Knowledge for a beginner

[hatamoto]

Originally Posted by JoeyW

Hello to everyone.

I’m about two months into learning ( this time) and have been making good progress (in my opinion) . I don’t have time for lessons but I started the JustinGuitar course from the beginning and will continue to progress through it.

I’m wondering if there is a site that is more or less dedicated to beginners as I’m hungry for knowledge at this point. Most of what I read is to advanced for me right now. Can anyone recommend some good reading or YouTube stuff for a beginner like me?

Mainly wanting knowledge on how to develop my strumming rythym. Cord changes come easy to me but it’s hard to express in words how bad my rythym sucks. Lol


Any advice or recommendations are appreciated and thanks for allowing me to join your forum.

I don't know main resources as I learned bits and pieces from different people over time, countless YouTube videos I searched in the past and courses I bought. To help narrow it down I would suggest learning

1. Time signatures (what is 4/4, 3/4, 6/8 etc)
2. Accents and grooves
3. Note values (whole, 8th, 16th, triplets, swing)
4. And practicing those concepts with a metronome.

You can really dive deep into the rabbit hole with these concepts and they can be a 3 year study (1 year each topic). These concepts will stay with you forever as a musician.

[tonyo]

If you get a metronome (app on your phone) as has been suggested, and it doesn't work for you. Put it away and forget about it for maybe six months and try it again. If it still doesn't work put it away....

it took me about 3 attempts a year or so apart when I first started before the metronome was any good for me. It took all the joy out of playing the first few times I tried it.

Now, some years later (I've been playing for nearly 10 years), it's a great tool.

[JoeyW]

Thanks for the advice everyone

[JonPR]

Originally Posted by DBW

Get a metronome. Start it at 85 and work your speed up. Strumming patterns. The "California" strumming pattern is down-down-up Up-down-up. That's probably the hardest one. Strum from the wrist not the forearm.

Personally I disagree. Or at least I think this needs clarification.

Beginners IME tend to instinctively strum from the wrist, and need to be encouraged to relax and swing the forearm from the elbow.
The wrist does need to be relaxed too, of course, because the other typical thing - when moving the forearm - is to stiffen the wrist.
Good strumming action - at least at medium tempos, simple rhythms - is a mix of forearm and wrist, elbow and wrist joints both relaxed.

Originally Posted by DBW

I would start out doing four downstrokes using 4/4 time. Then do down-up-down-up with eighth notes.

Absolutely! Getting the downstrokes regular on the beat is trhe first essential. The upstrokes can be almost random. Best not to think about them at all until the downstrokes feel natural and comfortable.
I also see lots of beginners getting confused with strumming patterns, concentrating too much on the upstrokes before their downstrokes are secure.

Many songs don't have distinctive (fixed) strumming patterns at all, and keeping a beat is far more important than getting a strumming pattern right.

[DBW]

When I started out, I was strumming with my forearm as the pivot or fulcrum, if you will. I was also digging into the strings too deeply. My guitar instructor taught me to use the wrist as the pivot point. Much less sweeping motion and much more control and nuance. It works.

[JonPR]

Originally Posted by DBW

When I started out, I was strumming with my forearm as the pivot or fulcrum, if you will. I was also digging into the strings too deeply. My guitar instructor taught me to use the wrist as the pivot point. Much less sweeping motion and much more control and nuance. It works.

OK. But look at almost any professional guitar player strumming (simple rhythms). They're moving their forearm from the elbow.

IOW, that action wasn't what was causing you to dig into the strings too much. I'm guessing it was because you were holding your wrist too rigid - that's what your instructor fixed. Your wrist has to pivot as well as the elbow.

There are plenty of rhythm techniques where the forearm doesn't move, e.g with rapid power chord downstrokes, or funk 16ths where most of the movement is in the wrist. But generally speaking, for basic beginner strumming, medium tempo down and ups in 8ths, the wrist must be relaxed for sure, but the main movement is the forearm.

[DBW]

I usually play seated and my elbow rests on the guitar. No elbow involved at all. My instructor told me to use my wrist and not my elbow. He said, "Stop bending your elbow and start bending at the wrist." I was digging too deep because my pick was going in too deep. The action was fine.

[JohnW63]

For drill and kill stuiff, you might do YouTube backing tracks on songs you know how they "feel" and how fast they play. Then just strum on the beat. Backing tracks generally go at least as long as the real song if not longer.

I typed in this: "backing track 60bpm"

I found this video:
https://youtu.be/k03YTpyegrI

Just strum an em chord with the beat. The info under the video says..
Verse : (Em - D - C - D) x4
Chorus: (G - D - Em - C) x4

But you could just play em over and over, unless you are comfortable with those chords. Probably a good idea to count along with the beat.

Once you have that well, do a youtube search for faster and faster beats. I find this sort of thing a log more fun than just a dead metronome to play with.

[CarolD]

Originally Posted by JohnW63

For drill and kill stuiff, you might do YouTube backing tracks on songs you know how they "feel" and how fast they play. Then just strum on the beat. Backing tracks generally go at least as long as the real song if not longer.

I typed in this: "backing track 60bpm"

I found this video:
https://youtu.be/k03YTpyegrI

Just strum an em chord with the beat. The info under the video says..
Verse : (Em - D - C - D) x4
Chorus: (G - D - Em - C) x4

But you could just play em over and over, unless you are comfortable with those chords. Probably a good idea to count along with the beat.

Once you have that well, do a youtube search for faster and faster beats. I find this sort of thing a log more fun than just a dead metronome to play with.

This ^^^^

My teacher gave me a sheet of strumming patterns to work on as part of my practice. I do it with one chord change per exercise, which helps with my chord changes, too. It can get monotonous, so I found backing tracks to play along with. Makes it so much more fun!

[SprintBob]

Originally Posted by JoeyW

Hello to everyone.

I’m about two months into learning ( this time) and have been making good progress (in my opinion) . I don’t have time for lessons but I started the JustinGuitar course from the beginning and will continue to progress through it.

I’m wondering if there is a site that is more or less dedicated to beginners as I’m hungry for knowledge at this point. Most of what I read is to advanced for me right now. Can anyone recommend some good reading or YouTube stuff for a beginner like me?

Mainly wanting knowledge on how to develop my strumming rythym. Cord changes come easy to me but it’s hard to express in words how bad my rythym sucks. Lol


Any advice or recommendations are appreciated and thanks for allowing me to join your forum.

I second the advice to stay on course and commit to fully working through the JustinGuitar beginner course. You will get a taste of just about everything including strumming, flat picking, fingerstyle, theory, mechanics, etc. Justin also has excellent songbooks that compliment the course so think about buying one or two and pick some songs to work on as you work through the course work. Once you complete that course, you could consider his intermediate course or explore other options but Justin’s beginner course will leave you with a solid foundation to build from.

This is what I did and when I finished the beginner course, I knew I wanted to focus primarily on fingerstyle and it gave me a path to follow. I then started with Mark Hanson’s Contemporary Travis Picking course followed by his Solo Fingerstyle course and I became an online student of Mark’s. This has been over the course of 6-7 years. I take on and play a lot of solo fingerstyle arrangements from Mark and other sources. The journey has been awesome and the support here has also been wonderful. There is a great community in this forum.

[source3]

I am 1.5 years into learning myself. I too use justinguitar. I also subscribe to Artisworks.com. After learning the basics (https://artistworks.com/beginner-guitar-lessons) there are courses on fingerstyle, bluegrass, etc. I also tried guitartricks.com but like the format of Artistworks better and the ability to upload videos with the instructor providing great feedback at a cost of $35/month for monthly subscription and one video upload/month.

As mentioned above, Artisworks stresses the importance of using a metronome if you do not have natural rhythm.