This is a more useful thread than I initially imagined it might be. The advice seems to be let him get going on whatever is most likely to turn him on. If he gets it he'll most likely end up with a few of everything anyway. If he doesn't he'll be right there with the other 90% or whatever the failure rate is for aspirant guitarists. Which reminds me, nobody has recommended 'Guitar Hero' yet! I only say this because recently googling "first three chords to learn on the guitar" (as a part of researching my wife's learning curve, we still haven't resolved the 'northpaw/southpaw' dilemma - doing both slowly for now, I know...) I accidentally came across an American site called "manliness.com" offering advice to the aspiring alpha male that he needed to learn (I think it was something like E, A, D) to appear at any social function as a corinthian god of rock. I kid you not! I mean this 'manliness.com' looked like a serious forum and not some kind of bad joke (and rooted in the Bible Belt). I shudder when I think of their poor women, for all the wrong reasons...

I will just mention that the serious advice when you google the above comes up with "these are the first eight chords to learn on the guitar". They (from memory) being A, C, D, E, G, Am, Dm and Em. That seems to be the accepted wisdom for beginners. Which was a useful reminder.

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Strictly project and just for fun

WRTo Handidness.
I believe in learning on what is there and yesterday watching a pianist playing Young Muso' it struck me that as with piano, the conventional guitars' pitch increases left to right and "down", same for cellos and basses.

Same goes for hand/body size ref instrument, if you have stopped growing that is.

You know it makes sense!

Dave.

Quote Frisonic:

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Which reminds me, nobody has recommended 'Guitar Hero' yet!

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Many will scoff as I would have done but when my son and heir finally picked up a real guitar his timing was pretty good, something I put down largely to his 'wasted' hours in front of GH.

I teased him mercilessly, imagine his face when I introduced the YouRock guitar into the house.

First chords to learn - G, C, D include lots of theory without trying and make relative minors logical to understand.

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Ohm's Law states, "Your PA isn't as powerful as you think it is".

Quote shufflebeat:

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...and cheap guitars are rubbish/great, especially the modern Chinese ones.

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Ah! I know you are posting "tongue in cheek" and that is fair enough of course. However, I would wish to emphasise that the Chinese variety are not at all half bad (whether Cantonese or Peking - let's leave that "Bejing" stuff out of it).

For example, following on from my long regretted selling of my Gibson ES345 I have more recently purchased an Epiphone (Chinese) ES345 and I can tell you all it ain't bad at all!

Quote Frisonic:

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Which reminds me, nobody has recommended 'Guitar Hero' yet!

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I started guitar 3 years ago, BECAUSE OF GUITAR HERO! It turned me onto some great music, and after hitting colourfull keys got boaring and too easy I wanted to do it the 'Proper way'! I had the same question as you, "acoustic VS electric"!? I chose acoustic, a £40 chantry one! These are the advantages and disadvantages of getting an acoustic first in my experience...

Advantages: Strengthens your fingers, builds up the 'calluses'(i think thats what they're called) on your finger tips. CHEAP! Made me learn how to play chords instead of just lead playing, Made playing electric guitar seem a lot easier, Didnt upset the nabours whilst tring to learn and taught me that you didnt need a thousand tonnes of gain to sound good!

Bad: Harder to play, hurts your fingers A LOT but once your calluses have built up this will stop, Plus, after you've worked soo hard for them (IMO the biggest hurdle to overcome as a guitar player)... you'll never stop practicing to keep them! As mentioned many times above they're totally different sounding and That's all really.

Hopefully thats helpful

Aaron G

Edited by AardvarkG (14/05/12 06:10 PM)

I've been increasingly impressed by the standard of eastern copies of well known guitars since the Tokai Fenders which if memory serves led to the original Squier guitars (by Young Chang?).

This has led to a general upgrading which, as a cheapskate, I warmly welcome.

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Ohm's Law states, "Your PA isn't as powerful as you think it is".

Quote AardvarkG:

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Quote Frisonic:

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Which reminds me, nobody has recommended 'Guitar Hero' yet!

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I started guitar 3 years ago, BECAUSE OF GUITAR HERO! It turned me onto some great music, and after hitting colourfull keys got boaring and too easy I wanted to do it the 'Proper way'! I had the same question as you, "acoustic VS electric"!? I chose acoustic, a £40 chantry one! These are the advantages and disadvantages of getting an acoustic first in my experience...

Advantages: Strengthens your fingers, builds up the 'calluses'(i think thats what they're called) on your finger tips. CHEAP! Made me learn how to play chords instead of just lead playing, Made playing electric guitar seem a lot easier, Didnt upset the nabours whilst tring to learn and taught me that you didnt need a thousand tonnes of gain to sound good!

Bad: Harder to play, hurts your fingers A LOT but once your calluses have built up this will stop, Plus, after you've worked soo hard for them (IMO the biggest hurdle to overcome as a guitar player)... you'll never stop practicing to keep them! As mentioned many times above they're totally different sounding and That's all really.

Hopefully thats helpful

Aaron G

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Well i wasn't necessarily being flippant

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Strictly project and just for fun

Quote Frisonic:

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Well i wasn't necessarily being flippant

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I got that much, but oh well... made a good story