what are some ways and tips for self-taught guitar playing?

I have been playing guitar for 15 years. The best way to learn is to learn basic fundamental theory as you start to strum your first chords. You don't have to go crazy with the theory part. Just get yourself a simple, easy to read guitar book. I learned from a Mel Bay book. Also, pay close attention to all music you hear on the internet, the radio, on TV, at concerts, etc. Visualize it in your head and try to play along with it. Playing by ear will give you a good sense of pitch. And you know what? If you are strapped for time don't worry about it. All you have to do is practice for maybe 15 or 20 minutes a day. Practice your scales and chord progressions for a little while each day. In time, as you get better, you will enjoy playing and you will want to play for much longer than 15 or 20 minutes a day. Lastly, get yourself involved in a band. That will help you to develop basic songwriting skills.

These days you can learn how to play guitar over the internet. Check out Mark McKenzie's guitar video lessons here: http://www.jamoramaguitar.com/ The videos are very easy to follow and to my surprise extremely helpful even for advanced guitar players. For beginners I would have to say this is a gold mine.

I was able to improve my skills in just under 4 weeks and I am an intermediate-to-advanced guitar player; I've been playing guitar for the past 6 years and I was on stage with my band a lot of times.

I live in New York City, I wanted to go to a pro guitar teacher but that would have cost me over $1400 per month. Good thing with this internet, $1400 it's a lot of money for me. Good luck!

First of all you have to go somewhere like the Sam Ash, they have a better selection of books then the Guitar Center has, Guitar Center has better guitars, get one of the clerks to help you, tell him what style you want to learn, rock, finger stlye, strumming cords, etc. and get him to advise you about the best book to start with. Try to get one that has a Cd in the back, there great, and then you can hear your progression, while you play with the Cd. Remember to follow the rules in the book as for holding the hands and fingers correctly, that's important, and it's better than having to go back later and correct bad habits, a lot of things in guitar like making cords easier and speed will work out better if you follow the correct way of doing things right from the beginning. It's most important to hold that thumb in the back of the neck of the guitar instead of over it, a lot of people don't follow that rule and later on they want to know why they can't make certain cords, or that they want to improve on their speed, and then have to go back and correct all the rules that they didn't follow, which is a lot harder to do once you've established bad habits, and all it does it slow you down. All these rules later on become clear and you'll see why that it's important to play that way. After you learn the rules and a few notes and cords you can get somthing like Hal Leonards book, Acoustic, where they have notation and tab and learn to play a few songs like, Tears in Heaven, or the Beatles Here Comes the Sun, they are fun to play and not to hard. I say this because a lot of people learning guitar want to learn how to play songs that they like and start to get bored with the note learning and the other stuff you have to learn to get your hands ready to play, like train your muscles, and get callous on your fingers. After you learn a few cords and some basics you could probably handle this music and you'll feel like your accomplishing something. Good luck to you, it's something that you'll have for life and you'll never be bored because there's always something new to learn.

The best book I have found for a beginner is:

HOW TO PLAY GUITAR by Roger Evans - sub-titled:

Everything You Need To Know To Play The Guitar.

Cost: $10.95 Most book stores have it or can order it for you.

Another good source:MelBay Publications www.melbay.com

Have the "You Can Teach Yourself" series for every style of

guitar player. Some come with CD/DVD or both.

You can reach them by phone at: 1-800-863-5229

I hope this help and good luck with your studies

well Can play a guitar not very well lol but good and i taught my self chords but i don't have a fav book but boos help a lot no its not that easy teaching your self it will take a wile but just any book probably will do

i've been teaching myself to play guitar for almost a year now and it's worked out pretty good. here's my suggestion: go to a website like ultimate-guitar.com and search for a that you like a lot and select one that has the chords. then go to chordie.com or some website like it and search for the chords named, then learn the chord. once you learn a few chords and the song, search for another one and build off of that. (also: tabs work really well because you can play just by knowing which fret you are on). youtube is also helpful.

i hope this helped, good luck!

This course is even better than a personal guitar teacher http://www.goobypls.com/r/rd.asp?gid=554

the site has thousands of videos and well explained lessons, everything is explained step by step and it's easy to follow. I haven't found any better online training course elsewhere.

I didn't have a clue how to play my guitar...until I discovered Youtube had tones of easy tutorials on guitar stuff....from basics, to songs.

YOu can't just type in guitar tutorials

or how to play guitar.....

or How to play (Insert song) on guitar!

Its easy

Good Luck and Have FUN!

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try ultimate-guitar.com and check out the 'lessons' tab on the top of the site. it was very useful for me and theres a lot of great articles there for free. Also- i found that youtube.com was very helpful becuase there are a lot of beginner lessons on there that are amazing and very easy. i mean if you have any easy songs that you like just get the tabs for them and start playing :)