For guitar players

[Timorous Scott]

Originally Posted by rarehero

guitar center is actually a decent place to pick up
a guitar, you get some knowledgable people there.
my experience is if you go to small shops they try
to press sales on you. they especially prey on
folks that don't know what they're doing.

this is very far from the truth. all people at guitar center care about are sales, i'd had the staff tell me "i'm only going to demo this pedal for you if you buy it", the people there are assholes.

either way, check out craigs list for some good local deals. i don't think you need a POD right away, i'd focus more on just getting a guitar and learning some scales, a ton of chords. watch out though, collecting pedals will get more expensive than crack.

[Asmoday]

Well, as far as the POD is concerned my buddy has one and is willing to let me borrow it for a while, probably indefinately, since he can't stand to play the guitar in his house himself and his girlfriend has a small amp if she ever decides to touch it again. I might just buy it off him if he's willing to get rid of it.

[soilwork]

don't listen to him... Youll want a pod

[Asmoday]

Originally Posted by Wes

don't listen to him... Youll want a pod

Well, I edited that previous post poorly. Its the crap guitar his woman owns he can't stand. He loved the POD, but since he won't play the guitar the POD does nothing for him at this time and he has a young child so its not like he has the funds to spare for another expensive guitar that he might enjoy.

[George Brinton McClellan]

not to be the lone voice to disagree but I would suggest getting a guitar that forces you to develop technique, like say a telecaster; and an amp that you like the sound of. Learn the basics, and move on from there, because there is one thing that is true; You walk in the door saying I want to play like so-and-so but as you progress you will find your musical tastes changing. So nail down the basics and then pick up a style specific guitar.

[soilwork]

Originally Posted by striderpunk

not to be the lone voice to disagree but I would suggest getting a guitar that forces you to develop technique, like say a telecaster; and an amp that you like the sound of. Learn the basics, and move on from there, because there is one thing that is true; You walk in the door saying I want to play like so-and-so but as you progress you will find your musical tastes changing. So nail down the basics and then pick up a style specific guitar.

how does a telecaster force you to learn technique? This makes no sense

[caleb1883]

Let me jump in here, and give some advice. It depends on why you want to play, and what level you want to play on. If I could go back and do it again, this is what I would do.

Buy a cheap guitar, and a small cheap tube amp. They make a small Fender tube amp for like 200 bucks. Reason being, if you don't like it, then you didn't invest too much. And despite a lot of people's opinion, you can get plenty of good sounds out of it. Plus, it will help promote you to learn the right way. It's too, too easy to start with tons of distortion and effects and crap you don't need as a beginner, which ultimately lead to sloppy technique, and crappy tone. Randy Rhoads, in interviews always said to practice every thing on the clean channel so you can't cheat. The reason I say a tube amp, is because the signal goes through a much different circuit than a solid state, and basically amplifies all your mistakes times ten. String noise is much more prominent, and it teaches you to control it making you a much more accurate and clean player all around.

It's easy to get caught up in the effects game, and using effects is a talent all it's own, but your tone comes mostly from your hands. Strong hands=strong tone. Distortion and Reverb heavy signals while learning to play lead to you realizing you don't have to push as hard on the strings to get things to come out, and ultimately to weak hands and inconsistent fretwork. A very common sign of an amatuer player is one with too much distortion. Not only is their tone muddy and weak, but often their scales, timing, and even picking are incredibly sloppy.

Second of all, make sure, sure, you get a good instructor. Don't just go to the classifieds. Ask around. Proper instuction is essential. I used tabs and books extensively for a while, and they are good teaching tools, but ultimately musis is in your ears. Too many guitarists lean on tabs, and have little to no ears for music. There is something to be said for intense scale practicing, but ear training, is essential. In a year or so, you should be able to listen to a simple song and know the chord progression without a guitar in your hand. Eventually, you should be able to progress to hearing scale and licks and knowing them as well. You can get tons of amateur opinions on this, but the elite players are elite because they can hear music in their head and play it. The only way to achieve this connection with your instrument is through ear training. If your instructor doesn't know what ear training is, or doesn't want to teach it to you, screw them, and find someone who will.

Of course this is only if you want to go hardcore with it. If you just want to have some fun, get the Line 6 POD, and an Ibanez or whatever, and just memorize the tabs to your favorite songs. There is nothing wrong with doing music for fun.

Originally Posted by Wes

how does a telecaster force you to learn technique? This makes no sense

It doesn't help your technique, but I understand what he is talking about. Most Ibanez, and other metal head guitars have a smaller scale fretboard usually due to the fact that they sport 24 frets instead of the traditional 21 or 22 fret guitars. But not always. Anyways, this smaller scale means the lower frets are smaller and closer together. So if you switch to any other guitar, acoustic, classical, or "standard scale" electric, you'll find your fingers don't quite stretch far enough on certain scale patterns such as an F major scale starting on the bottom string, bottom fret.

Also most Ibanez, ESP, Schecter, guitars use a thinner style of neck and a flat fretboard radius. After playing a guitar like that, and then switching to telecaster, especially one with vintage neck specifications, will leave you slightly off because the increased girth and radius of the fretboard won't allow your fingers to as easily curve around the neck and get on top of the strings.

Really the longer you play, and get a feel for the instrument itself, the more you learn to deal with the subtle differences in different guitars. It's nothing a beginner should be concerned with.

[soilwork]

Originally Posted by caleb1883

It doesn't help your technique, but I understand what he is talking about. Most Ibanez, and other metal head guitars have a smaller scale fretboard usually due to the fact that they sport 24 frets instead of the traditional 21 or 22 fret guitars. But not always. Anyways, this smaller scale means the lower frets are smaller and closer together. So if you switch to any other guitar, acoustic, classical, or "standard scale" electric, you'll find your fingers don't quite stretch far enough on certain scale patterns such as an F major scale starting on the bottom string, bottom fret.

Also most Ibanez, ESP, Schecter, guitars use a thinner style of neck and a flat fretboard radius. After playing a guitar like that, and then switching to telecaster, especially one with vintage neck specifications, will leave you slightly off because the increased girth and radius of the fretboard won't allow your fingers to as easily curve around the neck and get on top of the strings.

Really the longer you play, and get a feel for the instrument itself, the more you learn to deal with the subtle differences in different guitars. It's nothing a beginner should be concerned with.

You don't want to discourage beginners from learning. I can tell you from firsthand experience that learning bar chords on a guitar with high action and thick strings was the worst experience in my life. There's absolutely no reason why a new player should have to jump that hurdle if he doesn't have to. Besides, the music he stated he wants to play doesn't involve the sounds that a telecaster puts out, so there's really no need to recommend that particular guitar. I didn't come in and recommend a classical nylon guitar because the strings are further apart and more complicated to play, thus he "learns technique."

It still doesn't make sense.

[ElectricGrave]

Jesus I think all this jabber jaws is scaring the guy already.

Just fucking do it and get some lessons, any place will do, if you are serious about this you will learn one way or another. I'm mostly selftaught, but most of my family have a musical background so I was raised with it so you could say it was only natural to learn along the way.

Once I was getting very serious about this, but in the end I ended up taking other routes like creative writing, story telling, illustration and some other things, but I like to think that it was the music that put it there for me, so later I returned to strings and what not, but I was soon to leave again unto another path when I began playing around with counter point choruses and what have you, in the end I ended up taking piano lessons and I really wanted to learn compossing from it as I allways thought it was a more solid venue when it came to writing music.

Man time has passed and although I'm no Ingwie I like to think that I'm a pretty versatile artist and if I ever decide to continue then who knows what that will bring.

I'm just saying all this 'cause people get frustrated or better yet overwhelmed with goals they're not meant to cross, if you want to play guitar so you can be an ace, then perhaps you shouldn't play at all, if you just want to play 'cause you love music and want to be part of it, then man; there's no really wrong way of doing it if you ask me.

Criss Oliva was one of them guys you would call virtuoso in every sense of the word, but I don't think he was ever happy with anything he ever did, to some this is called perfectionism and to others like me we like to call it a curse. I've learned my limits long ago and although I'm still ambitious, I don't believe my skill on the guitar or any other instrument measures my love for music.

...here I am complaining of ramblers...

[Asmoday]

I don't scare that easily. I knew well in advance I would likely get some differing opinions when I posted this and I welcome them. Without a little bit of variation you don't get the various sides of the issues. For instance, I had no clue about the 21-24 fret situation. I am sure if I looked more closely I would have noticed, but not knowing what to look FOR made that something I remained ignorant of until reading that post. The difference in fretboard width from one guitar to another I have felt for myself.

As for the idea of practicing without distortion, that was always in my plans. There is no need to have to listen through effects to see if what you are playing is solid or not. I would prefer my misteps be more obvious to me so that I can practice properly to remedy them. On the other hand, I want the effects as an option so I can play the songs I enjoy listening to as well. Any time I am sitting there working on the technical aspects of playing I fully intend to do so on a clean channel.

However, I am not going into this venture with any plans to one day become the next Satriani or Vai. I just want to play for enjoyment and relaxation after a long work day. I would love to think a year from now I could play several of my favorite songs even though I will still have a lot to learn. Will my interest move me to further advance my skills at that point so that I will start creating new riffs for myself? Don't really know. I hope it will or perhaps I will just learn another handful of my favorites that I once thought too daunting a task previously. My motivation is fairly simplistic. I just need a new way to relax that in the long run offers the reward of learning a skill I always wish I had taken the time to develope.

[caleb1883]

QUOTE=Timorous Scott;2543732]this is very far from the truth. all people at guitar center care about are sales, i'd had the staff tell me "i'm only going to demo this pedal for you if you buy it", the people there are assholes.
QUOTE]

Just noticed this post. I agree, Guitar Center sucks. You only, only go there to find the occasional gem of a deal, but you never go there for expert advice, repairs, or anything that requires them handling the instrument except to put it in the case. I've known some people personally who have worked there, and even though they knew what they were talking about, they were asked to not use their knowledge on purpose so that they "wouldn't scare away the customer". They basically said all this jargon like, "whammy bars", and "humbuckers", was confusing to the customer unless they already know what it is. They are supposed to just try and sell you the most expensive guitar they can talk you into buying. Start with the high dollar one, and if they don't go for it, then start going down.

My problem didn't come from that though, because I don't typically buy from them. My problem came from the fact that I bought a used guitar from them with a whammy bar, which they had to take the bar out to get it in the case. It was a non-typical model Fender, so when they couldn't unscrew it, they ASUMMED that it snaped in. The assholes proceeded to take plyers and try to pull it out for five minutes. After watching all this, I googled it on my phone to see, that model was a screw in. They could have ripped the bridge out of the guitar if I wouldn't have stepped in. What a bunch of morons.

[George Brinton McClellan]

Originally Posted by Wes

how does a telecaster force you to learn technique? This makes no sense

try picking using the bridge pickup and you will understand.

[rarehero]

you know regarding guitar center, if you don't get a good rep.
you can always pull a customer too.
alot of guitar players go to guitar center just to monkey around.
but you know. i talk to alot of people.
but it makes sense you running into some asses in the place.
that's just the nature of retail.

[soilwork]

Originally Posted by striderpunk

try picking using the bridge pickup and you will understand.

I don't. So please explain it to me

[George Brinton McClellan]

the notoriously bright characteristics of the tele's bridge pickup leads to the transferring of many of the sounds of improper fretting and shifting to the amp itself. So you have to truly build up your technique before you can play licks on the tele bridge that you can easily do on a darker sounding guitar. A tele is so sensitive to subtleties of your playing that really your fingers are as instrumental to your sound as your amp or effects settings.

[Timorous Scott]

no teles in metal

[ElectricGrave]

Sounds like a solid plan Asmoday!

[soilwork]

Originally Posted by striderpunk

the notoriously bright characteristics of the tele's bridge pickup leads to the transferring of many of the sounds of improper fretting and shifting to the amp itself. So you have to truly build up your technique before you can play licks on the tele bridge that you can easily do on a darker sounding guitar. A tele is so sensitive to subtleties of your playing that really your fingers are as instrumental to your sound as your amp or effects settings.

Technique has nothing to do with your pickups. It still doesn't make any sense. You're saying you can take the same techniques and they're easier to do on a "darker" sounding guitar than a "bright" sounding telecaster? Your pickup doesn't have anything to do with the technique itself. He can yield the same results playing via his clean channel, which has already been recommended to encourage proper fretting anyway and a telecaster doesn't magically expose improper technique anymore than an Ibanez through a clean channel.

Either way, I'm super excited for Asmoday.

[NeoCverA]

There's a lightning deal right now at amazon for 1yr subscription to Guitar World for 17.95.

[George Brinton McClellan]

what I am saying wes is that a brighter sounding guitar will expose sloppy playing so if you are constantly fucking up, but if your guitar covers up these imperfections they will become ingrained in your play style. If you can't understand that then there is nothing left to say. All I can say is that I took learning the guitar from the same approach that I took learning the cello, double bass, electric bass, and mandolin. that being find the instrument that exposes your faults and strive for perfection on a platform that exposes your playing for what it is; be it good or bad. if you are going to use effects you can darken your sound, but if you are going to play clean a brighter sound will serve to help you gauge your progress. and wes I have played Ibanez guitars, they have characteristics that are well suited for beginners but they also tend to cut out the higher end. but hey this isn't really that important hopefully asmoday enjoys his choice! and lets not focus on gear snobbery and old debates that never end!


either way. congrats asmoday! But be prepared for discussions like this one if you choose to frequent guitar boards! one more thing, don't lock yourself in explore many styles of music to keep things fresh!

[soilwork]

Dude, you aren't listening to me. The sounds that the telecaster puts out does not show any imperfections that the sounds of an Ibanez would cover up. It's all about playing cleanly, smoothly, and through the clean channel. I'm sorry, but if you can't understand that then there's nothing left to say to you. Suggesting a telecaster for the sake of building technique was just a dumb idea. If anything, suggest a metronome and recommend playing slowly, cleanly, and at a tempo you can acheive both of those and only move to higher tempos when you've satisfied those conditions.

But no... let's just play magic telecasters

[ElectricGrave]

Let's play some Ovations... now talk about merciless acoustics...

I'm with Wes, the more clean the better, not to sound goofy but a cheap acoustic guitar would do wonders as the cords are stiffer and the neck is ready to make blisters out of your tips, so in all honesty go super cheap, you can't go wrong with that.

If you can make sweet sounds out of some nasty poorly designed guitar then imagine what you can do with quality like Jackson, Dean and so on.

Very few professional Musicians would show their skill on acoustic, and they are only called professionals 'cause they are "signed" or session mercs that care little about the soul like Friedman, I hear he's gonna be touring for Janet Jackson or some pop shit like that.

[soilwork]

Originally Posted by electricgrave

Let's play some Ovations... now talk about merciless acoustics...

I'm with Wes, the more clean the better, not to sound goofy but a cheap acoustic guitar would do wonders as the cords are stiffer and the neck is ready to make blisters out of your tips, so in all honesty go super cheap, you can't go wrong with that.

If you can make sweet sounds out of some nasty poorly designed guitar then imagine what you can do with quality like Jackson, Dean and so on.

Very few professional Musicians would show their skill on acoustic, and they are only called professionals 'cause they are "signed" or session mercs that care little about the soul like Friedman, I hear he's gonna be touring for Janet Jackson or some pop shit like that.

Agree 100%! I've always said that acoustics build the soul of the guitarist. If you practice hand-in-hand with an acoustic and electric, your chops and technique will improve sevenfold. There's nothing like playing an acoustic for hours, then going to your electric and feel like you're manhandling it.

But are you serious about Marty touring with Janet Jackson? What the fuck? I bet Dave Mustaine and Jason Becker are rolling their eyes over that shit..

[ElectricGrave]

Man I'm gonna find out for sure tonight and keep you posted. This is some conversation piece that came thorugh a few weeks ago, I was completely apalled...I hope I'm wrong on this.

[not sonic]

while i agree that an acoustic will help you play electric better, and vice versa, i dont reccomend to anyone who wants to start to play electric guitar to get an acoustic instead. thats just going to make them become disinterested very fast.