Is it easy to learn guitar by yourself without an teacher?

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All men are born with a nose and ten fingers, but no one was born with a knowledge of God. - Voltaire

Define easy.

It really depends on what you want to do musically.

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Well mainly I want to learn blues. I know West Montgomery played without any lessons. Maybe some progressive rock.
not really electric guitar
like this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rj_9KfwzmfA

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All that we see or seem Is but a dream within a dream. - Edgar Allen Poe

Imagination rules the world. - Napoleon Bonaparte

All men are born with a nose and ten fingers, but no one was born with a knowledge of God. - Voltaire

Well, I'm a shred guitarist and I was self taught, starting from when I 13, and im 16 years old now almost 17. I got the basic facilities in my fingers with about 24 hours of practice, over months tho. I hated guitar back then, maybe cuz I couldn't play anything that came to my mind.

When I was 15, I hadn't touched one for over a year, but I was determined, I relearned all the basic chords, and learned how to do two hand tapping and pull offs and hammer ons within the first 2 weeks, playing like 4 hours a day.

I learned to sweep pick about another 2 weeks after. And then I just started learning songs since they only took a few days to learn a whole or at least a part of a good one.

Through those songs i learned scales, and musical theory, and now I can instantly come up with solos to the songs people write, I can write complex songs, I even wrote a few classical songs, playing the background and melody with finger picking (ah ya, forgot to say i learned classical guitar on the way) The only thing im trying to do now is speed up some of my techniques, and acquire absolute pitch

Perfect Pitch:
(when you can recognize a note thats played by ear, sopposedly if ur good at it you can write songs in your head, I can play songs in my head on my guitar, but to just come up with a brand new melody and chords with your brain sounds kinda magic lol, so im trying that)

It starts off slow, but once you get the finger coordination it feels like magic.

Just in case stereotypes and pre-learned skills factor in my fast learning, and not my 4 hours of practice a day, heres things that might have to do with it.

#1 I've been penspinning for a few years and I'm extremely good, not enough to compete, but maybe a bit close. and I penspin left handed, for putting your fingers on the frets. Penspinning builds up huge amounts of coordination.

#2 Tennis, the wrist motions helped me do fast and coordinated picking on my guitar.

#3 Im asian... ya.... sopposedly asians naturally are alot more coordinated than others, but they have short and skinny fingers so they might lose in the long run in terms of shred guitaring because of finger length and strength (stick to chords or something)




For blues, obviously get used to the blues scale (just remember that, and search it up on google or something when you become better)

And good for you, blues is actually pretty easy on the left hand, until you get into solos, but its still not nearly as hard as say.. neo classical metal.


#1 tip for blues, learn as many chords as you can

Let me tell you something I hate tennis but really thanks for the advice.

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All that we see or seem Is but a dream within a dream. - Edgar Allen Poe

Imagination rules the world. - Napoleon Bonaparte

All men are born with a nose and ten fingers, but no one was born with a knowledge of God. - Voltaire

Learning blues guitar isn't like learning a lot of other forms of guitar, because it's almost completely based off of improvisation.

There are a lot of guitarists who can do all the technical stuff but can't put together coherent or moving phrases on the fly.

I've been playing for almost 2 years and I'm completely self taught. I play almost exclusively blues.

Blues guitar is all about rhythm. Learn how to stretch notes and syncopate and how to make something groove.

Learning chords and scales is really the easy part, IMO. The hard part is putting them together and making them swing.



I skimmed the rest of your post, but your tip for blues is really missing the point. I'll say it again, blues is about rhythm. If you play one note and make it swing, you can play blues.

I've heard tons of uber technical guitar players attempt blues and fail at it because they are 1. trying to do too much and 2. playing straight or stagnant rhythms.



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go to ultimate-guitar.com search for your favorite songs, and make sure they're easy ones if your just starting.

and search for chord finder on google if one of the tabs on ultimate guitar tells you to play a chord you don't know.


ahoaho probably knows more blues then me, but improvisation comes when you learn scales and start being able to recognize whats in key or not. It basicly shows if the guitarist is just good with technical stuff or he actually knows some music.

Also: I am teaching a couple people how to play guitar, and IMO, it's best to start out with barre chords, open chords, and the pentatonic minor scale in the key of E.

If you want to play acoustic guitar, get yourself a nice solid wood top (preferably spruce or cedar) with mahogany back and sides. For beginners, 10-48 is a good string set on acoustic. If it's hard to fret those, get 10-46 electric strings.

Good songs to start on are Bob Marley's Redemption Song and Alone by Alice in Chains.

Once you get the basic chords down, learn the I IV V blues progression.

Simple.

Once you are able to make something that sounds like music, playing guitar is fun.

use this site

http://www.all-guitar-chords.com/

and go here if you want to talk about guitar

http://www.ultimate-guitar.com/forum/index.php?

If you have any more questions feel free to ask.

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Livin just to keep from dyin

all I meant was that technical guitar takes more time to learn if you're practicing or studying at it.

My friend and I go through almost 2 days a week improvising with a blues progression for classmates in my high school. Its alot easier, and really fun I have to say. And because I learned classical and other styles and am somewhat good technicly its easier for me to make an improv sound good, not amazing like some of the more proffesional blues players.

I don't think i missed the point, I just didn't phrase that part right, sorry.

blues guitar and technical guitar goes two different ways, i just lean toward to the technical path.

Thanks I was panning on learning guitar for years now and now I have a solid foundation to start all I need is guitar and I'm good since you showed me those sites really thanks.

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Protect Independent Film
All that we see or seem Is but a dream within a dream. - Edgar Allen Poe

Imagination rules the world. - Napoleon Bonaparte

All men are born with a nose and ten fingers, but no one was born with a knowledge of God. - Voltaire