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Posted: Sun Jan 10, 2010 9:57 am
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Aspiring Musician
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I saw a video of a seventy-something year old grandmother playing some outstanding blues guitar. Wish I could do as well as she does.

Here's a link to some free guitar lessons. The site owner is a forum member here.
Dolphinstreet - Free Guitar Lessons

A lot of nice videos. :wink:


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Post subject: check my posts you might find some tips
Posted: Sun Jan 10, 2010 11:28 pm
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Check my posts here just click on my screen name and it'll bring them up. I too am back playing after 25 yrs and better than I did when I was a teen. There are wonderful Hal Leonard published books available through Music Dispatch.com that have CD's along with sheet music and tab. TAB is fantastic and it'll ease you into playing WITHOUT the demands of "reading" music. Like I said check my posts and just ask me, others really most here are willing to aid you from experience. Get an extra set of strings and picks first off. Remember to take it easy, don't play til your fingers bleed, 15-20 minute sessions a few times a day will aid you intil you toughen up your fingertips. Good Luck

BTW, there are other great sites as well, Strat-talk, Telecaster.com, Squier-talk, Fender discussion page.com, stratcentral.com, squier 51modder site, instituteofnoise.com, surfmusic101.com join for free get 35 free songs only to registered members well worth the free membership no charge ever. All these sites and many more free like ultimateguitar.com has lessons, another excellent resource guitarnoise.com free with over 50 free lesson of beginner and intermediate songs to print out and mp3 lyrics/sound files. There's pay sites like guitarinstructor.com but check out guitarnoise first. In addition all the Fender "model" sites welcome those who own other models as well. It's late on east coast no lights to see keyboard check back for more updates. and Welcome !!!


Last edited by JerseyJettFan on Sun Jan 10, 2010 11:34 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Posted: Sun Jan 10, 2010 11:29 pm
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Welcome !!


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Posted: Sun Jan 31, 2010 4:50 pm
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Location: Adirondacks
Blackjack,
Welcome to the forum. Let me state this for the record. You are never too old to learn an instrument. I have been playing for 35 years. I am 45! I own a Squier Affinity Strat, Fender AM Standard Strat, MIM Tele MIA Tele etc. The Squier is a great instrument. There are alot of folks who are label snobs and not truly into the instrument as they should be. I love my Squier! Keep up the great work!
ABS


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Post subject: online lessons
Posted: Tue Feb 02, 2010 8:51 am
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just my $.02 on the online lesson debate ... there's some decent stuff free on YouTube but it's really a crap shoot. I'm an advanced beginner, I guess, and I use the core lessons at http://www.guitarinstructor.com, and they've all been great. The lessons with Tom Kolb rock. He used to write for Guitar One magazine, and his soloing strategies lessons were the best. They also have other G1 lesson writers like Troy Stetina, Greg Koch, and Wolf Marshall.


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Posted: Tue Feb 02, 2010 1:57 pm
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Location: Virginia USA
I didn't play for nearly 30 years and got the itch again 6 or 7 months ago. I'm 49 now and am really enjoying playing. I have learned alot from free on-line lessons, you tube and I copy and paste tabs from Ultimate Guitar and other sites. I feel I'm better now than I ever was at 19 or 20. So practice and have fun is my only advice. :)

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08 Fender Highway One Tele-Sunburst
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07 Washburn D10SCE natural with Rosewood backing
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Experience is the best teacher


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Posted: Mon Feb 15, 2010 6:38 pm
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Location: Flo$$ Angeles, CA/ San Antone, TX
Hello,

I am 39( will be the big 4-0 this year,which is kinda why I bought it) and just bought myself a "floor model" Squire Affinity Telecaster ( Candy Apple red just like Muddy's) from GC in December. It was my holiday gift to myself. I never played guitar but wanted to learn as well.So far I have taken 2 lessons and I too print out tabs and buy books and Youtube. I also changed the strings when I got it with a set of D'Addario XL super lights. Thank you for not making me feel like the only "grown up," doing what they love no matter how old or challenging it may be. I stll can't play for crap, but I love trying everyday and playing my new also "floor model" Fender Vibro Champ amp. If I could ever learn a few good Prince, James Brown, Joe Strummer, Andy Summers, Merle Haggard and Steve Cropper chords, I'd be in heaven! ;)

Keep up the good work and let us all encourage one another to keep picking away!

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Posted: Mon Feb 15, 2010 7:30 pm
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Location: Deep in the Heart of Texas (San Antonio, y'all)
MicHoncho wrote:
If I could ever learn a few good Prince, James Brown, Joe Strummer, Andy Summers, Merle Haggard and Steve Cropper chords, I'd be in heaven! ;)

Hey MicHoncho, and welcome to the forum! I notice your location mentions San Antonio. Is that where you live? If so, I recommend taking lessons from Greg at Redbone Guitar Boutique. He may not be able to help you out on the Haggard/Cropper front, but he can definitely get you going on the Prince & James Brown stuff. They've got another teacher named Cliff who's good at the Joe Strummer stuff. And let me know if you ever want to get together and jam. I'm not very good either, but I bet we could make some noise. 8)

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I really like all them "Aster" guitars. You know, like the Stratoc, Telec and Jazzm. :wink:


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Posted: Tue Feb 16, 2010 1:45 am
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Hey, I'm 50 and only been playing for 3 months....and my guitar of choice is the Squier Affinity. I actually started with a strat copy from Johnson but I've always wanted a Fender and the Squier fit my limited budget. It sounds and feels a lot better than the Johnson, even my wife noticed the first time I played it.

One other resource for learning might be your local library........mine has a website to search the entire system and you can have books from any branch reserved and sent to your own branch. I've found a lot of good instructional books with discs that way.

Good luck and enjoy the journey.....I know I am.

Brian


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Post subject: Re: Be Gentle Please - Total Beginner / Affinity
Posted: Tue Feb 16, 2010 12:06 pm
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blackjack1 wrote:
OK, now please be gentle with me. Please, no too technical terms as I am a total beginner and have to confess it will all go over my head!!!

I am a 43 year old lady who has always loved the guitar. I started learning to play when I was about 18 and then the friend who was teaching me got married and moved away and I did not continue. However, I do not know if it was the result of some midlife crisis or just an unsatisfied want in life but I decided a couple of years ago to try and start it again. I got my husband to retrieve my old acoustic out of the loft, dusted it off and played around with it. However, I found that the neck is just too big for me to comfortably get my hand around and decided that what I really wanted was an electric guitar.

After much deliberation I ended up buying a red Squier Affinity starter pack. However, I am a total beginner so was not really able to sit down in the shop and play like a 'proper' guitarist so worked on the basis that it was a budget price, came with an amp and as it carried Fender's name could not be a totally bad choice.

So, firstly do you feel that as a lady of my age, am I too old to be taking up a totally new instrument like the guitar and then secondly, have I made a mistake in my choice of guitar. I realise it is very budget price and as such not going to be fantastic but some opinions would be good. It is an Indoniesian built one, Sr No IC070602635.

Basically, any help, advice, tips or hints you can give me would be very much appreciated. I currently do not have anyone to teach me, but am looking around for someone as I cannot seem to teach myself like some lucky folk.

I am very influenced by Mark Knopfler, Eric Clapton and Gary Moore (plus the maybe less well known John Peppard).

Thank you for any ideas or anything.


I haven't read any of the other responses so please forgive me if I add anything terribly redundant. Also, as always these are only my own personal opinions and should only be taken as such...if you find any wisdom in my words then please take them for what they're worth, otherwise please feel free to blow me off completely :-).

First, no...I don't think -anyone- is really ever too old to take up a musical instrument. I am a very firm believer in that it's never "too late" to start learning...those kind of excuses are just that...excuses. If you truly love something like music, let alone playing guitar then you should embrace it with your entire soul and being...regardless of your age.

As far as your Squier Strat pack goes, personally I feel this is a very great place to start. Most of those include a Squier Affinity Series Strat and they are definitely a good deal better than many "beginner" instruments out there such as First Act, etc (which are often little more than really expensive toys).. No, it's not a pro level instrument by any means but even for a pro, there's a few folks out there who are quite happy to use them as back ups. I have to honestly say that the Affinity Strats...and even the new Bullets for that matter are far better entry level instruments than I had back in the mid-80's when I started playing.

The only thing I will really say at this point in regards to the guitar itself is that if you haven't already, you'll probably want to invest in a good, professional setup. While these instruments are set up at the factory, in most cases they've been sitting in warehouses, shipped and reshipped and sometimes by the time they get to the customer, they're not really even playable. Many guitar players do at some point learn how to do their own setups (particularly those of us with multiple guitars) but for a beginner I really suggest taking it to a pro...that way you'll know what the guitar should feel like.

Don't worry about things such as pickups and bridges and such for right now...all these things can be changed easily enough later if you choose. Right now just focus on learning how to play and simply enjoying the guitar.

The amp...well...it's a practice amp and that's really about all that can be said there. They are very good so that you can actually hear yourself play above the ambient noise of an average room, but as you get more serious about playing and particularly if you should ever decide to try and work in "a band", you will at some point want to look at getting a better amp.

There is one other quicky little comment I'd like to add...if you've played acoustics before, don't give up on them just because you have one with a "fat neck". Seriously...next time you're in a music store, ask if they have an Ovation and just strum on it for a bit...the necks are amazingly comfortable. Personally I don't think in terms of being an "acoustic guitar player" vs. being an "electric guitar player". To me I'm a "guitar player". If a given tune calls for acoustic, then I (usually) use an acoustic...if it calls for electric, then I use electric. There's not reason at all that you can't play both!

As far as tips and suggestions....

First and foremost, JUST PLAY! To quote a favorite science officer of mine, "We learn by doing". Don't worry about how good or bad you are or how good or bad your equipment is, just play and allow yourself to enjoy it. One thing if nothing else that I've learned about playing guitar is that if you don't truly enjoy playing, you simply won't do it for very long.

Second to that, make sure you play music that -you- like! I've really seen this all to often...people will sit down with instructional books such as "Mel Bay's Modern Guitar Method" and they'll get sick to death of playing in no time. As I've said a great many times now, you can only play "Little Brown Jug" and "When the Saints go Marching in" only so many times before you completely loose your mind!!! I know there are those who are more traditionally trained than I am who disagree with this but personally I suggest just sitting down with your guitar and your favorite music and try to mimic what you hear on the recordings. Clapton is actually a very good place to start with this...Knopfler and Moore are both excellent but they are both rather complex guitarists...even many experienced players have trouble learning some of that stuff! LOL!!! Clapton however...most of his stuff really isn't that hard to learn as far as the actual tunes go (his lead work is another story! LOL!). In fact "the blues" as a whole is a wonderful place to start learning guitar because so much of the music we hear today is all based off it.

Along with that, I would also strongly encourage you to start looking things up on Youtube (assuming you haven't already). Short of going for private lessons, I think Youtube is perhaps one of the best instructional tools to come along in a great many years. Just log on to Youtube and do a search for "guitar lessons beginner" and you should be well on your way!

Now as you start to learn your chords...particularly bar chords (you can look that up easily youself) and as you start to learn tunes/songs, start looking for "patterns". As a person who's primarily a cover artist, here's one of my little secrets (ok...maybe not that little of a secret); most contemporary tunes are only made up of only a very few chords and certain common patterns...once you know what to look for...are easy to find with -a lot- of music. For example (and I won't go in to too much theory for you here...you can learn that later), there is this thing called a "I-IV-V pattern". It's the basis for most of the blues music that folks listen to. For a guitar player, once you understand this it makes it easy to recognize...and thus play it...in regards to learning new tunes. For example, let's examine 3 rather popular oldies tunes..."Louie Louie" by the Kingsman, "Johnny B. Goode" by Chuck Berry and "Wild Thing" by The Troggs (or X). All three of these songs use the EXACT same chord structure with only very minor variations. In other words, if you can play Louie Louie, you can play the other two just as easily. Another common progression is (I think it's called) I VII VI...this one is used in everything from "All Along the Watchtower" by Jimi Hendrix to "The Bomber" by Joe Walsh to "Don't Fear The Reaper" by Blue Oyster Cult to the end of "Stairway to Heaven" by Led Zepplin. Different keys but same chord progression.

Here's the thing about guitar....particularly with electric guitars a lot of people use what's called "bar chords". While it does take a while to really master bar chords (at least if you've never done them before) to me at least, it actually makes it easier to learn songs. For example, lets say you play a G major bar chord at the 3rd fret...if you want to make than an A major, all you have to do is move it up 2 frets...same fingering, different fret. Want to play an F major instead? Just move that G major down two frets. In other words, if you learn something like the previously mentioned Louie Louie, very technically even though there are three chords in the song...if you're in G then we'll say G, C and D, you're only using -2- chord positions using bar chords (this of course doesn't really go in to minors, 7ths, etc...just illustrating what I'm talking about). Now if you want to play that tune in A instead of G, you just slide the whole thing up 2 frets and guess what? Now your in A!

Along with all of this I would also like to add...don't over think things. A great many people...myself included...tend to "over-analyze" things a bit...particularly when they are first learning a new instrument. It took me quite a while to figure out that most rock styles of music aren't really that terribly complicated at all particularly on a guitar. Seriously...this isn't like learning violin or horns or something with the intent to play in an orchestra where you have to know every scale in every key or anything...personally I know how to play a Pentatonic minor scale and that's really 90% of what I use for most of the music I play! Yes, at this point I do certainly know more than that, but honestly for blues and classic rock, I don't really use too much more than that at all. You really can literally start to play "rock music" by only learning a few fundamental bar chords and the "blues scale".

Ok...I'm sure that's more than enough for you to digest so I'm going to leave it at that for now. Again don't sweat your gear right now...you have a decent guitar to start learning on (which is more than a lot of folks) so play it, enjoy it, get crackin' on those Youtube videos and HAVE FUN!

Peace,
Jim


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Post subject:
Posted: Tue Feb 16, 2010 8:51 pm
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Being a "golden ager" of 50, my favorite guitar to play is an Affinity butterscotch blonde Telecaster, it has an amazing tone for the price.

Image

Yeah, I know how that is :-)
I play this one more than probably any of my others, and I have a few. Squire Affinity, but the guy I got it from put in all Wilkinson hardware, with a Wilkinson neck pickup and a Fender Custom Shop '51 bridge pickup. This thing friggin' smokes.
As far as the OP being too old to learn, hell no. If you're breathing, you've got time... I spent many years ignoring the guitar I got for my 12th Christmas, before finally deciding to learn at 27. The bug hits you when it hits you.


Last edited by razordance on Tue Feb 16, 2010 9:11 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Posted: Tue Feb 16, 2010 8:55 pm
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russianracehorse wrote:
MicHoncho wrote:
If I could ever learn a few good Prince, James Brown, Joe Strummer, Andy Summers, Merle Haggard and Steve Cropper chords, I'd be in heaven! ;)

Hey MicHoncho, and welcome to the forum! I notice your location mentions San Antonio. Is that where you live? If so, I recommend taking lessons from Greg at Redbone Guitar Boutique. He may not be able to help you out on the Haggard/Cropper front, but he can definitely get you going on the Prince & James Brown stuff. They've got another teacher named Cliff who's good at the Joe Strummer stuff. And let me know if you ever want to get together and jam. I'm not very good either, but I bet we could make some noise. 8)


I have been meaning to check out Redbone. I am new in town and trying to discover a lot of things.Also trying to find the right fit with a teacher. I can barely form notes or chords but would love to jam anytime.Thank you so much! PM me.

_________________
Squire Affinity Tele
Fender Vibro Champ XD
Digi 002
M-Box
Protools LE 7.4
Ableton Live 8



The CoCkPiTT$!
www.myspace.com/meetthecockpitts


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Posted: Wed Feb 17, 2010 5:58 am
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Location: Deep in the Heart of Texas (San Antonio, y'all)
MicHoncho wrote:
I have been meaning to check out Redbone. I am new in town and trying to discover a lot of things.Also trying to find the right fit with a teacher. I can barely form notes or chords but would love to jam anytime.Thank you so much! PM me.

I highly recommend Redbone. It's a small shop where everyone knows you by name, they're very supportive of beginners, and they beat anyone's price. My lessons are Wednesdays at 5 PM in case you feel like sitting in sometime. The first lesson is free, so I'm sure they wouldn't mind. Call Neil or Blanca at 210.822.4111 if you want to set something up.

This site does not allow private messaging; however, you can send me an e-mail at [same username as here] at gmail dot com. I look forward to meeting you! 8)

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I really like all them "Aster" guitars. You know, like the Stratoc, Telec and Jazzm. :wink:


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Posted: Fri Feb 19, 2010 7:18 am
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The Affinity is a GREAT piece for beginners!!

that is so great of you that you didn't give up your love on guitars!

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G.A.S-ing for a Fender Stratocaster HSS with floyd rose


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Posted: Fri Feb 19, 2010 9:45 am
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Location: Virginia USA
Wild Rose how do you like the Squier Strat Bullet?

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08 Fender Highway One Tele-Sunburst
09 Squier Custom Tele II-Blonde
04 Squier Standard Strat Antiqueburst
07 Washburn D10SCE natural with Rosewood backing
Fender Mustang II amp


Experience is the best teacher


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