FUQ (eff -yu - cue) - FAQ's with an EDGE

Tagged As: Best Beginner Guitar

Question:
Can someone tell me what's the best self-teaching guide? I took some guitar lessons when I was a kid but lost interest after a few months. Now I've decided to give it a try again. I just want to learn the basics. If I decide it's something that I enjoy I will probably take lessons eventually. But for now I just want to keep it simple and practice chord changes to see if I can get my left hand to do what I want it to do. I bought the Uncle Tim's series (First Year, Building Blocks, Chords) and was big time disappointed. The books are nothing but scales and chord charts. Any suggestions for something better?

Answer:
to be frank I have to say that it doesn't seem like you are totally committed, this time around, to learning to play guitar. Probably because you think it's a simple matter of picking up a book with some easy songs in it and all of a sudden you're going to be able to play them. I highly recommend you save the $30 - $40+ you would wind up spending on a couple of books that don't give you what you want and just bite the bullet and get a month's worth of lessons from a teacher. But here's what you do - before you even start the lessons, sit down and write down exactly what you want to be able to do on the guitar. If playing some simple songs quickly, as soon as possible, is your primary goal, then let them know that. Since you are a beginner, 99% of the guitar teachers out there will still be more effective in helping you achieve that goal than a couple of books. Books are best for people that have been playing a while, IMO. That said, I started on a book, and looking back I thought it was a pretty good book to start off with too - the Ernie Ball beginner book. I distinctly remember starting off with the open D and then moving to the C chord. Switching back and forth between those two chords for hours and hours, then moving on the E to the A, D7 to G, etc. Was this a good book? I don't know. It got me playing. But no actual songs, IIRC. But it showed the open position chords at least. I think I would have been WAY better off getting a teacher though. One thing - if you do decide that you want to go on the cheap and not get a teacher, then you're better off just going to wholenote.com or better yet look for some beginner video clips or something off the internet. All the info is here, you just have to google it up.