Members UnliklySpy Posted March 18, 2004 Members Posted March 18, 2004 Hello all, I've been drumming for 10 years now. Unfortunately my grand scheme of having electronic drums in college wasn't as successful as I thought it would be. I don't want to give up on music for the extended periods of time I'm away at school though. I'm sure you guys have heard this story a million times. So here are my quick questions. 1. What brand of guitar should I look into? I want an acoustic or maybe even an acoustic/electric. I'm willing to spend about 400-700. What are some things I should look into? Don't bother telling me to just get a cheap guitar package because I hate dealing with poor quality. I like to have good stuff from the beginning.2. Can books be a good enough beginning teacher for me? I'll have plenty of time at school to practice with them but no chance of going to a guitar teacher. Guitar for dummies is obvisouly the first thing I can think of but I'm sure there is probably something better that musicians tend to only know about.3. Is it easier to read tabs? Is it bad? Would it be better if I just stuck to trying to read sheet music? I can read drum sheet music but not actual melodic instrument notes. Thats it for now. More questions later probably. Matt
Poparad Posted March 18, 2004 Posted March 18, 2004 Originally posted by UnliklySpy Hello all,1. What brand of guitar should I look into? I want an acoustic or maybe even an acoustic/electric. I'm willing to spend about 400-700. What are some things I should look into? Don't bother telling me to just get a cheap guitar package because I hate dealing with poor quality. I like to have good stuff from the beginning. There are a lot of different brands and models out there in that range that are pretty good. I've got a Fender acoustic/electric JG-26SCE that I picked up for $450. Plays great, intonation is great, plugged in sound is great, acoustic sound.. eh.. so so but it's a great $450 guitar. I've heard good things about Seagul guitars which are made in Canada... they make about 4 or 5 different brand names (Godin being another big one) that are all high quality/low cost. 2. Can books be a good enough beginning teacher for me? I'll have plenty of time at school to practice with them but no chance of going to a guitar teacher. Guitar for dummies is obvisouly the first thing I can think of but I'm sure there is probably something better that musicians tend to only know about. Sure. The problem with beginner books is that there are just so many of them out there. I've learned a lot from intermediate/advanced books. I'm sure you can gleam a lot from a beginners book. Nothing will replace a teacher, but it's a good alternative. Also, try and hook up with a few friends at school who play guitar and have them show you a few things/critque your playing. This can be pretty beneficial too. 3. Is it easier to read tabs? Is it bad? Would it be better if I just stuck to trying to read sheet music? I can read drum sheet music but not actual melodic instrument notes.Thats it for now. More questions later probably. Matt For some people, it's easier to read tabs. The problem with tab is that it doesn't convey all the information. Particularly rhtyhm. None at all... so I don't know how you feel about that as a drummer. In my opinion, it's best to learn both. Later on down the line if you want to keep progressing, you'll find standard notation to be essential to understanding a lot of intermediate and advanced concepts for guitar. If you only ever end up being a hobby player, you can probably get by on tab... but why limit yourself? As a drummer you already have the rhythm aspect of notation down, which is really the hardest part. Learning the note names is a cinch compared to that. Any decend beginners book will include standard notation all throughout.
Members ShredMeister Posted March 18, 2004 Members Posted March 18, 2004 A good beginning book I would recommend is called Guitar Method Book 1, by Greg Koch and Will Schmid. It's published by Hal Leonard. As you progress, you can buy books two and three.
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