Anyone learn guitar using the eMedia Guitar Method cd-roms?
 

I just started. I picked up a Jasmine acoustic guitar and the cd rom and some other goodies. The cd seems pretty well thought out so far and it had great reviews online. It should tied me over until i can get into some classes.
So far I've learned the following chords: A7, C, G, G7, D
Learning them is easy, but being able to quickly and accurately switch between them is a bitch! :crazy: I decided to stop there and just keep practicing until I'm comfortable with it before moving on.

I was looking at the eMedia Piano Method software earlier, because I got a keyboard but have no formal training with it (although I played the sax and clarinet for years). I'm glad to hear their stuff is quality. I think I'll pick it up :).

to learn guitar there is just 1 way.: practice
ive been playing for almost 7 years now and i think this cds or books are a good way to get started, but when u learned the basics, just get yourself the tabs to songs u like and try to play them...

very important:
pratice SLOW first dont try to keep up with original tempo until ur ready ;)

Good advice, thanks.

Right now i have learned the A7, G, G7, D, and C chords. I stopped here and I'm just trying to get my fingers to learn these well enuff so that I can go from chord to chord with ease.

knowing the G, C, and D chords means you can now play 95% of the rock songs written between 1950 and 1969 ;)

And all punk rock :D

SWEET! :D

I just need to play them at about 1/3 the tempo and hope no one hears the buzzing and missed strings when picking. ;)

miko I have that software and it is great. Learning the basics with that is a snap. Haven't played for months now, really need to get back into it. Kiddies taking up all my time at home.

That's exactly what I did. I found that practicing using tabs I found online was the best way to learn. It let me go at my own pace.

sounds like you're off to a great start... try to learn E, and between E, A, D, G and C you can play pretty much anything. And start working on F, it's kinda hard to get for a while.

sounds good

I found playing rock / punk / grunge songs its good to know your barre (i think thats how you spell it) chords too.

easy to do and much easier to change from one to another.

Good luck with it and as said before all you can do is practice and practice, dont be discouraged if you hit a bum note, justkeep at it.

holy crap! F is a BIATCH!!!!

So does anyone have any tips for practicing chord changes? I know the chords, that's easy. But quickly getting my fingers into the right position is awful. Every chord change makes me miss a beats unless it a simple chord like g where you only need one finger. For the multi finger chords my fingers go down one at a time. I know i have to practice practice practice, just wondering if any one has any practicing techniques to share?

Also, chords are much easier. I have a really hard time trying to follow tabs. ugh.
But OLGA.net is very cool. They have almost every song you could want.

What I found to be a lot of help was turning on the radio and just kind of strumming along at half tempo or the like. Makes practising the chords less of a chore and it also develops a good sense of rhythm.

Another thing is to try arpeggios by just picking your way up and down the strings. It gives some of your fingers more time to find their respective strings and it also forces your fingers to begin either finger picking or picking with a plectrum or plastic pick.

Another habit that is a bad one, is tablature. Try your very best to avoid learning everything from tabs; its very easy to go from standard notation to tabs, but tabs to standard notation is a bitch. Tabs are a drug, its very easy to learn songs from them, but its a rut and trying to play something with a clarinet or any other instrument can be a treacherous task of counting frets to find your next note. Its been 3 months since I started trying to go to standard notation from tabs, and I'm still not done.

Have fun though. The guitar is the modern violin; you can play nearly anything with it.

I actually have trouble with tabs and do better if it just says "C".

Has anyone seen this???
http://www.zagerguitar.com/instruction.htm

btw best way to practice with tabs is imho
getting yourself the guitar pro software (tabs available @ www.mysongbook.com)
it plays them(via midi) and u can change the speed and stuff
also the guitar pro tabs are much easier to read than normal ones

Yep, same way I learned... Works pretty well. Unfortunately, I dont play much anymore :(

Basically, just find something and practice. And practice more. There isnt really any way around that ;)

I dont understand whats so hard about F.
Maybe you use a diffrent version, heres mine:

^^^ that's not really F. it should look like this...

l1-----------------------------l
l---1--------------------------l
l-------2----------------------l
l-----------3------------------l
l0-----------------------------l
l0-----------------------------l

or you can barre it and have your index on the first fret of the low E and A strings as well as high e.

oh, so online guitar sites anyone might like are:

http://www.wholenote.com (great site, lots of exercises)
http://www.guitartabs.cc (lots of tabs)
http://www.mxtabs.net (tabs, chat forum, and lessons)

^^^
My version sounds better
lol

It's still pretty easy, whats the big deal

deal is its not F :D

no the right F is still pretty easy, now whats the big deal