How to learn to play the electric guitar from scratch

2024 Author: Leah Sherlock | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 05:25

It is hard to imagine a musical instrument that would be more popular than a guitar. Contrary to popular misconceptions, playing it is not as difficult as people used to think. Of course, it will take years to comprehend all the subtleties and nuances, but you can master the most basic techniques in 1-2 months, and in a couple of months you will be able to confidently play the songs of your favorite bands. So how do you learn to play the electric guitar?

In general, learning to play a regular acoustic guitar is not much different from learning to play an electric guitar, but of course there are a few differences. Acoustic and electric guitars have different sound production techniques. The electric guitar is most often played with a pick, while the acoustic guitar is played with the fingers. And if on acoustics playing with a mediator is also possible, then on an electric guitar you can’t really play with your fingers, because your fingers are not able to give such a sound as with a mediator. This is to the question of whether it is possible to learn to play the electric guitar, and not the acoustic.

Misconception 1

To learnto play, it is not necessary to spend money on an expensive and good instrument. On the contrary, if you learn on a low-quality guitar, when you switch to a more intelligent instrument, it will be much easier to play.

This is a fairly common misconception among beginner guitarists looking for an instrument. It is dictated either by banal greed, or no less banal ignorance. As you know, the miser pays twice.

Professionalism of a guitarist is never measured by the degree to which he is able to play the instrument. Low-quality guitars very often have protruding, unpolished frets, an uncomfortable neck, which can lead to incorrect hand placement and even injuries (scratching on bad frets is not easy, but very easy, especially when playing something fast).

Such guitars often sound bad, and this is fraught with injuries already for your hearing, and it is more difficult to restore it than scratched fingers. You also don’t need to buy name branded guitars of famous guitarists, because it’s far from a fact that you will definitely decide to realize yourself in this area further.

Now a quality tool for a beginner can be purchased at a very affordable price. For an electric guitar, it ranges from 8 to 15 thousand rubles. We will talk more about how to learn to play the electric guitar and choose your instrument in this article.

Misconception 2

I can't learn to play the guitar because I have no hearing.

Everyone has a rumor. It's just that someone else can have it better andsharper, and someone underdeveloped. Hearing can always be developed, since there are many exercises on the Web for this.

Another similar misconception: it's hard to learn how to play electric guitar without hearing. Yes, if for some reason you do not want or cannot improve your ear for music, you will not be able to select a melody by ear or transfer it from sound, but you can play without it - by notes or tablature.

Misconception 3

You need to sing along with the guitar, but I can't.

Is it difficult to learn to play the electric guitar without singing? Maybe this misconception makes sense in the circle of non-professional guitarists, but at the core it is complete nonsense. If you want to sing and accompany yourself on an instrument - you are welcome, if you do not want to - also no problem, focus on technique, on the complexity of the music itself.

Very often one can observe how the performance of complex and beautiful passages and melodies causes a very restrained reaction from people who are ignorant of music, and from three "thieves" chords that can be mastered in three days, if not less, the crowd comes to delight.

Try not to pay attention to this, if you are really good at playing, musicians will speak positively about your work, and their comments are much more important for professional growth than the feedback of mothers, grandmothers, friends, etc. Never let no one to reproach you for being unprofessional because you play an independent part and do not sing - the opinion of the person who made such a remark to you,should not have any effect on you.

Tool selection

Price never determines quality, but the chance to buy a good guitar for 20 thousand is much more than for 5. Check with your familiar guitarists. To get started, you can choose an electric guitar for a small price, but a well-known and trusted brand.

• Epiphone;
• Ibanez;
• Fender squier;
• Yamaha;
• Jackson.

Take a tuner to the store, tune the instrument, check that all the strings sound and do not mow up or down in sound. Run your hand along the side of the fretboard to see how well the frets are polished, twist the pegs. Make sure you like the color and shape of the guitar, this is a very important psychological point: a nice-looking instrument will motivate you to learn.

First steps

You bought your first instrument, brought it home, unpacked it, sat on the sofa and thought about how to quickly learn to play the electric guitar.

First, set it up, even if the store has already set it up. A tuner is used for tuning, it can be purchased at the same music store. Take the guitar in your hands in a way that is comfortable for you, as long as you do not experience discomfort in the muscles of your arms and back.

Connect the guitar to the combo amplifier, if there is none, for the first time you can download a special program on your PC that replaces it and connect the guitar to it. No need to rush to find the sheet music of your favorite songs and solos, while youyou can still play them, but scales and simple melodies can be learned to play. On an electric guitar, the principle of learning is slightly different from acoustics, but in general there is nothing complicated there.

Right hand extraction

The strings on the frets are clamped with the left hand to change the pitch, and with the right hand this very sound is extracted, this is how all guitarists play: both right-handed and left-handed. There are special left-handed guitars, where the opposite is true, but as practice shows, they play well on right-handed models, besides, left-handed guitars are a bit more expensive.

Position your right hand so that the forearm rests on the curve of the guitar, and the brush itself hangs over the strings like a twig. With your thumb, try to extract the sound from the highest sixth string. To do this, simply gently pull the string down and slightly away from you. The sixth, fifth and fourth strings are considered bass strings: the sound is extracted from them with the thumb. The index finger is responsible for the third string, the middle finger for the second, and the ring finger for the first.

Extracting sound from the lower strings is as follows: with your fingertip, you pull the string from the bottom up and a little towards yourself. To fix the extraction with your right hand, you can play busts. The simplest is played like this: sixth string, third, second, first, second, third. Don't forget that each string is tied to a specific finger.

mattersSuch an enumeration is used in the intro to Metallica's Nothing Else. After two weeks of classes,when you feel more confident with the instrument, you can try to learn the intro of this song in full. A beginner is not advised to go further than the introduction, since in this song there is a barre technique that can cause difficulties for a beginner. Other busts:

• bass (sixth, fifth or fourth), third, second, third, first, third, second, third;
• bass, first, second, third;
• bass, third, second+first (pull at the same time), third;
• bass, third+second+first.

Left hand extraction

The thumb is behind the neck of the guitar and is pressed against it, as if leaning. It’s not worth pressing it on purpose, it will adhere to the neck itself when you start playing. Form a kind of dome from the brush, as if holding an apple. The strings should be pressed with the pads of the fingers so that when pressed, the finger retains its shape, does not blur along the fretboard, does not turn out.

Important: do not press with the pads that we see when we look at our palm from the back, but with those that we see when we look under the nails. All fingers of the left hand should produce sound of the same quality.

Exercise for the left hand

• "Snake" - you pinch a string with your index finger, make a sound with your right hand, then hold the next fret on the same string with your middle finger, without releasing your index finger, and again make a sound. As a result, all 4 fingers should be in a line on the string. Then we do the opposite: removelittle finger, extract the sound, remove the ring finger, extract and so on.
• "Spider" - the beginning is the same as in the "snake", but after all our fingers are on the string, we do not remove them, but move the index finger to the higher string, but in the same fret, while the rest of the fingers remain on the same string. So alternately rearranging the fingers "crawl" up, and then also "slide down." Make sure that in these exercises all the notes sound clear, do not rattle, press the strings tightly. Gradually increase the pace.

How to read tablature?

Every guitarist who thinks about how to learn to play the electric guitar from scratch also thinks about what to play. You can do this either by notes or by tablature. There is nothing complicated in musical notation in itself, but few people manage to understand it on their own, the teacher’s explanation would be the most successful option: this is the question of where to learn to play the electric guitar.

Tablature is much easier to use. It has six rulers, the top one is the thinnest string. On these rulers there are numbers indicating the frets. Thus, we see from which string and on which fret we need to extract the sound. The only significant disadvantage of tablature is that it is almost impossible to follow the rhythm on them. Yes, the creators of the tablature try to compensate for this in every possible way: they make spaces between the numbers where there are longer notes, but you won’t be able to follow the rhythm the way you would by notes, by tablature.

What should a newbie play?

• Pop rock bands like Imagine Dragons, Green Day, 30 Seconds to mars, Sum 41 - their songs are very simple and good for getting your hands on.
• More classic stuff like Scorpions, AC/DC songs. You don't have to take difficult solos, you can just learn some riffs.
• If you want something more difficult, then you can pay attention to Metallica and Megadeth (before four months of training, it's pointless to start these songs). Nothing else matters, Fade to black, Muster of puppets (very beautiful solo, it's easy and your listeners will appreciate it), Enter sandman, Trust, Promise (one of Megadeth's few ballads).