Post: #51

(04-05-2016 01:53 AM)The Beast1 Wrote:  Portofmantaeu, what are your problems with violin?

A lot of newbies always seem to put a lot of pressure onto the bow which makes the strings crack and sound like crap.

Relax and let the bow do the work.

Thanks. One issue for me is keeping my shoulders relaxed and not letting them tense up - I have the same problem with tango. With the violin it feels like any kind of tension in your arms, shoulders, wrist, thumb is transmitted to the bow and the sound suffers. I actually have noticed I play better on days where I overhead press.

I just started violin though - it has just been three weeks so far, but I can tell that getting to the point where I can play simple melodies and the notes ring out evenly and smoothly is much tougher than guitar or piano.

Post: #52

(04-04-2016 07:48 AM)tanner Wrote:  

Quote:This thread is not genuine and is insulting to those who have put in years of hard work

You seem to be another arrogant guitar player whose done years of hard work and wants to be over respected for it.

If you actually read my post, you'd see that I am a bass player, who hasn't really played since adolescence.

What's with the hard-on for hating real musicians? Inferiority complex?

Post: #53

I took guitar lessons for 5-6 years when I was a kid but never got it down because I never took it seriously.

I'm strongly considering blowing the dust off of my guitar (which is sitting god knows where in my house right now) and getting into it over the summer.

Post: #54

(04-03-2016 09:58 AM)Suits Wrote:  I see a lot of value in OP's post. I expect similarly titled threads here on the forum in the near future as we evolve.

How to get laid in 10 minutes. Guaranteed, every time!

How to lose 20 pounds in 20 minutes. The pure success method.

Learn to prepare professional level sushi in five minutes.

Get your law degree and pass the bar in under an hour!

Enjoy a threesome after just 30 seconds of online dating. The complete guide!

You mean, the "Whats the best country for an albino latino one-legged pirate with Aspergers to bang +9 models" thread?

Post: #55

All you guitarists and other musicians out there will appreciate this masterpiece :

Post: #56

(04-07-2016 01:10 PM)portofmanteau Wrote:  

(04-05-2016 01:53 AM)The Beast1 Wrote:  Portofmantaeu, what are your problems with violin?

A lot of newbies always seem to put a lot of pressure onto the bow which makes the strings crack and sound like crap.

Relax and let the bow do the work.

Thanks. One issue for me is keeping my shoulders relaxed and not letting them tense up - I have the same problem with tango. With the violin it feels like any kind of tension in your arms, shoulders, wrist, thumb is transmitted to the bow and the sound suffers. I actually have noticed I play better on days where I overhead press.

I just started violin though - it has just been three weeks so far, but I can tell that getting to the point where I can play simple melodies and the notes ring out evenly and smoothly is much tougher than guitar or piano.

Old post, but I didn't reply to this.

Make sure you have adequate cushioning under the chin rest. You should be able to hold the violin snuggly under your chin without using your left hand to hold it up.

They make proper shoulder pads with adjustable legs for precisely this. Any music store should have one.

Once you're able to comfortably hold your violin under your neck, your shoulders tensing up won't affect your bow hand. In fact you can gently guide the bow across your instrument to give it a sweet gentle sound or squash it for that rugged angry sound. Get a feel for how to play softly or loudly.

Post: #57

This guy is a monster of acoustic guitar. Incredible technique.

Post: #58

It takes about 10 hours of music theory just to know the basics of the music scales & incorporating that into a guitar.

The only way to become a music star by learning a guitar for 10 minutes is to have Simon Cowell sign you on his record label & all you gotta do is just play around with the guitar in the music video because someone with decades of experience in guitar is playing the instruments for the songs.

However, nothing beats whispering "Baby you light up my world like nobody else" in a chick's ear, while pulling her from behind.

"The way that you flip your hair gets me overwhelmed" while brushing the side of her hair to the back of her ears.

"The way you smile at the ground, it ain't hard to tell" while turning her around to meet face-to-face.

"You don't know..oh..oh" while looking in her eyes.

"You don't know you're beautiful", fast forward to a passionate kiss. She probably started to kiss before you did....Whispering song lyrics, one at a time to chicks works for me!

A chick actually found it a turn on when I recited lines from The Weeknd..A lyric "I only fuck you when it's half-past, five", when the time is 5:30pm will turn on a chick.

Simon Cowell just got to write the lyrics & hire professional musicians to play the guitar, but no way one can learn a guitar in 10 minutes or less than that time.

Post: #59

(07-19-2016 02:14 PM)polar Wrote:  All you guitarists and other musicians out there will appreciate this masterpiece :

That may seem impressive to most newbs, but his finger work is completely over-rated.

His eyebrows are doing 90% of the work.

Post: #60

Speaking about The Weeknd, though he doesn't really play guitar in his Hit Songs, he spent several years singing before he got signed to Drake record label around 2011.

Plus, it took The Weeknd at least three-four years to become as famous as he is today.

OP gotta know that becoming a pop star isn't as easy as playing with a guitar for 10 minutes. Sure, one can play guitar on already popular songs, but to make hit songs it isn't easy as 10 minutes.

One thing though; A perfect guitar melody, killer lyrics & perfect video presence will attract an audience, but that shit is considered difficult because it's a song from scratch.

This is why many people prefer to learn to play guitar for cover songs and parodies.

If you expecting OP advice to "learn" guitar for 10 minutes to become a Pop star, then you better off enrolling at a MLM scam to learn how to become a billionaire overnight (sarcasm).

Chicks nowadays don't really go for ballads though, it's too slow, so an upbeat guitar vibe around can get a chick dancing. Guitar melodies on a twerk song can get her twerking. Think outside the box. Chicks like music & pop song lyrics whispered in their ears. No lie.

Told a white chick I used to fuck a Mavado lyric "Squeeze her breast dem like the trigga of my gun" while squeezing her breasts when we were both nude. She loved that lyrics, though white chicks don't really know Mavado that much.

Music turns on chicks like lightswitch.

Post: #61

(04-14-2016 06:34 PM)GoldHawkStar Wrote:  I took guitar lessons for 5-6 years when I was a kid but never got it down because I never took it seriously.

I'm strongly considering blowing the dust off of my guitar (which is sitting god knows where in my house right now) and getting into it over the summer.

Same for me. My amp broke then I got lazy. Regret it really badly. Had I stayed mildly consistent from when I first learned to play (at 15 and I am 31 now) I could've reached expert level.

Now I'm trying to learn it all over again. I'm back to where I was before I stopped playing (Intermediate) and trying to get to Advanced.

Post: #62

(10-28-2016 10:42 AM)polar Wrote:  



This guy is a monster of acoustic guitar. Incredible technique.

Holy shit that guy's got some skills, and to think he recorded that as a complete novice only 10 minutes after reading the first page of this thread. Incredible.

Post: #63

Post: #64

Paco de Lucia - RIP

Post: #65

Id like to agree with everyone responses. People who are awesome at performing arts all practice constantly.

I once tried learning guitar because I wanted to be like Van Halen. My fingers hurt after one lesson I basically gave up on that dream.

Post: #66

Man up. Finger pain whilst you grow calluses is a rite of passage for any stringed instrument player.

Post: #67

I've played guitar for over twelve years and only in the past few months have I started taking lessons, from a highly skilled local session guitarist. I strongly recommend anyone interested in playing to get some proper lessons for a while, because playing with the correct technique makes all the difference in the world.

It's easy to learn songs, scales, and theory with online resources, but technique is almost impossible to get right by yourself. After searching online I found lots of contradictory information that didn't help much, especially for right-hand technique. Only a proper instructor is going to catch what you're doing wrong and show you how to correct it and play your best. How to hold your pick right, where to pick, how to move your wrist, how to position your left hand and fingers - this stuff is all quite a bit tricker than I ever realized before I got lessons.

Post: #68

tanner Wrote:To Play Guitar:

1- there are 7 fundamental chords.
A B C D E F G -- learn them.

No sharps. No flats. Just these 7.

Can't believe nobody called this prodigy out on that.

Post: #69

(12-11-2016 01:49 PM)TornadoByProxy Wrote:  

tanner Wrote:To Play Guitar:

1- there are 7 fundamental chords.
A B C D E F G -- learn them.

No sharps. No flats. Just these 7.

Can't believe nobody called this prodigy out on that.

To be fair to him (not much point now he's banned :laugh) a capo or simply moving the chord shape up or down the neck takes care of them if you just want to play chords. He never mentioned the existence of any sharps or flats in the sale though, which would leave any newbie confused. I like how he took C as an example scale...

Coming from a folk background I never got his hard-on for the pentatonic minor scale either.

Post: #70

(04-04-2016 06:56 AM)roberto Wrote:  I've found a lot of technically proficient guitarists to be douchebags.

Experts tend to come across as douchebags when near-beginners haven't done their homework or paid their dues.

People who want quality instruction should be willing to pay for it -- or at least recognize that those experts spent thousands of hours and a lot of money to get where they are. Is it a mystery that they don't welcome newbies who vastly underestimate the effort and resources that went into the process? Musicians who suck often don't realize how bad they are. The Dunning-Kruger effect. And they want to jam way above their level.

If music hacking or language hacking were a real thing, there would be people with objectively high levels of skills who got there in just a few years. There aren't. The 'hackers' I have known have marginal skills at best, useful for nothing other than impressing those below them who don't know any better. The OP admits his skills are below average. Blind leading the blind.

Post: #71

(12-10-2016 04:57 PM)Kinko Wrote:  Id like to agree with everyone responses. People who are awesome at performing arts all practice constantly.

I once tried learning guitar because I wanted to be like Van Halen. My fingers hurt after one lesson I basically gave up on that dream.

Just like lifting, your fingers will get callouses which take care of the pain later on.

Takes at a minimum of 4 days of practice 1 hour a day to build it up.

Post: #72

A real, in person, quality guitar instructor can not be replicated by an app or YouTube. If you are serious, spend the money and hire one.

Post: #73

Currently doing "Learn & Master Guitar" program. Excellent one that teaches you from the beginning to use notes tabs and chords, instead of relying just on tabs or chords.
Has video lesson for every written lesson and comes with two books.

P.S. Started guitar 2 years ago with website "Justin Guitar" but this program I mentioned I discovered 3 months ago advanced my playing which was before mediocre at best.

Post: #74

Something that's worth mentioning is that how you learn affects how you can play. Sounds obvious, right? Well think about it.

I've seen a guy who can play banjo pieces learnt from tabs really well just go to pieces in a jam. No idea when chords change or how to improvise.
I've seem a guy who can sing and strum chords and entertain brilliantly on a guitar, yet can't tell that his bottom tenor banjo string is horribly sharp when fretted, to the point where it ruins the piece.
I play regularly with a guy who has no real idea what a key is, or that the capo is essentially just changing the key. Great singer/entertainer though. Until drunk. Did I mention that most musicians are hardcore lefties? As the old joke goes- "So you wanna be a musician? Well sign on, you crazy diamond!"
I've seen know-it-alls in a folk session get all technical to a beginner about a certain piece because it's in a different mode, which is common in folk. Ohh, it sounds sooooo modal! Don't get technical you douche, no newbie needs to know exactly what A mixolydian is yet. Just tell them to use the notes from the scale of D but use A a bit more, then they'll work it out.
Also I've seen folk players who are good in the common keys sit out a tune because the pipes are playing in F. If you take time to learn the basic scales you'll do yourself a huge favour. Once you've learnt one, learn the next one that is the same as the one you know, but with another sharp. So then you can always relate one to another. Example- G is like C, but with a sharp F note. This might be a bit unconventional, I don't know? All I know is that F is like C but with a flat B.


A basic knowledge of music theory is really helpful. There's a great app called Musicopoulis which a lot of music students use. Those with a basic knowledge of theory are much better equipped to rebuff other people who can play acceptably, but insist upon doing dumb things like tuning their guitar by ear with itself for a jam session, without knowing what intonation is on a in instrument. Or indeed insisting that others are out of tune, when they have inadvertently set their tuner to 448hz A or some stupid shit. Point is, a little bit of theory goes a long way. Just don't be a douche about it.

If you want to jam with people then you should start doing so. If you want to play in a folk session, then you need to go to some. What you mustn't do is sit in your bedroom until it's perfect. Because it never will be to your mind, and your idea of perfect may not quite fit when you're in a jam or session. Jamming with others will help you 'get your ear in' that much quicker.

Playing with others is one of the best things about music. Newbies should be encouraged to get stuck in. The human mind learns best by making mistakes. This is why kids learn so well- they're not afraid to make mistakes.

I'm by no means an expert, but if anyone has any basic questions then fire away.

If anyone has any tips for 'getting' clawhammer banjo then that's a style I'd like to learn.

Post: #75

(12-11-2016 02:41 PM)ElFlaco Wrote:  

(04-04-2016 06:56 AM)roberto Wrote:  I've found a lot of technically proficient guitarists to be douchebags.

Experts tend to come across as douchebags when near-beginners haven't done their homework or paid their dues.

People who want quality instruction should be willing to pay for it -- or at least recognize that those experts spent thousands of hours and a lot of money to get where they are. Is it a mystery that they don't welcome newbies who vastly underestimate the effort and resources that went into the process? Musicians who suck often don't realize how bad they are. The Dunning-Kruger effect. And they want to jam way above their level.

If music hacking or language hacking were a real thing, there would be people with objectively high levels of skills who got there in just a few years. There aren't. The 'hackers' I have known have marginal skills at best, useful for nothing other than impressing those below them who don't know any better. The OP admits his skills are below average. Blind leading the blind.

Further to your post and relating to my post above, I believe there is such a thing as music hacking or language hacking. It's called the flow state. A state of mind where your subconscious allows you to remove mental blocks and learn way, way faster.

The language example is simple. How many times have you hear someone say "I learnt more Spanish in two months of living in Madrid than I did in a year of lessons"? Exactly. All the time.

The music example is similar. You're in a jam. You balls up and play a bum note. If you were playing in your bedroom alone, you would stop, and repeat the measure. Right? Wrong! In a jam, you can't stop. You have to get back in the swing. Next time that refrain comes along, you get it right. You don't know how. You just do. Flow state mate. "It's like the guitar was just playing itself!"

This is why I'm so keen to get newbies in a jam as soon as possible. This is why I have no time for technically proficient players who are douchey to newbies.