starting to play guitar seriously

[Josh]

Damn the power of my American dollar.

[Shakey]

Shakey, how much do you pay for lessons?

Right now it's at $50 for an hour to 2 hour lesson. I'm only doing two lessons a month, I feel like I'm at the point where I can continue to study seriously and not have to meet with a teacher every week.

My roomate recently got a real nice used fender acoustic. Ive played around with it, and I just think the guitar is not for me. The chords seem simple enough, but just the very basics of motion and fingering seem just so unatural to me. With a little practice though I could see myself being a mean keytar player.

I'm willing to wager that no one that posted in this thread ever just picked up a guitar and started playing Van Halen lines. Guitar seems very unnatural at first, especially because all the people you've ever seen play it make it look pretty easy, but that's just what a good musician does, makes hard stuff look easy.

[SonofdonCD]

I'm willing to wager that no one that posted in this thread ever just picked up a guitar and started playing Van Halen lines. Guitar seems very unnatural at first, especially because all the people you've ever seen play it make it look pretty easy, but that's just what a good musician does, makes hard stuff look easy.

Precisely. With all the hard work that goes into learning an instrument, once you get really good of course harder things will be easier for you than a beginner. That's just natural of anything that you can improve in over time.

Funny story about that, though. In High school, I was the band director for my year's Senior/Sophomore Sing (for all those that don't know, sing is like a competition between the different class grades in which they produce and perform their own, original play. Everything from director, staging, music, dancing, and playwrighting is organized and done by the students.). We had a really talented group of players (I played piano and conducted when needed, we had another keyboard player, guitar, two Saxes, clarinet, bass and drums). Well, with the exception of the bassist, who wasn't all that great. Our drummer, who was really good, said he could probably play better than him. So one day we ended up with no rehearsal, but he and I got together, and I just told him some very, very basic info about the guitar in general (and keep in mind, I don't play guitar at all). He was reading the music much better than our basist in like a half an hour.

Moral of the story? I don't know if I had any real point. Maybe that if you just have a natural affinity towards music, it might be easier to learn how to play an instrument, maybe even multiple instruments.

[Mman]

Work...bah! Who would want to do that!

Seriously though, I am sure that I could get used to it, and through enough work become a respectable guitar player. I don't doubt that. Im just saying that it doesnt just click with me, which it doesnt for most people, but like sonofdoncd pointed it, it can. Maybe it is just the instrument, but hell, piano clicks and feels right to me (even though I havent played in years).

[Diff-chan]

Im also trying to learn a bit about music theory, its about as interesting as paint drying. I find it cool that people managed to scientize an art the way they did... its just horribly dense and dry to read about and makes me want to kill myself... in fact, its much like reading my math textbooks.

[Josh]

Once you get past a certain point, learning music theory becomes fun and exciting.

After a while it just sort of clicks, and you look at music in a totally different way.

Until you get to that point it sucks... big time.

[Diff-chan]

So what should I do? Keep suffering or just put it away for a month or few?

[Mman]

Dont do it if you dont enjoy it. It wont do you any good, so probably put it away until you are ready.

[Josh]

Wait until you have a really good grasp of your instrument... then it'll make a lot more sense.

Just learn a few scales... and be done with it for now.

All you need to "rock" is a major scale, and a barred E chord.

Get into the weird shit in a few months, once you have rocking down pat.

[Diff-chan]

Icepick's theme appears to be rocking.