Hey guys, I’m sorry if this post comes across as super dumb but I was just wanting to ask for some advice about learning electric guitar.
Over a decade ago I inherited a guitar from a friend who took his life, I tried learning it at first but ended up getting distracted by life and dropped it. Recently though I saw it sitting and collecting dust and decided that, even if it was a cheap electric guitar, I didn’t want it to spend its life like that.
So yesterday I got some new strings, a new (and better) amplifier than the $20 one I bought secondhand over a decade ago, and a couple books about guitars, one of them being a book with nothing but like 300+ different chords, I also fixed the intonation on the bridge.
So here’s my questions:
I’m looking to try and play punk rock music (All American Rejects, My Chemical Romance, Red Jumpsuit Apparatus, stuff with that kind of sound). What chords should I focus on learning that would be good for that kind of genre?
And I’m guessing the chords are can be played by strumming all of the strings together at once or you can play the notes individually, one after the other?
Sorry again if this post is really dumb, I really want to try and make sure I don’t drop this guitar again, I’d like to properly honor my friend’s memory and give this guitar the attention it deserves.
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Excellent advice. Starting with power chords will let you feel progress and “knowing songs”, and that will help motivate you to continue to explore and get better in other areas. Learning music/playing an instrument is a journey and as you grow/evolve so will your playing. Just let it take you where you’re feeling it, and that’ll help keep you moving.
It’s easy to get stuck on a practice routine, doing the same scales and modes over and over and then you just put the guitar down and walk away. But, in the end, we want to make music with it. That’s what will keep you going.
Thanks for the advice! I’ll make sure to check out that video. Looking at the book of all of those chords made all of this rather daunting, this will help out a lot.
I’d recommend checking out Justin Guitar. He’ll teach you a really solid fundamentals. The absolute gold standard for learning guitar on the internet.
But to answer your question, you’re going to want to learn how to do power chords, and barre chords. Barre chords are going to be a bitch, but it’s worth it. It’s a huuuuge plateau for new guitarists to get over.
Ain’t no dumb questions. So long as you’re trying to work things out, doing your own work as best you can, and put the question and where you’re up to clearly, it ain’t dumb! We’ve all gotta learn some how!
Thanks, I’m just worried asking something that might just be common knowledge and something I should easily know/figure out.
Hopefully these chords will start to make sense or click for me. It just seems like so much to take in all at once!
Not dumb at all, it’s a very honest beginner question.
To start with, I recommend finding a song that you want to work at that has 3-4 chords, work on that until you can fairly confidently chord shift between those and then start adding more. The next several songs you work on should have 1-2 new chords outside of your base 3-4. [I’ve found Ultimate-Guitar to be a good resource due to sheer volume]
For beginning chords, these are very useful major chords: C,G,D,A. useful minor: Am, Em. I like these because they are everywhere and they’re easier to learn. When you move on to your next step, I’d start adding in bar-chords. So: F,F#m,B,Bm
For strumming, typically you strum all the strings individually, but in succession. Just sweep the pick across the strings. Experiment with angles, pick stiffness, how hard/loose you hold it. I’d start with either just all down strums, or a down/up/down/up thing. Wait to go any more complicated than that until you feel more comfortable maintaining your timing during chord changes. Then when you’re confident with your chord progression, find some strumming patterns you like to play around with. But honestly, if you find one strumming pattern that is a step above the basics and you have 5-6 chords to work with, you can play a LOT of songs, and non-musicians will think you’re amazing.
Swing Swing The D/F# is a little more than I’d recommend for a beginner, but this would be a good second step song.
Damn Regret Has a bar F in it, but you can also cheat that a little, you can scroll through the fingering options, and 2 of 16 doesn’t use the full bar chord. Just make sure you’re not playing the strings with ‘x’ over them.
Closing Time Not one of the bands you listed, Bb,Ab,Eb,Cm are only in a small spot in the bridge, and you can play the song without those.
Beginning guitar can be demotivating because there’s so much to focus on at once. You’re trying to learn a new hand shape, you’re trying to focus on holding down each string so you’re not buzzing, you’re trying to make sure you’re not touching other strings so you’re not muting the chord. Then doing the same thing with the next chord. And on top of that, throw in strumming or picking, and then singing a different rhythm over all that complexity - the whole process can very quickly feel like too much. So give yourself permission to be bad at one part while you’re focusing on another. Pick your first songs to be simple and that energize you and make you want to practice and find the next thing.
Omg thank you for this, this was very helpful. Swing Swing was one of the songs I was hoping to learn as it’s my favorite song from AAR, but I’ll keep it on the back burner for now.
Like you said, it really does feel like a lot to take in. There’s just so many chords, I don’t know how I’ll be able to memorize all of them and know to utilize them properly. That, and trying to get my fingers to properly bend has been rather painful and difficult; I’m sure the damage my hands have sustained from my career as a technician isn’t helping much, either.
Thank you again, everyone here has been so helpful. I wish I started this when I was younger and first got this guitar, but I guess there’s no time like the present.
You don’t need to worry about memorizing chords. That will happen pretty much automatically. Start off with the ones the parent post mentioned and play some songs you enjoy. Focus on technique - getting each string to ring out cleanly, changing between chord shapes smoothly, staying relaxed. Play things slowly and have them nailed before you speed it up.
Once you’ve done that, you will have that first set of chords engeained already without even trying. Then add a few more and learn some more songs.
At a certain point (usually when you start moving further up the neck, learning lead lines, etc), you will also find that there are patterns to everything. You don’t actually need to memorize everything, because it’s all variations of shapes you already know.
At no point do you need to sit down with a book of chords and memorize it.
Lordy, you’ll never learn them all. I’d be surprised if I’ve learned 20, and I consider myself an intermediate player. But like I said, you can do a LOT with a little. And once you have the ground work, you get to decide where you want to go next with it. There’s so many different ways and styles to play. Just find stuff that’s fun and easy to start with. That’ll help keep you motivated.
Yeahhh I’m quickly finding that out. I think this chord book is also meant for acoustic guitars, as some of the chords they have listed show, for example, the sixth string being played but not the fifth, and then it’ll play strings 4 through one as well. So unless I was finger picking, I don’t see how I’d be able to skip that fifth string quickly enough to play the entirety of the chord.
I’ll definitely keep that in mind, though. So far I’m having trouble with some of the chords in getting all of the strings to play cleanly without buzzing. I don’t know if it’s a lack of proper calluses on my ring and pinky fingers, or if maybe I’m not squishing them tightly enough to be right up on the fret. I’m hoping soon I’ll get good enough at switching between chords that I can start learning some songs!
Learn exaclty what is relevant to the songs you wanna play. If you wanna play the music from the bands you listed, practice power chords.
I’ll definitely start learning them! From what I’ve seen so far, they’re really easy, they’re only like 2 notes which is really nice.
If you want to learn punk guitar, then learn some punk songs! I highly recommend watching a couple tutorials on how to play Ramones tunes, which are mostly power chords (simple shapes that you shift around the next).
So much of punk and pop punk is power chords, I’m sure you can start from there and then take it into those other bands that you like. And these days you can just search YouTube for lessons for just about any semi- popular song.
If you don’t know how already, learning to read guitar tablature (tabs, for short) or sheet music, will probably be necessary, unless you have an incredibly good ear! There are a lot of good explainers online for how to read tabs. I’m sure ultimate-guitar.com (mentioned elsewhere in this thread as a great source of tabs) has some how-to lessons.
I also find songsterr really helpful for learning songs, especially really getting the timings down precisely.
Fortunately I mostly know how to read tablature, and I can read regular sheet music albeit really slowly (though it’s been about a decade since I last looked at some sheet music).
I’ll keep that in mind and check out songsterr, I’ll take any resource I can get!
Learn basic open chords first. Then power chords. but practice changing between chords.
Justin guitar has good tutorials on the matter. With strumming the biggest thing is rythym. Learn weird strumming patterns like down-up-down-up-up-down.
Also try not to practice witb an electric unamped. It’s easy to not hear/see mistakes like too aggressive picking, missed mutes etc. is anything a small mini amp that shuts off when headphones go in can still help. I have an orange crush micro for just that.
These videos are on point.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2FTndcu891g
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eF4EMZqt4AE
Source: started learning 3 years ago. Not a serious player but mostly play to songs I like.
Yeah I got an amplifier when I stopped by the music store a couple days ago to get new strings and the reference materials, I’ve been using the amp every time I practice.
I probably spent way more money than I needed for something for a beginner, but I wanted something that would last a little bit longer than the $20 one I bought a decade ago that died like a couple months into use.
I’ll say this. The first months are the fucking hardest. Rythym is hard. And the basics are hard. Your fingers hurt until they have calluses and shit sounds REALLY bad until magically things click and it doesn’t.
I’ll say this. Guitar is not this thing where you, specifically, will notice improvement day over day. It’s a series of large jumps and plateaus where things click and make sense.
But the feeling when you hit one of those plateaus is really cool and worth chasing so stick with it.
The first 6 months are the hardest to stay motivated. But even 10-15 minutes a day will go a lot further than 4 hours one day a week. It’s a weird hobby where sometimes sleeping on it makes the muscle memory sink in and the next session is better.
Yeah so far I haven’t been hitting the grind too much, I’ve been trying to do 30 minutes to an hour of practice every day.
I’m still trying to memorize chords, the F chord is doing its best to kick my ass. It takes me a while to get my fingers in position, and the 5th and 6th strings still buzz a little. I figured out you’re supposed to use the side of your index for barres, but it’s still awkward. It’s hard to imagine a player quickly and accurately switching to that chord in the middle of a song. I have a grip strength of like 125lbs in my left hand and I’m still baffled by how much strength it takes to play that chord, it’s crazy.
I’m waiting until an extension cord for my headphones comes in on Monday and I can really get comfortable with the guitar, as of right now I have to sit right by the amplifier if I want to practice without bothering anyone.
But yeah, it really does feel hard to imagine me ever playing anything. All I do is strum some chords, I know you gotta crawl before you walk, but it’s just hard to visualize!
early rhcp is very punk inspired. A lot of the ramones stuff is prettt simple too.
That f chord gets easier and is the basis of barre chords.
There’s definately some simplified songs out there that you can…kinda play. It kept me interested. A lot of popular songs are pretty accessible as long as it’s not like John Mayer.
Fortunately for me. John Frusciante is one of my favorite guitarists and he really has accessible material. But I struggled to find early songs.
If you get that strumming pattern here down listed first here, it will make a shitload of stuff accessible
Here is an alternative Piped link(s): https://piped.video/watch?v=2FTndcu891g
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source, check me out at GitHub.
Also try youtube and look for songs you like and add guitar lesson to the search string. Keep practising even if it’s 10 mins per day. Learn how to tune and drop tuning for some rock music.
