can you learn guitar from dvd/cd rom?

Adnerb

my parents bougth me a guitar for my birthday cause i always wanted to learn how to play, i have it 2 years now and i am beginning to feel really guilty now, every now and again my dad brings up the subject and says he wishes i played, of course i come up with some excuse. thing is i live in a small town and cant get lessons locally, i have seen sum cd roms on learning the guitar, can this be done????

LundiMardi

it can teach you the basics, but then again you can teach youself the basics. If you're serious then try and get a teacher, even if it's only once every couple of weeks. If not, then just get a few books and learn to your hearts content.

NotMe

Of course you can.

Doctor J

You can learn without a DVD too. Learn by ear like countless other people (me included).

feylya

By ear???

I just learned from the internet, getting tabs, learning techniques by mimicing. Of course, I have no idea of theory and can't hear notes from songs at all.

Doctor J

I can tune to E by ear, usually to within a couple of blips on my boss tuner

I learned by playing along to albums and figuring out stuff that way. Does that make me old school?

Ancient1

Yes it does Doc .

And i don't even have an electronic tuner. I still have a pitch pipe and a fork.

How old school is that?

Doctor J

Do you play a ****in lute too?

feylya

Doctor J wrote:

I can tune to E by ear, usually to within a couple of blips on my boss tuner

I learned by playing along to albums and figuring out stuff that way. Does that make me old school?

Well, I can tune to a relative string so there!

Ancient1

No, but i do have a sitar back home.

irlirishkev

Like what the others said.. Do it by ear. Trying by dvd would only frustrate me I think.
My dad showed me one or two chords when I was younger, the rest I learned by ear. Pick yourself up a chord book for those first few chords, then pick a few simple songs to learn. After that the world is your oyster!

Oh yeah, and practice practice practice.. Being able to play guitar well is very rewarding.

K.

Doctor J

Ancient1

lol

OLP

theory hurts my head and i'm completly tone deaf, but i can tune from harmonics, and thats on bass.

to the OP, i play bass, i've never had a guitar lesson in my life but i'm pretty good, i just found some old but that had open chords in it and learned them and used all the scales i knew on bass

Voodu Child

Doctor J wrote:

I can tune to E by ear, usually to within a couple of blips on my boss tuner

I learned by playing along to albums and figuring out stuff that way. Does that make me old school?

Id hope not...learning by ear is what bred so many brilliant and innovative guitarists, whilst pianists and violin players etc. can become considered 'virtuosos' when all they ever do is play hundred year old music over and over, note for note.

Im the same as DocJ, i mean, just stick on a CD, play a few bars, and pause the feckin thing till you figure it out. Youll spend more time playing the wrong notes than the right ones, but in the long run, youll be much better off than if you pay some idiot to tell you 'put that finger there, now pluck that string there..no not that one...etc.'

Adnerb

Cheers guys, thanks for the advice. i have purchased to beginners books 1 comes with a cd of samples. i'll let you know how im getting on.

juno75

I'll have to disagree with most of you

You have to have a pretty good ear to start with to work stuff out straight off the record. It took me nearly 2 years before I could properly tune the guitar let alone work out stuff by ear.

Tab, Tab amd more tab together with playing along with records of the tab is a good way to devolop your ear. Unless you got perfect pitch you aint gonna be able to work stuff out straight away.
You cant learn proper technique from ear, you need to source that skill from somewhere, be it a book, teacher ,dvd or what ever.

The medium of learning is your choice, which ever you were more comfertable with.
Some people love teachers, I did not and did all my learning from books and vids. It took a few years before I could hear somthing and play it.

Unless highly gifted, a newbie is not able to start working out anything but the most simple riffs. Whole lotta Love would be a challange.

MOST people I heard that learnt from just thier own ears have very very bad habits and basically are lousy,limited players and pretty much stuck in the mud when it comes to it.

I do know one or two peeps who did all by ear buy usually they have been playing another instrument from childhood - ie doing grades on piano for a long time and therefore have a highly devoped ear.

These people I have found can jump straight in and learn at a scary rate (fekkers)

Now as you learn and progress your ears start to play a more important role and become sharper and sharper untill being able to do stuff like tune straight to an open E becomes second nature.

It was a long haul for me and for the first 2 years most of my playing sounded like a cat being strangled.

Also, I would not get hung up on theory unless you really want to get into it, some people live for theory (notice some of the plank nerd debates on boards.ie about the minute dietails of harmonic minor vs. melodic minor etc)

A basic knowlage of the major/minor scales, what a chord is and what a key is and how these things relate to each other is enough to get buy.
Like I say ,some folk love it and go the whole how and really knowing your theory is a buzz. It wont help you play Ziggy Stardust any better though.

Teachers, books,DVD's, Tuition CD's all great to use abd then your ear comes into it over time.

Or else I was especially tone deaf when I started (quite possible)

20 minutes practice a day is worth a thousand times more than a 5 hour session once a week.
The glue of repitition (dunno where I herad that but I like it)Thats what its all about!!!!!
Most of all - ENJOY IT!!!!
Good Luck

Karl Hungus

DVDs are great for advanced technique in my opinion.

One thing I think is absolutely invaluable to playing is a Metronome. I recommend this for everyone.

Keyzer

I started playing the guitar when I was 16 because I thought Oasis were Gods, at the time, 11 years ago. I bought the defo maybe book and learned every chord in it, it took a while but I was able to get my groove on. Then I started on the fiddly bits. Thats how I learned.

I would say if you want to learn then you will learn, no matter what way you try. I used to play the guitar for 3 hours a day in the early days out of sheer enthusiasm and determination. I know its hard to begin with but pick a band you really like and learn all their songs, and then learn the backwards of yo catch my drift.

Zapho

I learned from a chord book and after I had a few learned off I just watched my friends play and learned a few things off them. Now I'm doing pretty good, I bought an electric and I'm playing riffs and solos. So you can pretty much learn from anything. If you're on the net (obviously if you're on boards!) then goto www.olga.net and get the chords to a simple song like Time of Your Life and start with them, there's only 4 chords in the entire song (I think). Its a nice way to start.