Acoustic to electric Need Direction!

[rickcrna]

I've been playing acoustic guitar off and on for 30 years or so and consider myself to be an early intermediate player. I acquired a pristine 1995 Fender American Deluxe Strat sunburst body with maple neck and noiseless pickups and a Blues Jr amp many years ago. Been reluctant to sell it as I kept thinking when I have the time and gumption I'd like to learn to play electric. Well as a recent retiree, I now have the time and interest. Technique wise I know one doesn't typically play an electric the same as an acoustic but I am really unsure where to start. Finding a face to face instructor may not be possible and I so I am left with youtube and other instructional videos.

Am looking for suggestions as to how to proceed and appreciate in advance your responses.

[Tracerbullet]

I’ve had really good luck with FenderPlay. There is a fee but I would pay a fee for face time face. It’s a yearly subscription. One if the things I like is you can set it up for the instrument (electric or acoustic) and what genre of music you want to learn. (Country, blues, folk etc) it the. Taylor’s the lesson to how you set it up. JMHO

[Gordon Currie]

IMHO the biggest challenge is that electric tends to have lower action and thinner gauge strings than you use for acoustic.

You will need to adjust your 'touch' for electric. It can be difficult at first because muscle memory is telling you to play a lot harder than is needed.

Another issue is muting. Good muting techniques are CRITICAL for electric, especially when playing through an amp. Stray notes ringing out might work with acoustic, but tend to sound extremely sloppy on electric (unless that is vibe you seek).

I love to go back and forth between acoustic and electric, as I'm always finding something with one approach that ends up being quite useful with the other.

[Steel and wood]

Play your electric like you would your acoustic whilst dialling in the sounds you like on your amp and see where it takes you is the best advice I can give. (A lot of us started out on acoustic before moving to electric and it's all transferable pretty much save for a few tricks and things you can pick up along the way).

Good luck!

[Chickee]

Originally Posted by rickcrna

I've been playing acoustic guitar off and on for 30 years...Technique wise I know one doesn't typically play an electric the same as an acoustic but I am really unsure where to start.
Am looking for suggestions as to how to proceed and appreciate in advance your responses.

Is there a particular style of electric guitar music you really enjoy? Maybe an electric group you admire? You’ve been fooling with guitars off and on for 30 years, it’s a no brainer.
Like the millions that have come before you, you copy that. It’s how you figure it out.
A good quality fender strat and a fender tube amp, brother you are 50% there already.
Have some fun.

[Paleolith54]

Originally Posted by Chickee

Is there a particular style of electric guitar music you really enjoy? Maybe an electric group you admire? You’ve been fooling with guitars off and on for 30 years, it’s a no brainer.
Like the millions that have come before you, you copy that. It’s how you figure it out.
A good quality fender strat and a fender tube amp, brother you are 50% there already.
Have some fun.

Exactly. Too many people encourage a lot of over-thinking in this regard. Keep looking for good instruction/help, certainly, but dive in. If you're doing something wrong, your ears will almost always tell you so.

[blews]

Couldn’t agree more with the last couple of posts - just dive in! You’d be amazed at what you play on your acoustic sounds really awesome on an electric...get some 11s or 12s on your electric and you will feel right at home...

[Steve DeRosa]

Originally Posted by Steel and wood

Play your electric like you would your acoustic whilst dialling in the sounds you like on your amp, and see where it takes you is the best advice I can give. (A lot of us started out on acoustic before moving to electric and it's all transferable pretty much save for a few tricks and things you can pick up along the way)...

Originally Posted by Gordon Currie

IMHO the biggest challenge is that electric tends to have lower action and thinner gauge strings than you use for acoustic.

You will need to adjust your 'touch' for electric. It can be difficult at first because muscle memory is telling you to play a lot harder than is needed...

I love to go back and forth between acoustic and electric, as I'm always finding something with one approach that ends up being quite useful with the other.

A few suggestions from one who has been going back-&-forth - often at the same gig - for the last six decades:

• Nowhere is it engraved in stone that you must use skinny strings on an electric; FYI every single one of the "classic" designs - Fender Tele/Strat/Jazzmaster/Jaguar/Mustang; Gibson LP/SG/ES/Firebird; Gretsch/Guild hollows and solids - was strung with flatwound 12's from the factory; IME most of them sound better if you use a similar gauge (including a wound G), and all that's required to make the changeover is a good pro setup (trussrod, bridge height/intonation, nut slot filing, fret level) - BTW I've been using flatwound 12's on my '86 Fender/Squier Strat since day one
• Lower action - even if you're going to be switching between acoustic and electric - is not necessarily a bad thing (especially if you're using heavier strings); FWIW flatwound strings allow for significantly lower action than roundwounds - something all those fleet-fingered '50s jazzers and rockabilly cats knew and used to great advantage (skinny string sets didn't hit the market until the late-60's and wouldn't become factory spec for another 15 years) - and if you've built up requisite hand strength after 30+ years of playing acoustic, IME you should have no trouble doing half-step bends, which leads me to:
• Wound G strings not only provide a more consistent feel between electric and acoustic, but IME more accurate tuning with no harsh overtones (particularly with single-coil pickups) - you'll find the general tonality to be more familiar, further easing the transition; I'd also have your tech "unfloat" the bridge, i.e. tightening the retaining springs and/or adding additional springs so that the rear part of the bridge rests flush with the body, as I did on my own Strat - sometimes called the "Van Halen mod," this will further improve tuning stability and sustain while still allowing use of the whammy bar for down-bends (unlike the "Clapton mod" which blocks the tailpiece into a fixed position)
• As far as a starting point is concerned, go totally old-school for now: guitar-cable-amp, low-moderate volume clean tone (set the master and EQ controls at the 12 o'clock position - between 6 and 7 on the dial - use the volume to set the desired level, leave the fat switch off, and add just a bit of reverb to give the tone some "air"), all controls on the guitar on 10, and neck pickup only; begin with some familiar simple lead lines, striving for a clean technique without any ringing from adjacent strings (as Gordon suggests, you'll need to work on both right- and left-hand muting techniques) - start slowly, and as you acquire proficiency begin introducing additional tone colors to the mix (string muffling, "pinch" harmonics, position #2 & 4 "quack" tones, overdrive, extreme EQ settings, "surf" reverb, etc.)

You've got a good setup there - use it well, often, and LOUD...

[Steel and wood]

On a side note and subsequent to my last post, there's a bucket load of great intermediate to advanced lessons by some great players/teachers if your aim is to up your overall guitar game to another level. (I swear by Steve Stine for all things music theory and understanding the fretboard even though I only discovered him late after I'd taken in all the theory and understanding I was able to digest and the Lick N Riff YouTube site which has lessons on just about every intermediate technique, style and genre there is, to name but a few).

And yes, some great specialist lessons on all sorts of genres, styles and techniques. (Acoustic, electric and both).

Again, good luck!

[rickcrna]

You guys are really awesome and I super appreciate the suggestions and help especially with strings and amp set-up. An earlier post resonated with me as well regarding using a light touch on the frets and learning how to mute unwanted sounds.

As soon as I get a pack of strings I'm going to take the strat to my luthier and have him do a complete set-up since its been years since the last one. I also need to learn how to change strings on the strat as well. Hopefully I'll get this done in the next week or so depending on his availability.

As far as favored genres go, I think my initial interest would be learning some blues techniques and fingerings. Any suggestions for worthwhile instructional material that would be helpful at this point? My knowledge of the fretboard definitely needs some improvement as well.

[DukeX]

I really like this guy:

http://www.mytwangyguitar.com/twc/

His DVDs are exceptional IMO.

[Steel and wood]

Originally Posted by rickcrna

You guys are really awesome and I super appreciate the suggestions and help especially with strings and amp set-up. An earlier post resonated with me as well regarding using a light touch on the frets and learning how to mute unwanted sounds.

As soon as I get a pack of strings I'm going to take the strat to my luthier and have him do a complete set-up since its been years since the last one. I also need to learn how to change strings on the strat as well. Hopefully I'll get this done in the next week or so depending on his availability.

As far as favored genres go, I think my initial interest would be learning some blues techniques and fingerings. Any suggestions for worthwhile instructional material that would be helpful at this point? My knowledge of the fretboard definitely needs some improvement as well.

YouTube guitarist Steve Stine is the best there is for all things music theory and fretboard knowledge plus lots of blues lessons.

[jseth]

Originally Posted by Gordon Currie

IMHO the biggest challenge is that electric tends to have lower action and thinner gauge strings than you use for acoustic.

You will need to adjust your 'touch' for electric. It can be difficult at first because muscle memory is telling you to play a lot harder than is needed.

Another issue is muting. Good muting techniques are CRITICAL for electric, especially when playing through an amp. Stray notes ringing out might work with acoustic, but tend to sound extremely sloppy on electric (unless that is vibe you seek).

I love to go back and forth between acoustic and electric, as I'm always finding something with one approach that ends up being quite useful with the other.

Electric guitar is a d"just go ahead and play" and see where it takes you; it's going to be a fun, learning process for a while!

Personally, having been an acoustic player for some 60 years, one of the most challenging aspects of electric guitar is the left hand... both hands, really, as the strings are generally quite a bit lighter gauge on an electric.

Your fretting hand pressure is lighter, everything presses down easily. So easily that it's common to fret with so much pressure that you actually bend the strings out of the chord shape...

Left hand is critical; you will quickly "re-learn" how hard to strike the strings on an electric guitar. Feeling the difference between a soft pluck or a firmer attack is a challenge for me; the variances seem to be minute when compared to an acoustic, when I'm strumming/picking harder, and then want to "dig in" a little for a note or lead line. Fortunately, the human mechanism is more than capable of making any adjustments... will help to pay attention to it, right out of the gate..

Muting is another necessity (as one reply stated), and for all those reasons he gave... quite a difference from wanting your acoustic to ring out with all those nice overtones...

Lastly, string gauge. I play a Gibson ES-345, and I have finally realized that putting 11's on it makes the transition between electric and acoustic more natural. Many Strat players use 9's or 10's; some go down to 7's and 8's. Those are some seriously 'slinky" strings! You may want to have your Strat setup for 11's after you play it for a while; I have a friend in Montana who plays in a trio, all over the place... his Strat is strung with 13's!!! As he told me, "There's no time to stop and tune when you're out in the boonies in some tavern with a bunch of drunken mountain men and women... got to keep the songs coming!"

Sounds like a great guitar and a nice amp... have a ball with this! Sounds like it's been a long time coming...

[Dru Edwards]

Originally Posted by rickcrna

You guys are really awesome and I super appreciate the suggestions and help especially with strings and amp set-up. An earlier post resonated with me as well regarding using a light touch on the frets and learning how to mute unwanted sounds.

As soon as I get a pack of strings I'm going to take the strat to my luthier and have him do a complete set-up since its been years since the last one. I also need to learn how to change strings on the strat as well. Hopefully I'll get this done in the next week or so depending on his availability.

As far as favored genres go, I think my initial interest would be learning some blues techniques and fingerings. Any suggestions for worthwhile instructional material that would be helpful at this point? My knowledge of the fretboard definitely needs some improvement as well.

The blues will be great to play on your strat. Do you have any bands/artists that interest you? Such as Stevie Ray Vaughan or Billy Gibbons (ZZ Top who is Les Paul)?

From a technique perspective, learn the blues scale which is basically the pentatonic scale with 1 note absent. Learn it in A and E and then you can transpose it anywhere. The reason I say A and E is that a lot of blues songs are based on that but obviously not all.

[Dadzmad]

as usual Steve has provided an excellent post on strings

I would like to add the following - don't fight the floating bridge / trem system on the Strat - have is set up properly or watch some youtube and DIY. Even if you never use the bar and take it off. The floating bridge is the heart and soul of the Strat.

one other thing - strats have come with 3 springs for a long time now they originally had 5 springs to handle heavier strings like 12's (the bridge may pull up with 3). The claw has hooks for 5 - you can get a set of 5 springs on the bay for less than 10 clams. Tension adjustment is done with a screwdriver and the big wood screw holding the claw in position. If you remove the plate on the back you can see this. Have fun. Of course you will want a Telecaster