accoustic vs electric

bon712
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Mon Jun 14, 2010 8:46 pm

I just started trying to learn the accoustic. I love the sound and have wanted to learn for years. I have no prior experience. I have been trying to learn night moves by bob seger. My fingers can't seem to cooperate at all.. Even for the simple G chord.. the f seems like something 10 times worse. My friend suggested maybe trying an electric guitar because they are easier to learn on. I am open to this suggestion. However I do not want to spend money on an electric only to find out I have the same issues. The fingers hurt. I can't seem to hold the strings down hard enought and my fingers are on the shorter side. Sometimes I notice with my ring finger I am hitting the 5th string. Somebody else told me to play til the bleed.. Any thoughts or suggestions? I'm not ready to give up but it shouldn't be this hard??? Thanks!


tovo
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Mon Jun 14, 2010 9:00 pm

Hi,

There are a heap of members with years more experience than me, but I'll offer some thoughts on your question. It's really pretty simple. What you are experiencing is what EVERY guitarist experiences. Chords take time to learn, your fingers hurt. Keep your practice sessions relatively short, i.e. play maybe 15-20 minutes, then take a break. regular practice is better than 1 long session that takes your fingers ages to recover from. Keep practicing chords. Finger the chord, strum, pick out the individual notes to ensure they are all ringing clearly, strum again. Then practice transition from 1 chord to another. Back and forward, time after time. Keep this up for a few weeks and you will notice significant improvement. This motivates you. You will find with more practice your fingers can handle more and more practice.

electric versus acoustic isn't relevant right now in my opinion. Sure electric is easier to fret but you said you enjoy the sound of an acoustic so there's your answer.

Don't get discouraged. One step at a time.

Cheers.


haoli25
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Mon Jun 14, 2010 9:59 pm

Bonnie, you were given some really BAD advice. Don't practice until your fingers bleed!!! What Tony (TOVO) was telling you about short practice sessions IS the way to go. Be patient with yourself.
Don't buy an electric guitar right now. After you have learned some basics and start to get comfortable, then you can buy an electric is you WANT to, not because you NEED to. I am sure that your fingers are not too short to play the guitar, but proper technique and hand position is critical. Neil's lessons cover this is some detail.



Bill


BigBear
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Mon Jun 14, 2010 10:35 pm

Yep, Bill and Tony are absolutely correct! Learn on an acoustic and someday in the future add an electric if you want to. But learn on an acoustic and learn perfect form now. Study Neil and his hand positions and how he frets notes and chords. Do it very slowly and deliberately. Don't ever sacrifice accuracy for speed. Speed comes with experience. Accuracy can never be substituted or learned later.

You have a wonderful opportunity to NOT learn bad habits that will take months to break later. Learn correctly now and don't let someone else tell you there is an "easy way". There isn't. You must pay your dues, build your calluses slowly and over time. And play the dreaded open F chord until you hear it in your sleep. The same with barre chords later.

Someday very soon you will play all these chords and you will be thinking only about the music and not the fingerings. The chords will be easy for you. So easy you forget about them.

If you haven't considered it yet, you should immediately join the TARGET program. It is the single best tool on the web for beginning guitarists and money very well spent. I wish I had had anything even close 40+ years ago when I was just learning! You are very lucky to have found it now!

Good luck and Happy Playin'

:cheer:


TGMatt
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Tue Jun 15, 2010 12:31 am

When I first wanndered into Neil's place and I casually mentioned I had picked up a Les Paul Gold top, he rapped me over the knuckles and told me to put it away until I could actually play a little.. :laugh:

Play an acoustic first so

(a) you can play anywhere....no power required...and think of all the beach and campfire sessions you can visualize yourself playing

(b) you will learn better habits from day one..you will build bad and lazy ones with an Electric

(c) when you do get to the electric it will be like butter in your hands...and this will be a revelation and motivation to keep on the path..


frybaby
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Tue Jun 15, 2010 6:58 am

Start with a quality guitar. It doesn’t have to the most expensive, top of the line, but a guitar that sound good, solid wood over laminated is always a good idea, I started with a guild D40 back when.
And remember you can always lighten the gage of the string and lower action on most guitars.

When first learning, at one point I even tried silk and steel strings, much less tension and very easy on the fingers.
Low action is and light gauge strings are really made playing much easier.

To get the sound and volume you want you may eventually want to increase string gage, which requires is most cases to raise the action a bit. But that can be down the road.

You will find the string gage and action that right for you when the time comes. No rush.

The chord figuring will come, even bar chord eventually, it just takes time.

Remember no pain no gain. Even now I get some muscle strain when playing lots of bar chords. I play or practice until I feel some pain, massage the muscle a bit, shake the hand to get the blood flow, some I soak my hand in warm water. Then get back at it.
Serious muscle strain or “bloody fingers” can put discourage and put you out of commission.

With practice, Calluses and muscles strength will come.

Good technique is vital. You will learn it here. Keep at it.

Guitar playing is more like a marathon than a sprint


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Music Junkie
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Tue Jun 15, 2010 9:28 am

bon712:

Great advice here......

I would also like to point out, that you picked a very difficult song to play...... :)

Night Moves has fairly simple chords (once you get them down per the practice methods listed above), but the changes are super fast on this song. I would strongly suggest you pick something a bit more user friendly to start off with. Will keep motivation at a higher level.....

I have been revisiting Night Moves over and over as I progress. It is getting better, but it is still not right...... B)

Electric is easier to fret, but ultimately, you will be thankful that you stuck with the acoustic for learning purposes (IMHO).....

Cheers!

Jason


dennisg
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Tue Jun 15, 2010 9:46 am

One thing you can do to lessen the pain is to lessen the string tension. Right now your guitar is tuned to E. So, starting from the top string, your guitar is tuned like this: E-A-D-G-B-E. If you tune each string down one full step, your guitar will likely be significantly easier to play. Tune the strings to D-G-C-F-A-D. Once you build up the callouses (it seems to take about two weeks of playing every day), you can retune your guitar to E.

I also want to reiterate something that other people here are saying: there is no shortcut to learning the guitar. There is pain and discomfort and frustration involved -- and no one is immune to that. We all went through it. Unless you have an injury or deformity that prevents you from putting your fingers on the strings, YOU WILL LEARN TO PLAY, but only if you stick with it. Stubby fingers won't prevent you from playing. YouTube is littered with videos of children as young as 3 wailing away on the guitar like Jimi Hendrix.

There are many people on this site (Tovo is a great example) who never touched a guitar until recently, and they are now very competent guitar players. That could be you, too.

Pick an easier song than Night Moves. It's got some tricky chord changes and a funky, irregular strum. Join Target and start with one of the campfire songs. Stick with it and you'll be playing full songs -- at normal speed -- in a matter of weeks.


billyrich
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Tue Jun 15, 2010 11:30 am

yo every one here has great advice. One thing has ben over looked wich is your guitar could be set up poorly. The trus rod could be incorectly adjusted causing your srings to be to far off the fret bord (too much action). This could make playing way to hard especialy for a beginer. Bring your guitar to your local guitar shop, not guitar center, they should be willing to look at it for free.


sws626
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Wed Jun 16, 2010 8:29 am

Hi Bon,

We've all been there and you've received some excellent advice from others already. Take it slowly -- a short session every day will get you on the road better than a mammoth sessions that leave you in pain and frustration. Pick some simple songs and don't worry if you have to play them very slowly.

You don't mention anything about your guitar, so I can't comment much on that. But if you feel it is giving you trouble, then a quick setup at your local guitar dealer is cheap and could potentially bring a lot of improvement.

The electric guitar is really a different instrument, in my opinion. I've just begun to experiment with electric myself. Although the fretboard is typically narrower and the strings lighter, there's no way it can compare with the versatility of an acoustic guitar. Anything you learn on an acoustic will be transferrable to an electric guitar later, if you develop a taste for it; I don't think the reverse is true.

-Stuart


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