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"RIFF"LECTIONS BY KNIX


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As I have taken up the guitar as a past time for around 6 months now, teaching myself from the bottom up, I thought it may be fun to show some basics for all of those who fall into one of these categories.

 

1) Always wanted to learn guitar, but felt they were too old.

2) Always wanted to learn guitar, but felt it was too hard.

3) Think Guitar Hero and all the spinoffs of the game is same as playing guitar

 

All I am going to do is show you some easy basics of the guitar, and introduce some "riffs" for you to practice on your own...

 

Here is the anatomy of an acoustic and electric guitar...

 

acoustic_anatomy.gifelectric_anatomy_small.gif

 

The acoustic guitars sound eminates from the hole in the body of the "soundhole" or "rosette".

The electric guitars sound eminates through a magnetic device called a "pick-up" which captures the vibrations of the strings when "plucked" and carries the sounds through a cable which attaches to an amplifier or "amp".

 

Even though i am left-handed and thus cursed to wall the perverbial guitar desert for eternity, I wil assume most of you play or will play right-handed.

 

So in the sitting position, the guitar will rest as follows..

 

seatingpositionxb0.jpg

casual-sitting-front.jpg or crossed-leg-layersWEB.jpg

 

Your left hand will "fret" the strings...hold down the strings at certian locations while strumming the string with your right hand.

Your Right harm will rest over the top of the guitar around your armpit allowing your right hand to hang over the strings where you will "strum" the guitar".

 

Your left hand or "fretting hand" should come from underneath the neck of the guitar and only the tips of your index through pinky fingers actually touch the string.

 

Your thumb in the meanwhile will rest in the middle of neck of guitar.

 

left_hand_position.png

 

This called the "classical" position allows access to all 6 strings of the guitar and if done correctly will allow you to play the strings you want, while not muting an adjoining string (unless you want to, but more on that another time).

 

So you got your guitar on your lap, hands in the right place....what's next?

 

To pick or not to pick.

 

This is a pick or "plectrum" as called in England.

 

FenderClassicPicksImage-a1c52f9f996c1eb664bde3051e67e813.jpg

 

They come in all shapes, sizes, material, colors, widths, etc, etc.

 

You can either use a guitar pick or your thumb to strum at the start.

 

If you have a guitar pick...hold it like this..

 

l8_f1.jpg

 

Ok!, Guitar = Check, sitting position = check, fretting hand = check, strumming hand = check.

 

Now let's rock!....Kidding!

 

Ok this is just the beggining and I just provided a the real basics.

 

I'm going to end this post and continue on a 2nd one to break it up a little, and then show you what those stringy things are, and how to play them, and teach you the basics of TAB, guitars own language which requires no one to have to learn music notation if they don't want to!

 

To be continued...

 

 

 

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Nice work Knix,

Sounds like a "mid-life crisis" thing, I know all about that, I started learning drums at 47, with the goal of gigging by 50.

I did it and have been doing it since,,,,,,good luck to you Knix :guitar:

 

 

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  • 6 months later...

First off, sorry about not continuing this post as was my intention. Got crazy busy and next thing I know...boom here we are after searching the forum and having a "Oh s--t!" moment.

 

I will get back with this, teaching TAB, riffs, terminology, etc. Promise

 

To Goo- Don't know about the first guy, but obviously yes to the other 2 (Who coincidently were lefty like I am *scared*).

 

Thankfully only drummers are known to be the ones to spontaneously combust.

 

To Onyx- Thanks M8, appreciate the words of support. Yeah I am a strong believer that while harder, one is never to old to learn new things (those with dementia not included). Through a lot of frustration/trial and error, I feel I have moved up from "No officer nobody is being mutilated, I was just playing Stairway to Heaven" to "Holy crap I just memorized how to play 'One'...and it sounds like it too...just slower..with some muffles". I have also started listening to different types of music and bands that I did not listen to before, just to hear how the lead plays.

 

So it's very gratifying to teach yourself something and obtain a certain level of aptitude. I decided to hire another teacher after firing my first one after 3 lessons over a year ago. I figure that based on the time I have to play, I can't progress much further on my own. So my first lesson with the new teacher is tonight..we'll see.

 

My youngest son Griffin (5) likes the drums, so i bought him a starter 3 piece drum-set and a lesson book with CD...

 

This one but blue

41WDlk0+DTL._SS500_.jpgWB-0663B.jpg

 

So let's hope he doesn't spontaneously combust.

 

Regards to all

 

 

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The first guy is Ian Curtis of Joy Division. (As portrayed in the apparently rather good movie Control). They're basically the granddaddies of the short sharp chord sort of guitar playing currently popular.

Some songs:

 

Isolation (fan video)

Love will tear us apart

 

(

) Edited by [TNT] Sonic Goo
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