Ach - Glen - put the book away - get someone to show you how to play the real classics - Louie Louie, Gloria, Jumpin' Jack Flash, etc., and the rest will fall into place.

And Hey Joe - really.

Good luck! I took lessons for a very brief period and learned what you learned - mainly that playing guitar is hard at first.

Sadly I moved away from my instructor and haven't taken any more lessons. Someday though, someday.

Keep at it Glen. And yeah, get you a real instructor, if you can afford it.

Thanx guys. Yeah, that F chord is sure one mother bitch! Like I said though, I aint about to give up now. I think I like Skeeter's suggestion best of just learning the Johnny B. Goode basic chords and letting it mushroom from there. Hey if it worked for the Ramones...

-Glen

i'd give glen free lessons, except for the fact that he lives a gazillion miles away from me.

Glen, I think a guy who goes by the name Rockologist owes it to himself to learn to play at least one instrument. Electric guitar is a good choice.

A few things you might find useful:

Buy the best guitar you can afford. Buy a few. Guitars each have their own personality. Even two seemingly identical Strats will play and sound slightly different. A second-rate instrument makes playing less fun. As a rockologist, you already know what the best makes are.

Acknowledge that you will suck for the first two years.

It won't hurt your fingers after a few weeks of playing. You will grow new fingertips.

Grabbing an F chord takes about two weeks to master. If it takes three weeks, no problem. If it takes one week, go for it.

The chords you learn to play children's songs are the same ones rock stars use, except that they often use barre chords, which are easier.

Don't think that any song is beneath you. You can always learn something new. Play everything you can, John Denver, the Carpenters, Porcupine Tree, the Beach Boys, Christmas songs, Ravel's Bolero -- everything will teach you.

Play along with recorded music. Don't stop when you mess up. Just get back on track and go. Do this over and over until you can play along from beginning to end. It helps develop your sense of timing.

Most rock classics, such as Smoke on the Water, are trivial to learn on guitar. Songs without blaring Marshall stacks, such as Steely Dan songs, are often much harder.

That being said, there's more to it than strumming the chords. You might learn the chords to Foxy Lady, but it's another matter entirely to play them like Hendrix. That comes with experience.

When you want to start playing guitar solos, learn blues first. You will start to see the notes on the fretboard as a geometrical pattern. The pattern moves -- a blues scale in C is the same as a blues scale in A, except moved up three frets (with a few ifs, ands, or buts, of course). Then learn a few 7-note scales -- major, minor, Dorian, and Mixolydian will leave you in good shape for rock music.

And the most important piece of advice I could offer is...

Practice at least 5 hours per week, if possible. Even the masters practice. If you work at it for a year, then quit for a month, you will lose ground. Andre Segovia said about practice (I'm quoting as closely as memory permits), "If I skip three days of practice, you will notice. If I skip two days, my wife notices. If I skip one day, I notice."

In my experience, I have seen many people give up almost immediately when they realize that it's not as easy as it looks. They assume that they don't have the aptitude to play, based on the fact that in week 2, it takes them 10 seconds to make a Gmaj7 chord, and they hear themselves strumming over the deadened strings because they don't quite have it. The attitude is important. You will suck for awhile -- work at it for a couple of years, and lights will start coming on.

I'm not sure I like the sound of sucking for two years (I'm not getting any younger, ya' know?), but thanks for the advice Duane.

And Sir Mark, I'd fly ya' to Seattle for those lessons if I could afford it...unfortunately it wont happen, not on my salary anyway. Think we could get BC to spring for it? We could call it "research"...yeah, thats it.

-Glen

Oh - and cheat. Just 'cause the book sez so, it doesn't always work that way. Some books advise you to keep your thumb along the back of the neck - fugedaboudit. I use my thumb to play barre chords.

yeah, i agree. screw that "proper" technique crap. whatever feels comfortable is the "right" way.

I can't argue with the tips provided here, except maybe the thumb technique. I think it's kind of important to not get off to bad habits early.

If I were a beginning guitarist, and knew what I know now, I think I would suggest a good guitar, but the main consideration for a newbie would be that the strings are close to the neck. On top of that I would get super thin strings. It's mind blowing to the starter how much pressure is needed to push down to get a clean chord.

You probably should buy a cheap digital tuner so you can always be in standard tuning.

I'd start out learning rock power chords in the E and A bar configurations. But mainly concentrating on the top 3 strings where you only need to hold down the 2 strings that make up the 1'st and 5th notes with your index finger and ring finger respectively.

With this in hand, you can pretty quickly pick up AC DC type songs or similar.

The important thing, I think, is to quickly build up a repitore of stuff you won't mind reapeating over and over, so that you get some entertainment value out of it right away. Skip to my lou wouldn't do it for me. You have to enjoy the stuff you're playing in order to be driven onward.

Good luck.

except maybe the thumb technique. I think it's kind of important to not get off to bad habits early.

don't know that this is necessarily a bad habit. i mean, i don't do that for bar chords, but i DO use the thumb to play bass notes in jazz...it's really handy with dom. 7 chords because it frees up your pinky and ring fingers to extend the chord.

got that glen? ;-)

Didn't mean to pooh pooh your thumb technique Mark. You must be on to something I'm not familiar with. Sorry. I was thinking of how some beginners books use the thumb to play an open G chord. Though it's not a hard habit to break.

No - thumb for barre chords. Index finger plays the high E & B - the rest play the other three notes in the configuration, major, minor, sus4, whatever.

Perhaps a bad habit for a beginnner - but it got me through 4 1/2 sets a night in the bars.

Glen--

I learned how to play the guitar in my late 20s, and what I found incredibly useful and gratifying was learning the dozen (or so) open chords: C, D, E, G, A and Am, Dm and Em, as well as A7, D7, E7 and G7.

Once you've got them down--even roughly--you can play hundreds of songs, including just about any blues; hell, with just those chords you can play "Crossroads" in the keys of A, D or G, and who doesn't feel like a badass with a hellhound on his trail?

"Louie Louie" is just A, D and Em.

"Reason to Believe" by Bruce Springsteen is just G, C and D. Same with "Open All Night" and "Johnny 99."

U2's "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For"? Same three chords.

(These may be different keys than on record, of course.)

And so on and so forth.

Finally, until you master that wicked F chord, you can kinda cheat at it by playing an Fmaj7 chord: play a regular C chord, but then move your middle and ring fingers down one string each. It sounds like a richer, fuller F chord and won't always work, but is often close enough when you're starting.

Oh, and C and Fmaj7 are just about the only two chords in Modern English's "I Melt With You," other than the bridge (which is Em, G and Am).

Have fun.

Hey, I'm on a parallel trip right now. I can play to an intermediate level, but have never played in a band, so I'm pushing that in 2008.

If there's one thing I've learned about music it's that it pays to learn things the right way, then once you know the framework, ignore it and play things the way that feels or sounds right to you.

The most important thing is getting the sound you want out of the amp. The next most important thing is not hurting yourself doing it!

If you're talking electric then there will be some times when you absolutely should hook your thumb over, eg to give something to pull against when bending, or sometimes playing the 'over' chords like G/D (I think it's denoted that way round) where it's easiest to fret the low E string on the 3rd fret with your thumb then playing the D open chord as usual.

If you want proof, look at 99% of rock guitarists and see how often their thumb creeps over.

Personally, when strumming my acoustic I find it easiest to mute the low E if necessary by hooking my thumb over and touching the string rather than using my index fingertip as most people seem to. But then I have big hands :-)

Awesome, Glen! In no time you'll be even better than this Santana guy.

And suddenly I have a new appreciation for how guys like Jimmy Page were able to do this shit night after night, even while stoned out of their minds at times on all matter of pharmaceuticals.

Man, you're not kidding about that one. I mean, I'm fairly well-versed in piano, but doing anything more sophisticated than smashing my hands on it in time when I'm chemically altered? Yeah right. It's incredible how those guys have mastered it to the point where it's just second nature. It's like they don't even have to think about what they're doing. I'd love to be able to play guitar like that...right now I've got E and A down, but anything more challenging than that frustrates the hell out of me. I wish you much luck in this endeavor.