Not one I've heard of. I just googled Alison Rayner, and the only musician that came back plays double bass.

The first song I learnt to play was green day's good riddance (time of your life). If you don't worry about arpeggiating the chords in the first verse/chorus and the outro it is the same strumming pattern all the way through (DDUUDU) and only four chords Gadd9, Cadd9, D and Em (with relatively easy transitions between them). The fact that I like the song was a great motivator.

Scud, is it normal when your a beginner to have your good days and your bad days, some days are smooth and other days are a bit of a mixed bag where you accidentally touch other strings and a few dud notes etc lol

At the min at the stage where ive learnt the names of the strings and i`m playing about 4 bars of a 16 bar song, its not fast yet but i can play that from my head. I`m learning the chords at the min, they seem quite tricky where its so easy to accidentally touch another string with having so many fingers on the go at the same time and very close together.

I guess its just practice and more practice, i`m happy overall as i only started playing on friday, having seen what i have to learn its certainly a hobby for the long run.

Two of my kids have guitar lessons, plus one doing the drums (£120 month !) but I have not been hearing much practice, until I started again and the middle lad is now practising like mad, I can sort of sympathise as all they have is pretty clunky Acoustics, the bigger one has quite high strings and they are so heavy so I want to get them a couple of cheap electrics so any suggestions or anyone with a cheap electric spare let me know.

I am no guitarist but for my limited fumblings its so slinky and easy to play in comparision to what feels like compressing 30 Amp Cable two inches whilst cuddling a suitcase.

I think it's normal however long you've been playing. My guitar teacher recommends developing a warm up routine so you get the blood flowing and your brain connected up before trying to do anything serious - the theory is it makes you more consistent, but I lack the patience! I'm trying to learn Muse's Stockholm Syndrome at the moment. The initial riff is pretty quick so requires accurate timing, some days I play it well straight off and then the next day it's all over the shop.

I`m enjoying it so far, ive had 2 lessons since i started playing which was just 2 weeks ago. I`m at a stage where ive learnt the string names, i can read guitar tabs to a certain extent and ive learnt 3 chords which are A, D and E which are apparently 3 common chords with a lot of riffs, i can also play the intro to "Sunday Bloody Sunday" which is a good beginners riff as its just a D chord with your little finger on the G string 4th fret. I think i`m moving onto the chorus in my next lesson which is a bit rock n roll so that should be fun and games :lol1:

I think i understand now why people learn to play the guitar, its a great buzz when you play something that you can recognise straight away. It makes you appreciate how good the pros are and people that have been playing for a long time, i`ll just keep on learning to walk before i can run and enjoy it along the way. Its more enjoyable when your learning music that you like, i think that helps a lot as it makes you more determined when your having an off day and hitting dud notes as you know the end result is worth it.

Wow, onto barre chords already! That's quick progress!. :D

He tries to make the guitar lessons as much fun and as enjoyable possible for me, we mainly stick to the basics in the lesson like me going over the chords which he has taught me and playing a guitar school piece which is fairly basic but it gets me used to moving my fingers around the fret board and lifting on and off strings, its mainly for last 15 mins that he walks me through the U2 riff which i`m learning in sections. The intro is nice and easy for a beginner like me as its mainly in D chord, he leaves me with a section to practice during the week for a bit of fun where i can mess it up in my own time instead of having an audience :lol1:

I like how he teaches, he makes sure i`m practicing the basics and going over them again and again but he introduces something that makes it a little more fun and enjoyable.

Somebody recommended this site in the past as an ideal website for beginner guitar players, its an excellent website and its helping me a lot.

Free guitar lessons - justinguitar.com - Learn how to play Guitar free here!

At the min i`m at the early stage of learning chords, ive memorised the A, D and E chords. The video below is helping me to practice changing chords by using the first finger as an anchor finger for the 3 chords above.

Free Guitar Lessons - Beginners Guitar Method with Justin Sandercoe (Learn how to play guitar)

http://cdn.holytaco.com/www/sites/de...guitarzand.jpg

Lightweights ;)

What about http://www.wolfgangguitars.com/Nigel%20-%20top.jpg.

Can someone give me a rough guide as to where i should be at after 4 x 1 hour lessons and a little bit of practicing inbetween lessons.

I think ive come up against a bit of a brick wall, this is where i`m at so far, i know the string names as well as the A,C,D and E chords, i also know Dsus and E minor.

I`m finding it tricky to change chords at any sort of speed, ive been practicing changing between D and A which i can do but its not very quick, my finger tips are strating to harden but sometimes i can`t practice for anymore than about 20 mins as the strings are still leaving fairly deep rescesses on my finger tips where the strings sink into them making it a bit difficult to get pressure down for a correct sounding note.

One other quick think is that the guitar kneck and head seems to swing outwards when i`m holding the guitar, if i put any sort of pressure on my Fender strat at the back the other end just swings out making it difficult to realease my fingers off the strings due to the pressure of it swinging outwards.

Anyone got or used a Skreddy Echo pedal?

or a real, original Echoplex?

Anyone wanna sell one?

here are my guitars:
https://www.scoobynet.com/picture.ph...pictureid=9498

l-r: gibson mirror-front V, gibson standard V, 1990 gibson double neck sg, gibson les paul standard, 2003 gibson les paul supreme.

A Schenker fan?

How much practice are you managing to do between lessons? This doesn't sounds like poor progress, but a lot will depend on how often you are practising. I've been playing for 5 years now and I still find some chord changes take a while to get to an acceptable speed - but I find a few intensive practice sessions with some time to let my subconscious work on it in between helps.

nah not really, just a gibson fan :-) - although his solos in Mother Mary by UFO are VERY tasty, no effects or reverb to cover it up. His phrasing too is top notch!

Ron
don't put too much pressure on yourself to always be measuring your progress. Some days you will feel like a guitar god and on other days you will feel like you have never even picked up a guitar before.

Worth remembering that not every practise needs to be a major learning leap and even 10 minutes changing between the few chords you have learned in no particular order or progression will still pay dividends in a short time.

Stop judging yourself mate and just do it (and enjoy it!)

another thing that helped me was to remember that there will always be someone better than you and always someone worse..enjoy

Basically, I see this time and again, and experience this myself regarding progressing on guitar. You practice and practice, It seems as if you arent getting any better, then all of a sudden you'll pick up the guitar and you can play it. I don't see guitar progress as a "gradual" thing, its more of a sudden "crap, crap, crap, crap, crap, crap... oh wait i can play it quite well now" kind of thing.

All it takes is some perseverance! when i was doing a degree in guitar a few years ago some of the stuff I had to learn was unreal and took me AGES to get right. e.g. playing a jazz chord progression, the bassline with the thumb & melody line over the top all at the same time took some SERIOUS practice! and playing "slap bass" but on guitar whilst throwing chords and "rasguedos" in took me a few years to get the hang of too! so dont try and give yourself unreal expectations, sometimes it really does take a long time to get a certain technique etc.

I teach guitar aswell, and people always tell me the tips of their fingers hurting. This is the only pain I'd recommend you can play through, as after a few minutes it'll go away to a certain extent. But any other pain, from your muscles or wrist, then you aren't doing something right!

Thanks for the feedback :thumb:

I think what you have said above is spot on, i`m putting too much pressure on myself and having too much early expectations of what i can achieve in just 4 weeks.

One of my biggest faults i think is to watch people playings riffs on youtube of the type of music i like, you start to question your own ability after watching them as to whether you will ever make any progress. I think i have to tell myself that these people have probably been playing for 10-20 years.

The string marks on my fingers don`t cause me any pain, its just they can become a little deep where the string is sinking into the grooves and it can be difficult to get enough pressure down to make a correct sounding note.

From now on i`ll lower my expectations and try to enjoy it more and practice as much as i can, i`ll focus on the chords and try to do chord change overs.

One thing ive found so far is i appreciate music a lot more especially my favourite types of music, it makes you appreciate how good the pro guitar players are and the people that have been playing for a good number of years.

Oh I know all about the unreal expectations! when I first started playing, for some strange reason I seemed to think that after 4 months i'd DEFINITELY be able to play the end guitar solo of hotel california by the eagles. To be fair, I got quite a lot of the notes down, but that was about it, it didn't sound good at all.

After hearing so many guitar players now, I've definitely sussed what makes an 'alright' sounding guitar player into a 'good' one.

Yeah you will find that about music, you listen to it completely differently now you're playing guitar. I'm sure like me, you will end up listening to and playing stuff you never thought you would. It does open you up and make you more receptive to a lot more genres of music.

When I was a student I learned to play The Clap by Steve Howe - other students thought it was very impressive...

...although I am sure it was crap though and I can't remember a note of it now?