[urklvt]

Learn? Eh?????

I started back in '85 just trying to jam along with Deep Purple and Van Halen with the basic knowledge gleaned from whatever magazine I could find. I took a few months of lessons in '86 but felt stifled and have just fudged my way through ever since, just playing along with people's music, jamming with other musicians and (primarily) creating my own music.

[Naren]

Yeah? Well, you're just wasted flesh anyway, so there.


Yeah... I said it.



And uh, what does OL stand for anyway (besides "Office Lady")? Original Loser?


Okay, I'll stop picking on Urkel.

Actually I'm pretty much the same as him... to be honest.

[canuck brian]

I picked up Kill em all and Show No Mercy tab books, took about a years worth of lesssons (didn't learn much) and basically read tab from there. Only in the past 2 years have I actually started learning proper theory (bout 14 years late!!) and started a proper practice regimen. I think my playing is 10 times better than it used to be.

[Leon]

self-taught, though i'm going to start taking lessons soon.

[ibznorange]

um, i learned the strings in a music class at school, and then withing 2 months had surpassed my teacher. i had alot of theory that i didnt remember from 4 years of classical piano, which came back really quickly.
i'm mostly self taught at this point, but when i have a decent amount of extra money, i get a lesson here and there. i want to get into a routine of going to lessons weekly or something of the like

[Randy]

I had lessons, but my teacher taught me the basics, and then we pretty much just traded off rhythms and soloing for an hour. All the real technical stuff I learned on my own through listening to music, and learning songs that were in the style I wanted to play, through tab and eventually by ear.

But through my simple "jam session" style lessons, I really learned my way around the fingerboard, right and left hand control, and phrasing.

[Nick]

yeah im self taught too when i started playing guitar i was into stuff like deftones and tool so i learned that.

I now listen to stuff like Meshuggah, Nile and lots of technical stuff and so thats the sort of stuff i play.

Iv picked up techniques by being on forums like this and by using the internet to get general tips.

As a result my technique is probably shockingly bad but i get by and i can play nile stuff so i get by ok!!

[guitarplayerone]

self-taught. My first tab books were 'Kill 'Em All' and the Black album.

learn some minor pentatonic scales.

when I was first learning, I played what I listened to... therefore when I was 11 I was playing SOAD, Slipknot, Tool (no Korn, I didnt have my seven then, though I wanted one lol). The most useful stuff back then was the Metallica, even though the Slipknot tightened up my chops a bit with their type of riffing, which was different than the Thrash.

Slayer helped too.

Introduce yourself to Steve Vai early on

[HamBungler]

Playing with other players, especially if they are much better than you and are good teachers. Having someone who is better than you gives you a good idea on how good you want to get, then just pick their brain of everything they know, jam with them, learn some riffs they've made up. When I was still in Vortex of Corruption, I probably got better most quickly when playing with our lead guitar player, he forced me to better my technique, pick faster and cleaner, and do leads. This really helped me out and I'm a better player because of it.

[Apophis]

My way to learn is simply improvising over some scales or chords progressions..
It's easy to say improvise, but there is some really boring time, when you have to learn those scales, patterns, positions, fingerings, chords, intervals etc... but after that is the nice part - improvising.
The other really important thing to me is listening music I want to play.
So imo best way is to listen the music and improvising. But only after you've learned basics.