Any guitarists in here?

My agent plays classical guitar with nylon strings and has fingers like leather.

http://dirk.meineke.free.fr/classical.html

is a good place for free music if you are as mean as my agent.

 

You might play the an Acoustic a bit more

I find setting up the electric a bit of a bind - so I find myself reaching for the acoustic more often than not...

 

RE: I would say to get an electric

Haha, I live in Finland, so Rotherham and Runcorn are a bit too far away from me!
Thanks a lot for the recommendations though!

I think I'll buy an acoustic guitar at first, as it'll probably help me to get my playing technique even better. And I think it'll be rather easy then to switch to electric guitar when you know the basics... could be a bit harder the other way round, I suppose!

 

RE: You might play the an Acoustic a bit more

Yeah, that's exactly what I was thinking about as well.

I often pick up the guitar while I'm doing other things, play it for fifteen minutes or so, then stop again... and I repeat that many times a day!

 

RE: If you want to learn 'properly'...

That's one reason why people often recommend beginning players to start with an electric guitar though, I suppose.
They start with an acoustic guitar and it sounds just terrible at first, then they get frustrated when they can't play anything right, and give up.
I guess it'll just take some time and a lot of practice to learn the basics, and after that playing an electric guitar should be a piece of cake (compared to playing an acoustic, I mean)

I hope so, anyway!

 

Never really been into the acoustic - but could recommend some decent electrics at that kind of money. The beginners market has got really competitive - you could probably get yourself a mexican built fender strat or telecaster for that kind of money off eBay. They really are very good starter instruments indeed. Alternatively you could go for an Epiphone (a Les Paul or an SG with a set neck rather than bolt on) - again, very good build quality. But all the major top end manufacturers (PRS, Hamer etc) are now doing affordable entry level stuff (PRS under there SE range, Hamer under XT I think it is). All good stuff. 300 euros is a pretty decent budget.

Sorry I'm not much help with acoustics!

Best of luck mate

 

300 euros will get you a decent enough guitar but if you go electric you HAVE to get a good amp or youre wasting your time and it'll sound ****

 

best learning tool i've found is

http://www.guitar-pro.com/en/index.php

takes a bit of sussing out but once you do you can find tabs for just about any song you want to download for free
and can use the software to slow it down to a pace you are comfortable with.

 

RE: best learning tool i've found is

Indeed. It's an invaluable tool. Not necessarily the right tabs all the time, but good all the same.

 

Check this nice & easy riff..........

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hyr__kGhUC0

 

Probably not a bad plan

But definitely look out for a Tanglewood, the TW28 is the entry level acoustic and you should get one for less than £100.

 

Quality.

(Y)

 

The drawback of a low action guitar is that it is all too easy to accidentally press down the wrong string. If the strings are further from the neck you have to push harder to get a decent purchase on the note.

When I first starting playing there were 3 things halting my progress:

1. Keeping the damn thing in tune! - for this reason I would suggest an electric tuner...they are great when starting out (i still use mine now).
2. Picking up the basics - I was bored and on the verge of giving up when I suddenly worked out how to play (very loosely) a song I liked. Therefore it's worth a few lessons to teach you some chords like A, C, D and G...and songs that you can play with those chords.
3. Guitar dialect...I hated people who used words like "low action" and all those buzz words as I had no idea what they meant. Guitarists can be very cliquey and patronising so if you know friends who can talk in layman terms use them for advice.

My tips for progress are:

1. Don't look at your strumming hand, focus on your fingering hand...the rhythm has to become automatic or you'll sound staccato (not flowing)
2. Learn barre chords - once you learn the shape for a barre chord you will be able to play a basic version of almost every song ever played!

 

My stepson is quite good

When he started he used to disappear down the cellar, and it sounded like he was doing a cat-strangling course rather than playing an instrument. Took him about 5 years, then he joined a band, and he gives lessons himself now.

 

That's a fantastic website indeed. The videos are great and instructive, and quite funny too.
I'm still at the very beginning, but it's looking good