerings as of late.

You guys are wanting to make learning the guitar incredibly difficult by playing the most difficult beginner shapes first (or using the most difficult fingers first).

Most people would quit after a month if they're trying to play a C chord with fingers 2,3,4 or do a full F barre, and the ones who hang in there will quit once they realize how difficult it will be to make such fingerings functional.

Finally, anyone who actually got there would then have a 1st finger that is behind all other fingers, in a harmonic context, because its only use has been to function as a capo when playing chords.

There's a reason why books like Mel Bay, Berklee, etc., start off with 1 finger G, G7 and C chords, and once those are functional, add a second finger, make that functional, and so on until full chord forms are reached and functional. It's because it gets progressively more difficult as the skill level raises, yet the material always remains challenging but never seem out-of-reach.

A 5yo doesn't start off on a mini-piano keyboard trying to reach a 10th and practicing R 7th 5th 3rd voiced chord forms nor does an adult on a full-sized piano. Who wants to fight through that?

I'm not sure if I agree in the case of the F chord. I have small hands and I had all the open chords down after a few weeks. Then ~2 months later I had the barre F, and when it came to learning CAGED knowing how to barre was fundamental in unlocking the fretboard. And of course, an immense amount of popular songs are really just barre chords being moved around.

[ChewYourFood]

You guys are wanting to make learning the guitar incredibly difficult by playing the most difficult beginner shapes first (or using the most difficult fingers first).

Most people would quit after a month if they're trying to play a C chord with fingers 2,3,4 or do a full F barre, and the ones who hang in there will quit once they realize how difficult it will be to make such fingerings functional.

Finally, anyone who actually got there would then have a 1st finger that is behind all other fingers, in a harmonic context, because its only use has been to function as a capo when playing chords.

There's a reason why books like Mel Bay, Berklee, etc., start off with 1 finger G, G7 and C chords, and once those are functional, add a second finger, make that functional, and so on until full chord forms are reached and functional. It's because it gets progressively more difficult as the skill level raises, yet the material always remains challenging but never seem out-of-reach.

A 5yo doesn't start off on a mini-piano keyboard trying to reach a 10th and practicing R 7th 5th 3rd voiced chord forms nor does an adult on a full-sized piano. Who wants to fight through that?

I totally disagree with the weak index finger - I started playing boring single note songs that utilized a LOT of index finger. I however 100% agree about the initial difficulty, but I feel like people will be receptive if you show / explain that the initial trouble is worth it because they will SOON be able to play virtually anything. I'm not talking about tossing someone in the deep end of Barre chords on day 1 - Im talking about getting them acclimated to the fingerings when they are first learning to play open chords so that when the Barre presents itself in the book, its a seamless transition. Besides lets be honest most barres are A, Am, E, Em shaped. C & D are obvious outliers and could be taught 'standard.' I play A in probably 6 different fingerings and G in 4 different fingerings depending on the song, C/D I can play both ways but generally use standard, E/Em/Am I play 'barre' style unless its obvious that standard is more logical. Now that I have played for a while - I honestly believe that I would have been better off learning barre style from the beginning.

On the flip-slide - how many people get discouraged when it's time to learn barre chords and give up on guitar because it's too difficult? Imagine not even having that obstacle because you have always slid down one and dropped the index when first learning your open chords... Or because they think the concept is really difficult and don't really grasp that all they are doing is moving open shapes down and making a nut with their index finger? Conceptually it makes more sense to learn E/F - A/B at the same time

[Kadoobiedo]

A 5yo doesn't start off on a mini-piano keyboard trying to reach a 10th and practicing R 7th 5th 3rd voiced chord forms nor does an adult on a full-sized piano. Who wants to fight through that?

I don't agree with this post at all. Especially considering there are amazing 5-10yr old guitar players playing just about everything.

[z4v4]

I'm not sure if I agree in the case of the F chord. I have small hands and I had all the open chords down after a few weeks. Then ~2 months later I had the barre F, and when it came to learning CAGED knowing how to barre was fundamental in unlocking the fretboard. And of course, an immense amount of popular songs are really just barre chords being moved around.

What you said just agrees with the typical way of progressing/learning: learn open chords, learn F barre, learn caged barres - doesn't matter if it's 2 months or 2 years. All open chords down in a few weeks and full F barre in 2 months is in the top 99%, or someone who practices 2+ hr/day.

[Dominik]

lmao@u if you're not playing Shawn Lane chords by the first week

E-0
B-6
G-12
D-10
A -8
E- 5

And Shawn had small hands. The man put in the hours stretching them (probably inspired early on by Allan Holdsworth) so it didn't hold him back from playing that way.

Meanwhile Vai's hands make a 7 string neck look small but I rarely see him playing chords or licks that would take advantage of it.

I guess there's a lesson in there.

[z4v4]

I totally disagree with the weak index finger - I started playing boring single note songs that utilized a LOT of index finger. I however 100% agree about the initial difficulty, but I feel like people will be receptive if you show / explain that the initial trouble is worth it because they will SOON be able to play virtually anything. I'm not talking about tossing someone in the deep end of Barre chords on day 1 - Im talking about getting them acclimated to the fingerings when they are first learning to play open chords so that when the Barre presents itself in the book, its a seamless transition. Besides lets be honest most barres are A, Am, E, Em shaped. C & D are obvious outliers and could be taught 'standard.' I play A in probably 6 different fingerings and G in 4 different fingerings depending on the song, C/D I can play both ways but generally use standard, E/Em/Am I play 'barre' style unless its obvious that standard is more logical. Now that I have played for a while - I honestly believe that I would have been better off learning barre style from the beginning.

If you're talking about something like the Berklee book, then the transition is already seamless, as you're doing loads of 34, and 234 fingering shapes, as well as barres, before the full barre is introduced.

On the flip-slide - how many people get discouraged when it's time to learn barre chords and give up on guitar because it's too difficult? Imagine not even having that obstacle because you have always slid down one and dropped the index when first learning your open chords... Or because they think the concept is really difficult and don't really grasp that all they are doing is moving open shapes down and making a nut with their index finger? Conceptually it makes more sense to learn E/F - A/B at the same time

Most people give up at the 4-string F chord or just trying to make regular open chords functional, which is the main reason why you wouldn't want to make open chords more difficult, no matter how valid it may seem in theory.

I don't agree with this post at all. Especially considering there are amazing 5-10yr old guitar players playing just about everything.

Are you asserting that there would be more child virtuoso pianists if teachers started all children off with Chopin Etudes and they stuck it out rather than wasting time with a 5-note C scale?

Someone's ability to easily master difficult material doesn't change the order in which one would learn material. For example, the Berklee Volume 1 book is about 130 pages and is designed to take 8-9 months to complete. I've seen a day 1 guitarist master the book in 8 weeks (violinist, tho), but that doesn't mean he should have started with Volume 2. Extremely gifted students just move much, much faster allowing them to become highly skilled in a shorter length of time.

[Kadoobiedo]

Are you asserting that there would be more child virtuoso pianists if teachers started all children off with Chopin Etudes and they stuck it out rather than wasting time with a 5-note C scale?

I'm asserting there would be less if they all followed your advice and just wasted time with one finger.

[MBisonSon]

You guys are wanting to make learning the guitar incredibly difficult by playing the most difficult beginner shapes first (or using the most difficult fingers first).

Most people would quit after a month if they're trying to play a C chord with fingers 2,3,4 or do a full F barre, and the ones who hang in there will quit once they realize how difficult it will be to make such fingerings functional.

My philosophy is "hard work becomes easy work".

I'm not of the mindset of tackling easy stuff like Chopsticks.

In other words if you sell yourself short who does that ultimately hurt?

I say learn the most difficult song you can and by the time you got it under hand the easier stuff will be a piece of cake.

Also wanna add I'm no afficionado by any means but if you're trying to use Barre chords to avoid beating up your fingertips good luck.

If you wanna get good you'd better start learning to love that pain.

[MBisonSon]

Fuark, index finger has a mad blister on the tip of it. RIP in pieces.

How long did everyone take to comfortably change chords? Three days in and C/F are the two basics that require me to individually move the fingers to them. Hoping for smooth transitions within a month.

LMFAO at 3 days.

I've been playing almost a year and barely seamlessly transitioning between chords that don't have anchors.

I'm also learning to switch between 3 and 4 finger chords which are definitely not seamless for me yet.

Not at proper tempo anyways.

[envisu]

LMFAO at 3 days.

I've been playing almost a year and barely seamlessly transitioning between chords that don't have anchors.

I'm also learning to switch between 3 and 4 finger chords which are definitely not seamless for me yet.

Not at proper tempo anyways.

Yeah I played as a teen and had my chord transitions down pat. Seems like muscle memory doesn't go back that long.

[Dominik]

When I started out I played AC/DC for 6 months straight and that sorted out my chord transitions especially once I found a drummer and bass player to jam with. Then I moved on to Metallica. Thanks to Malcolm Young and James Hetfield I learned to lock in and play decent rhythm. Glad I didn't jump on the wanky stuff right away.

First books were Ernie Ball's How to Play Guitar Vol 1 & 2. Some chord shapes I never played again like the standard C and G which still make me cringe.



Looking back I still believe books were the best way to learn because it seemed to encourage patience. It's great to have Youtube videos a couple of clicks away that show you everything but at the same time it probably exacerbates ADHD and makes it harder to drill down and focus on anything long enough to get good at it. There's always a related video dangling in front of you to take you down another rabbit hole where you piss away more time without actually improving.

Another thing that helped was a small mirror so I could correct what a teacher would be looking at in real time like wrist position. Only problem is you don't want to rely too much on that because it becomes a crutch. Just the occasional glance to eliminate sloppy habits.

When I studied music there was one guy in the class 5 years older and a lot better than me and what I learned from him is he was wailing like a MF but never looked at what he was doing. The guy was feeling it whereas I was too caught up in technique because I spent most of my time like a hermit practicing and not enough time playing with other musicians. If you're too afraid of making mistakes when you're performing it'll show in the performance — wooden, tight, robotic.

[z4v4]

I'm asserting there would be less if they all followed your advice and just wasted time with one finger.

Where did I say only play with one finger? A person suggested to first learn E and Am chords with fingers 2,3,4 so that barres would be easier to learn down the road. You don't teach beginner guitar by making it more difficult (e.g., removing the 1st finger on chords) so that the more difficult stuff will be easier later.

My philosophy is "hard work becomes easy work".

I'm not of the mindset of tackling easy stuff like Chopsticks.

In other words if you sell yourself short who does that ultimately hurt?

I say learn the most difficult song you can and by the time you got it under hand the easier stuff will be a piece of cake.

Also wanna add I'm no afficionado by any means but if you're trying to use Barre chords to avoid beating up your fingertips good luck.

If you wanna get good you'd better start learning to love that pain.

Again, we're talking about the method of teaching a beginner to play guitar. You don't start off a beginner with single string diminished and augmented arpeggios as a finger exercise; you start off with 1234 on a single string, and you don't teach a beginner to eliminate their strongest finger while learning open chords. I never said to not learn challenging things - to a beginner, sometimes just fretting a note cleanly is challenging.

[ctgblue]

First books were Ernie Ball's How to Play Guitar Vol 1 & 2. Some chord shapes I never played again like the standard C and G which still make me cringe.

I started the mel bay method and breezed through it, it made sense to me.

But I HATE when people teach a newbie that way^^^^^ to make a G chord, it wastes time and effort during changes.

If learned this way, the changes are faster and more add ins can be done. Lots of things for the index to do inside the chord if made this way.



Want an exercise, make them this way and go G C D C G C D C G C D C G, back and forth with every strum. Try it for one minute, work up to five.

then it's easy

[lowkey122]

Looking back I still believe books were the best way to learn because it seemed to encourage patience. It's great to have Youtube videos a couple of clicks away that show you everything but at the same time it probably exacerbates ADHD and makes it harder to drill down and focus on anything long enough to get good at it. There's always a related video dangling in front of you to take you down another rabbit hole where you piss away more time without actually improving.

Another thing that helped was a small mirror so I could correct what a teacher would be looking at in real time like wrist position. Only problem is you don't want to rely too much on that because it becomes a crutch. Just the occasional glance to eliminate sloppy habits.

When I studied music there was one guy in the class 5 years older and a lot better than me and what I learned from him is he was wailing like a MF but never looked at what he was doing. The guy was feeling it whereas I was too caught up in technique because I spent most of my time like a hermit practicing and not enough time playing with other musicians. If you're too afraid of making mistakes when you're performing it'll show in the performance — wooden, tight, robotic.

The mirror is a great idea, especially if you have the music right above it you can transition your eyes faster as opposed to looking down at your hand and having to look back up and across to whatever device is displaying chords or tabs.

I kind of look at playing without looking like how I had to learn typing. In high school the teachers would tape a piece of paper at the top of the keyboard and cover your hands and you just had to feel for the letters. After a while you just learned those micro movements with your fingers but the big difference is you can visually see if you type the wrong letter. With music it's much more difficult, especially for a beginner, to distinguish all of the different notes much less throwing them all in a chord and having to differentiate if you got all the right notes in there.

On top of that the one thing you always feel for when typing are the two raised bumps on the F and J keys whereas on the neck of a guitar you have nothing at all to feel for to indicate where your hand is located. There are of course the dots on the fretboard but that still encourages you to learn by look rather than feel.

[MBisonSon]

Yeah I played as a teen and had my chord transitions down pat. Seems like muscle memory doesn't go back that long.

Ahh I'm sure it does.

Just dig deeper.

[Dominik]

Also no real humidity concerns with electrics generally. Even hollow body electrics are typically built with significantly thicker tops and sides. Worst thing you might run into is a bit of fret sprout on the sides of the neck if the fret board dries out and shrinks a little. This can be fixed with a bit of patience and a jewelers file.

Forgot to mention I found an easy fix for this with around $30 worth of tools and it took me 2 minutes.

I had a custom neck shipped from the US through some extreme weather so I expected to see some issues. I also had to do the fret ends again with a fret end file but that's unrelated — must have been finished on a Friday afternoon and the guy working on it just put it down and grabbed a beer.

Anyway those credit card sized diamond files did the trick with fret sprout. Just a few passes with each (600 & 1200) keeping them perfectly level to knock the ends down until I couldn't hear any metal grinding and then polished hard with Micro-mesh. No scratches and I didn't have to tape anything off. Only had to do it once and a year later it looks mint.

Spoiler!

[rollerball]

Just for chits and giggles here's a close up shot of my picking hand. I actually get a lot better tone than what that potato vid suggests.

[Dominik]

Just for chits and giggles here's a close up shot of my picking hand. I actually get a lot better tone than what that potato vid suggests.

That's really helpful and the best angle you could get without one of those Troy Grady contraptions.

What are your thoughts on the fingers being anchored on the body? Many of the greats do it.

[rollerball]

That's really helpful and the best angle you could get without one of those Troy Grady contraptions.

What are your thoughts on the fingers being anchored on the body? Many of the greats do it.

I think using a tactile guide, like having fingers anchored and/or resting the palm against the bridge of the guitar, greatly increases the physical awareness of the hand and pick in relation to the strings.
I don't think I'ver ever heard someone with a completely free-floating technique that wasn't limited in some way. Van Halen does kind of a floating technique but it seems like only when he's tremolo picking on a single string. Joe Pass does a free floating picking technique sometimes but I believe it makes him sloppier.

[Dominik]

I think using a tactile guide, like having fingers anchored and/or resting the palm against the bridge of the guitar, greatly increases the physical awareness of the hand and pick in relation to the strings.
I don't think I'ver ever heard someone with a completely free-floating technique that wasn't limited in some way. Van Halen does kind of a floating technique but it seems like only when he's tremolo picking on a single string. Joe Pass does a free floating picking technique sometimes but I believe it makes him sloppier.

I practiced floating for a while as an exercise and it wasn't practical outside of acoustic/clean/low gain. Anchoring the palm with any amount of gain is a no brainer.

I was talking more about the last two fingers where most seem to rest them on the body like you do. I've always kept mine curled but relaxed but I've probably sacrificed speed along the way since I don't see many doing this. The other reason is I'm constantly switching from pick to fingers and the pick is hidden between the first two fingers curled (exactly like Jimmy Bruno does it) and I've never wanted it to feel any different plus the fingers are always there for hybrid picking. I find the only time I pick with the fingers spread out and touching the body is with palm muted riffs on the lower strings where those last two fingers keep the higher strings muted along with the left hand.

I haven't analyzed this stuff in a long time so to me it's an interesting topic.

[rollerball]

I practiced floating for a while as an exercise and it wasn't practical outside of acoustic/clean/low gain. Anchoring the palm with any amount of gain is a no brainer.

I was talking more about the last two fingers where most seem to rest them on the body like you do. I've always kept mine curled but relaxed but I've probably sacrificed speed along the way since I don't see many doing this. The other reason is I'm constantly switching from pick to fingers and the pick is hidden between the first two fingers curled (exactly like Jimmy Bruno does it) and I've never wanted it to feel any different plus the fingers are always there for hybrid picking. I find the only time I pick with the fingers spread out and touching the body is with palm muted riffs on the lower strings where those last two fingers keep the higher strings muted along with the left hand.

I haven't analyzed this stuff in a long time so to me it's an interesting topic.

If you notice when I'm playing on the low E and A string my fingers actually curl in, but I do think it makes it slightly harder to have all the fingers curled in as you do. I used to try to have all my fingers curled in all the time, for aesthetic purposes lol, but I just find it easier to anchor when it comes to picking on the high E and B strings. The more anchor points I have the more I seem to be able to focus on the actual moving parts.
I believe Yngwie has his pinky curled around the top tone knob on his strat. BUT then you have Shawn Lane, arguably the fastest of all guitarists, using your form of having all the fingers curled in when he plays. So... y'know.

[Dominik]

If you notice when I'm playing on the low E and A string my fingers actually curl in, but I do think it makes it slightly harder to have all the fingers curled in as you do. I used to try to have all my fingers curled in all the time, for aesthetic purposes lol, but I just find it easier to anchor when it comes to picking on the high E and B strings. The more anchor points I have the more I seem to be able to focus on the actual moving parts.
I believe Yngwie has his pinky curled around the top tone knob on his strat. BUT then you have Shawn Lane, arguably the fastest of all guitarists, using your form of having all the fingers curled in when he plays. So... y'know.

Appreciate you going into detail on this. Always learning my friend.

Just heard Jim Dunlop passed away. Nearly every guitarist would have used one of his picks at some point.

Just a few I had lying around but I've used them all starting out with one of those paper thin gray nylon picks. Used a red Jazz III for years but the Ultex Jazz III is my favorite. R.I.P Jim.

[rollerball]

Those tortex picks were my picks du jour but I found they tended to warp around my thumb. Those ultex picks seem to be quite popular, I like the tone and feel of the ultex but I find they wear away much too quickly. Yeah, I wager that the majority of guitarists in the world have used some version of those picks. The jazz III is almost ubiquitous for shredders.