Guitar(Acoustic or Electric)

[anotherlogic]

Hey Dear,

You shuld purchase an Acoustic guitar coz as you are a novice and it wont be possible for for you to carry your electric guitar with its amplifier ..............and ofcourse acoustic is really easier to learn than electric one.................

[ionicsachin]

@IronMan
1)I generally do the "<artist> - <song> guitar pro tabs" search in google, and the best search results come at 911tabs and ultimate-guitar. Remember, you will need Guitar Pro.

2)Songs which are a bit off rhythm, like Cocaine by Eric Clapton, Hotel California by Eagle

3)Things that you need to take care when buying are:-
a) Start saving, an electric guitar will be much better if it is of a better brand. In these days nothing beats Ibanez. You can see the latest prices and user reviews at bajaao.com
b) Invest for a good amp. I wud suggest a Marshall MG10CD (Rs. 3000/-) or MArshall MG15CD(Rs. 4000/-)
c) Check for the strings, harmonics and all right at the shop, ask him to plugin into some amp for u to check.

About the things you should take care of now are:-
a) Always keep in mind that one day you are gonna play on electric guitar, so dont feel low if u cant play some fast moving songs.
b) Learn and try to master as many techniques as you can on acoustic.
c) Give special attention to pull-off and slide up, coz hammer on and slide down are easy but not the formers.
d) In general just learn as much acoustic guitar as you can, it will pay you back while electric guitaring.

@anotherlogic
Acoustic Guitar is easier to learn, but most difficult to master.

[MetalheadGautham]

how is TuxGuitar ? does it have a good leftie mode ?

[ionicsachin]

I dont have idea about TuxGuitar, but Guitar Pro has left hand mode and its good one..You can reverse the display of the fretboard. Just click on the « <---> » button (Windows) or on the « <> » button (Mac).

[MetalheadGautham]

Next question:

How do I prevent the "jarring" effect I find while sometimes playing the bass E string ?
I try controlling my speed, but often that changes the whole picture.

And yeah, is there any cheap long 21-fret fretboard cut-out lefty acoustic guitar available in the market ?

[ionicsachin]

Jarring effect usually comes if the low E is very thick. The remedy is to either get a new set of strings which are extra lite(usually relatively thinner) or if the bridge sadle is adjustable then highten it a bit.

Yeah probably u might find one is Granada or Pluto(non semi electric ones)

A simple practice workout made by me for making your pinky into action
E----------------------7-8---------------------
B------------------7-8-----7-8-----------------
G--------------7-8-------------7-8-------------
D----------7-8---------------------7-8---------
A------7-8-----------------------------7-8-----
E---7-8------------------------------------7-8-

Just make sure that you use ur third finger for "7" and fourth finger aka pinky for "8" ...practice this daily for at least 5 mins at different places on fretboard

[MetalheadGautham]

Thanks for the exercise.

And what model should I see ?
I am intrested in guitars which come with a pickup across the cavity.
They make good substitutes till I can get an electric.

And my current Fendar acoustic has a pickup at the end. But since it touches the strings, fret noise is highly amplified and so is the sound of my fingers touching the guitar.
Is there any solution ?

And what is the price of external pickups for the guitar ? I want to fix a pickup across the hole. A cheap but decent sounding one.

BTW, I use a software called GNUitar for using my PC as an amplifier. Awesome software that is. But when I learn Jack Studio Audio Workstation applications later this year when I have free time, I can also use pro apps like JackRack for guitar effects and Ardour2 for remixing and recording songs (they are all opensource software and are there in my repositories luckily for me). This means I can wait before getting a concert rig. I can manage with my PC studio till I save enough cash or gain enough confidence.

[ionicsachin]

Look out for Granada PRS-1 lefty cutaway, its a very good one.
You can purchase any guitar, and later fix pickups over the hole. They price from around 600/- to higher...Also try to get lighter strings to avoid jarring...

One more very very useful tip.. Use a metronome software, always

[MetalheadGautham]

Originally Posted by ionicsachin

Look out for Granada PRS-1 lefty cutaway, its a very good one.

LINK PLEASE
Does it come with Pickups ?

You can purchase any guitar, and later fix pickups over the hole. They price from around 600/- to higher...Also try to get lighter strings to avoid jarring...

Rs. 600 pickups ? Perfect. All I need to do is to borrow somebody's drilling machine.
Its exactly in my budget (actually I hoped for Rs. 500, but 600 not much difference).
How would the quality be ?
Any links please ?

One more very very useful tip.. Use a metronome software, always

whats a metronome software ?

PS: I like the pickup+acoustic sound. Feels like Janic Gers

[ionicsachin]

PRS 1 doesnt come with pickup, the right hand model is available at bajaao.com , lefty wud be at some good shop.
600 bucks the quality might not be that high, but that sure is good point as it wont pick much of external noise and all, it will be similar to that in Givson jumbo
Metronome is actually a physical device that does "tic-toc-tic-toc" at user-fixed interval of time, it will actually help you time your note perfectly. It is a very good habit to use it if you persue stage guitaring.
Yeah, it sounds warm and homely .

[MetalheadGautham]

Oh, THAT ?

I use Hydrogen Drum Machine when I need regular beats.

For practice, I do foot tapping. I tap the ground with my heel for getting rhythem.

[ionicsachin]

Yeah, that foot tapping is actually metronome. Its actually set on BPM(beats per minute)

[MetalheadGautham]

^^Yeah I know that.

So... any idea where I can find cheap Rs. 600 pickups ?

[ionicsachin]

Any guitar shop,get it fixed by them

Start saving yaar, you have great enthu i dont want you to start with a under 10k electric guitar

[MetalheadGautham]

Originally Posted by ionicsachin

Any guitar shop,get it fixed by them

Do you think I can try my luck in Brigade Road, Bangalore ? Its supposed to have several reputed shops selling musical instruments.

Start saving yaar, you have great enthu i dont want you to start with a under 10k electric guitar

start ?

I have been playing for 1.5 years on this piece of wierd only-12-frets-allowed instrument.

I tried every possible thing. I even custom ordered a 10mm to 3.5mm jack convertor to be made to connect the guitar to my PC.

I spent hours and days learning to figure out how to connect stuff and where to increase/decrease volume, etc and how to use software like Hydrogen, Audacity and Gnuitar.

After that, I tried to adjust settings in the software to get a nice overdrive tone, only to discover that my pickup is screwing things up and that the bass frequencies are missing. Back then I didn't know how to double-pick so I almost ditched the whole idea. Now, the cable is also lost. I need to start over.

Patience is something I have in plenty now.

[ionicsachin]

I have no idea about bangalore, but if the shop has both Givson as well as Pluto or something high end, then it must have pickups too....
Yeah man, dont worry, lofe will be easy and pleasing once you get an electric guitar.
BTW, what songs are you practicing right now?

[MetalheadGautham]

Right now I try some simpler stuff like:

Led Zeppelin's Where the Levee Breaks
Smoke On the Water
The Day That Never Comes (I always make mistakes in the intro)

MOST black sabbath songs - they are slow enough for helping newbies out, minus the solos.

For black sabbath songs, I can play Iron Man, Paranoid, Snowblind, Electric Funeral, Sabbath Bloody Sabbath, Black Sabbath, The Wizard, War Pigs, etc, but some more complex stuff like Into The Void I can't easily manage.

But since I can't read notes, I usually rely on my ear to make up my own version of the song.

[The_Devil_Himself]

^nub can't read notes,lol.,you have that kind of acoustic guitar which has a 10mm connector too?

I have a pure acoustic guitar, with 21frets.

I have a question:How often do you guys change the strings?And how do you know its time?I have seen people change them as often as 2 weeks apart,thats a costly business.

And the current strigs on my guitar are kind of hard,My fingers feel strange whole day when I practise,any suggestion about what kind of strings should I get next?

More edit:Is changing strings difficult?I hope not,

and I still can't play sa-re-ga-ma,my fingers can change the positions fast enough and exact enough.,its been like a month now since I bought my guitar.

[ionicsachin]

@MetalHead
Those are pretty good...carry on...also try these
http://www.cyberfret.com/first-fret/...itar/page3.php

@The_Devil_Himself
It depends on many factors, most important being how much you play ur guitar. I used to play my guitar for at least half an hour a day in the beginning. And my strings worked for at least 2 months or so each time. But later when i changed to D'Addario Extra Light String, they worked for 4-5 months. But they cost around 350/-. Moreover it also depends on techniques you play. Try full bending the G string at the 7th fret and it will be ruined in one week. And lastly it depends on how you take care.
Change your strings only when you feel they are sounding odd. Or if the outer covering (E,A,D and G strings) is wearing out.
Next time go for extra lite bronze strings, preferably from D'Adario, they are costly but they need to be changed lesser and are not that hard on fingers.
Changing string is very easy, but if doing for the first time ask someone else to do it for u and watch carefully how he winds them up.
Looks like you are going for some usual Sa-Re-Ga-Ma tution, better learn it in the form of scales and notes. like C C# D D# E F F# G A A# B. This will help you understand it better coz almost all songs are in these universal format, and rarely in hindi musical note format.

[The_Devil_Himself]

^lhmm,I think the strings currently on guitar are bronze only and they are hard.


and no,sa-re-ga is a way of practicing playing notes consecutively.I still practice CAGED eceryday after spending time tuning.

[ionicsachin]

Maximum Strings are bronze, but look for "Extra light" tag...I am using D'Addario EZ900 strings...

[MetalheadGautham]

@Devil: Mine is an 18-fret guitar out of which only 12 are easily usable.

And yeah, the pain is because initially your fingers would have difficulty in adjusting to playing a guitar. For 3 months I had really sore fingers and had to eat with my thumb using a spoon and couldn't write easily.

But after some time, you will get used to it. Now, I can comfortably go into an extremely painful (in the begening) master of puppets intro till 2 mins.

BTW, did somebody try playing older classics like Jimi Hendrix's Purple Haze ?
I got its riffs right, but the best part was that I discovered that the doodle I sometimes do is nothing but the solo in the end of the song