Beginner guitar

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I already own a plectrum banjo, still learning to play.
 
Tom, you could be one-man band if you could figure out how to hang several string instruments on your body and play some of them simultaneously.
Will that be your next project ? Maybe a mouth organ at the same time.

>>>  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uXMuWi0dUBc



 
Aye Carson, I have a photo of my Dad's 1-man band somewhere.
 
I picked up a nice Yamaha accoustic electric guitar today from my favorite music store. They let me have it on their rental program, with full credit towards purchase should I decide to buy. Price will be the same as amazon's price. No downside if I decide not to keep it.
 
After we got home, I mentioned the Yamaha to my Music Director/teacher friend, and he offered to come here and give me my first lesson on Monday. He did the same thing when I bought my banjo.
 
Had my first hands-on guitar lesson today. This is quite unlike playing any of my ukes or my banjos; The physical body size, coupled with a much wider neck, offer (me) a little bit of a challenge. Off to practice switching between chords in several keys until muscle memory kicks in.

What was that line ...

Q:  Do you know how to get to Carnegie Hall?

A:  You practice.

Interesting comparing my Yamaha with my friend's Taylor; They could be identical twins, but the Taylor has more (acoustic) bass.
 
I recall when I first started learning to play ukulele that I wanted to give up. I'm currently feeling just like that with the guitar. In frustration, I pulled my plectrum banjo out of its case and started strumming away. This instrument is so much easier (for me) to play than the guitar; A combination of smaller body (pot), narrower neck, and easier chord fingering. Having a sprain in my left hand doesn't help.

Time to call my private tutor for another lesson, and maybe ice for the sprain.
 
The hardest part of learning to play guitar for me was keeping the strings that aren't being used quiet. If you are strumming a chord that takes up all six strings it is pretty easy. But if the chord only uses 5 strings then the unused string must be muted either with the left hand or the right hand. If the unused strings are not muted properly then the chord sounds muddy.

It is a lot more difficult to keep unused strings quiet when playing on a single string. One string ringing and 5 strings must be muted. Try doing some a scale slowly and pay attention to muting the unused stings and you will see what I am talking about.
 
How do you mute some strings and not others while strumming chords? So far, the only chords I've attempted to play require strumming all 6 strings.
 
Well you have ten fingers and two palms. It only takes three fingers for most chords and two fingers on your right hand to hold the pick. That leaves five fingers and two palms left over to mute with. It is not easy to do and very difficult to describe how to do it. But as you advance the notes that are ringing that should not be will irritate you to no end. Talk to your friend who is giving you lessons about it.
 
I am a beginning guitar player also. I know there are a lot of chords that don't use all six strings and I know not to play those extra strings on the chord. However, I had never heard that the unused strings need to be muted. I just don't hit them. It seems that SeilerBird is saying those unstruck strings will still ring enough to bother the tone. My ears aren't that good.
 
It is called sympathetic vibration. If you take your guitar and with one hand pluck the low E string hard. Then mute it immediately and listen to the other strings ringing. If you touch the high E string at this point you will feel it moving. In other words when one string is vibrating the energy from that string is transmitted to the unmuted strings.

Let me give you an example of how to mute. Take the standard D chord as shown below, You are not suppose to strike the low E string, only the top five strings should be used. What I do is wrap my thumb around and put it on the second fret of the E string so it is an F# which is part of the D chord (D-F#-A). Or you could just have the thumb lightly touching the E string to mute it. Or you can use the pinky finger of the left hand to mute the string, or you could use the palm of your right hand to mute it. If you don't mute the string or turn it into an F# then it will play an E which does not fit into the chord. Actually it turns the D into a Dadd9.
 

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Thanks for that explanation Tom, it's very clear. I hadn't thought about 'sympathetic vibration', and playing the second fret of the E string is a trick I wouldn't have thought of. Playing a redundant note in a chord is something I occasionally do while playing keyboard, but it didn't occur to me to do it on a guitar.
 
I thought about making a video to describe what I am talking about then I realized someone else already has. Turns out there are a few of them.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IMII37neQD8

Tom, you are going to hate the tone of the guitar in this video but the more distortion the more the sympathetic vibrations are heard.

The reason I am mentioning this now is because it is easier to learn guitar properly rather than having to relearn it later.
 
A good illustrative video, although he's talking about muting residual vibration from a string he's just played, not vibration from another string, which is what I thought sympathetic vibration is.

Just curious if either type of vibration is more noticeable with an amplified guitar vs an acoustic guitar  ???

... you are going to hate the tone of the guitar in this video

You're not kidding; I wanted to put my hands over my ears and scream  ;D
 
He is talking about both residual vibration and sympathetic vibration. It is a lot more noticeable on an electric. Have you ever heard a guitarist play and thought to yourself "he sure plays cleanly"? This is how you play cleanly.

I have not mentioned this before because with a uke you don't worry about it since most all of the time you are strumming all the strings and rarely are you picking single notes.

There is a lot of muting he is doing and not explaining. Most beginning guitar instruction teaches it wrong. They tell you to bend your left hand fingers so that they push down on a string and don't touch the string above it and below it. That is wrong many times.

Let's try a power chord. A power chord is not really a chord since it is only two notes and a chord has to have three notes, however a million rock and roll songs use power chords (think the intro to Smoke On The Water). Put your left hand index finger on the second string fifth fret (D) and your ring finger on the third string seventh fret (A). This is a D power chord, D, the root and A the fifth. It is missing the third F# which is the least important member of the chord. The tip of your index finger should be gently pushing up against the E string. The underside of your ring finger should be laying on the top three strings. Now you can strum away and it will sound only the two notes you want it to sound.
 
For clarification, my guitar is tuned E A D G B e (strings 6 5 4 3 2 1).

Put your left hand index finger on the second string fifth fret (D) ... The tip of your index finger should be gently pushing up against the E string.

I read it literally as "pushing up", although it's actually "pushing down" to touch the e (1st) string.

The underside of your ring finger should be laying on the top three strings.

This must be one of those anatomically impossible things for me. My ring finger is coming up and over from the bottom of the neck to reach the third string. How on Earth can it possibly lay on the top three strings (6 5 4)?
 
By the top three string I am referring to the G B and e strings. By pushing up against the E string I am talking about pushing up as in towards the ceiling. This is a very hard thing to explain by computer.
 
By the top three string I am referring to the G B and e strings. By pushing up against the E string I am talking about pushing up as in towards the ceiling.

OK, that makes sense. But, sorry to appear dense ...

The tip of your index finger should be gently pushing up against the E string. ... By pushing up against the E string I am talking about pushing up as in towards the ceiling.

If my index finger is on the second (B) string, pushing gently up won't reach the E string?

This is a very hard thing to explain by computer.

And equally hard (for me) to understand.
 
You are not being dense. It is very difficult to teach guitar technique via a keyboard. Let me try again:

>Put your left hand index finger on the second string fifth fret (D)

This means the second from the bottom of the guitar, the A string. Fretting at the fifth fret gets you a D. Now the tip or your index finger can gently push up (up meaning towards the ceiling) against the E string above it.

>and your ring finger on the third string seventh fret (A).

This means the D string and then gently lay the rest of the ring finger on the G B and e strings.
 
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