First guitar: Ibanez RG7321

[Arcane66]

Hello, I've been playing guitar for about three weeks now. I have an RG 7321 because I love the music you can play and create with this type of guitar. I was wondering if you guys had any tips for me. I don't have a formal teacher yet, but my friend does help me some. I might be able to get an actual teacher. Otherwise, I've been looking online and stuff. This seven string is tuned to BEADGBe. So, I can practice 6 string stuff without messing with the 7th string. As I stated earlier, if you guys have any tips please let me know. Thanks!

[jarrhead]

If you have POD Farm, run that sucker through a noise gate. Noisy pickups. My tone patch I use to emulate Bulb's tone has seven noise gates in the chain.

Input > EQ > Gate > Gate > Gate > Gate > Screamer > Gate > Compressor > Big Bottom > Treadplate 4z12 > 57 off-axis > Gate > Gate > Out


If you don't... stay away from super high gain.

[Arcane66]

I don't have a POD farm. I have a Spider IV amp and that's about it. I been playing three weeks, bro. I don't really need all that stuff right now. I need to learn how to play better.

[Seanpat76]

Best advice you can get at this point is, go to your local music shop and pick up a lesson book. Something from Mel Bay or even Alphred. Make sure you guitar is in tune, the book will show you that too, read carefully and follow the instructions. Don't expect to be Randy Rhodes next week, take your time and practice as much as you can. Even when you think you have practeced a lot, practice some more. There are thousands of lessons on Youtube as well. Good luck, dude.

[Arcane66]

Thanks, Seanpat76. I have a chromatic tuner and have not learned how to tune the guitar myself. I've heard you need something as a gauge (such as a piano.) Question though. Do I have to learn how to read music or something? I ask this because you suggested I buy some books. I know how to read basic tabs.

[jarrhead]

Most books are just tabs.

As for tuning, you don't need anything but a tuner.

B E A D G B E is your tuning. Just turn the tuners until you hit the note.

Careful not to go an octave high! Best idea for a beginner is to detune one string until it flops then tune it up to the first B you see. Then repeat for the E, A, D, G, B, E strings.

[Arcane66]

Yeah, I have the guitar in tune to BEADGBe. That is the easy part, hah.

[SpiritCrusher]

well like others have said practice and practice some more, but go slow at first.. cannot stress that enough. you will be really frustrated at times, but keep with it.

in my opinion you should start of learning earlier music then move to contemporary..

like learn sabbath and zeppelin before learning early metallica. then once you have early metallica you can learn most metal (which is what i assume you're mainly trying to play?) learn your chords tho... it will make playing so much easier.

dont expect to be playing iron man one week and then the next week playing Holywars or Nevermore

also dont limit urself to one genre learn many

if you ever have trouble with any concepts, just look to youtube for lessons

LEARN PROPER TECHNIQUE!!!:
great vid on how to hold the pic correctly:


how to gallop pick (essential for metal styles):


this guy has great lesons for songs on his channel, and this would be a good song to learn first:
REMEMBER GO SLOW!

[mountainjam]

Guitar books are nice, but a good teacher is the way to go. You will learn much faster that way if you are just beginning

[jarrhead]

Originally Posted by mountainjam

Guitar books are nice, but a good teacher is the way to go. You will learn much faster that way if you are just beginning

Listen to this guy. I took my first lesson, $15, 30 minutes long, and I could play every major and minor scale and any major triad already. I'm in band class with the seniors (making this their 10th band class, six years playing minimum), and they don't even hardly know all their scales. Our tests are just scales. Yet some people don't pass.

[xMaNgOxKusHx]

Tip: like they said, start out playing slow, but don't progress in speed until you nail whatever you're playing in terms of cleanliness; always a good habit to stick with. Nothing is worse than trying to play something, and ....ing up multiple times because you don't know it from front to back. Always remember that.
Other than that, keep it tight and have fun exploring new and different styles you can put together to call your own

[Arcane66]

SpiritCrusher: Thank you so much for the information and the videos. I will be taking a look at those later today when I practice. It's people like you who make life easier, so thank you.

mountainjam: I agree. I am looking for a teacher in my area. If you have any suggestions, please help. I am looking for one in the San Antonio, Texas area. Thanks.

jarrhead: What you say is very important and clear to me. I definitely need a teacher because I don't want to be stupid and not learn basic things that will help in my playing.

xMaNgOxKusHx: I will definitely keep that in mind and try and not get frustrated with it. Appreciate it.

Thanks, guys.

[Origin]

Great starting on a seven! My first guit was a Schecter Omen 7. I quickly converted to Ibanez. Like everyone said take it slow, but make sure to challenge yourself regularly. Progress can come of hair-pulling frustration.

[Seanpat76]

Something that drastically improved my playing, extensive practice with an acoustic. Not even really for playing songs, more for my finger exercises and scale practice. The crappier the guitar the better. Haha!

[SW Davion]

Drop the low B to an A...

[Stealthdjentstic]

If you can get a friend/teacher to show you proper technique. You really don't want to be developing bad habits.

[baptizedinblood]

Originally Posted by SW Davion

Drop the low B to an A...

Why? So he can just play simple power chords in a bar chord formation and trick himself into thinking he's good? Stick to the standard 7 string tuning, you'll learn better that way. Once you know enough then drop the string to an A if you'd like and you can easily transpose notes for scales if needed.

Edit: To contribute to the thread; definitely find somebody like a friend or a teacher to get you started in the right direction. If you can't, pick up one of those teach-yourself books, and supplement that with info from the almighty internet. Seriously, you can learn a lot from whats online, it's ridiculous.

[fredw138]

Originally Posted by Seanpat76

Something that drastically improved my playing, extensive practice with an acoustic. Not even really for playing songs, more for my finger exercises and scale practice. The crappier the guitar the better. Haha!

Quoted for truth.

...Though you gotta watch out, some of those crappy acoustics can lead to carpal tunnel syndrome and fretting hand cramps if you play em too much.

[Arcane66]

Hey guys, thanks for keeping up the advice. I have still played every day since I've gotten the guitar about 5 weeks ago. I am currently working on Wonderwall by Oasis. No, it's not a 7-string song. I haven't been able to use the 7th string much especially since I haven't had any in person help with my playing. I am also learning barre chords (which are hard) and other stuff such as scales, power chords, more chords, and strumming patterns among other things. I had a question though. It seems like my 7 string is a bit rattly (the strings are rattling and vibrating when I hit em and are even vibrating when I fret the string and play it.) Am I due for a change of all 7 strings? I will continue to practice, but I definitely need help in person I think. Any suggestions about books or websites would be appreciated. Unfortunately, I am always busy it seems as I'm in graduate school (4 classes) and am a teacher's assistant. I am dedicated to guitar and will never let it go. I really need to tone down the number of courses I take in school and relax a bit more because I haven't had a day off since early January. Thanks for all your help, guys.

[Jontain]

To stop what is called fret buzz the guitar needs to be set up depending on the guages of strings you are using. Replacing the strings wont rid the fret buzz as this requires adjusting the bridge/string saddles (the metal piece all the strings rest against after coming out of the body), the frets and the neck.

For a beginer I would suggest taking your guitar into your local shop to get a tech to look at it and give it a good set up. These are all things you can do yourself but for now i would suggest focusing on learning to play as apposed to learning to set up the guitar, you will get a better understanding of this the more you learn / play.

Also a good tip to get started (in my opinion, there will be others who disagree) is to find an easy sounding song that you really like and look up the tab, however as already suggested a teacher is a great way forward.

[Arcane66]

I think part of the fret buzz resulted from me playing outside when it was sort of windy. Last night I didn't have much fret buzz. I am learning songs when I can. Thanks.

[fretboardvoodoo]

Originally Posted by Stealthtastic

If you can get a friend/teacher to show you proper technique. You really don't want to be developing bad habits.

I couldn't agree more, bad habits can be easy to start, really hard to break, and cause your speed, tone etc to all suffer... get a good teacher and learn the proper techniques before you venture too far on your own. It's always good to have a teacher give you feedback on your playing (something a book can't do).

[Arcane66]

Originally Posted by fretboardvoodoo

I couldn't agree more, bad habits can be easy to start, really hard to break, and cause your speed, tone etc to all suffer... get a good teacher and learn the proper techniques before you venture too far on your own. It's always good to have a teacher give you feedback on your playing (something a book can't do).

Yeah I actually got a teacher a couple of weeks ago and I see him once a week for an hour. He seems good so far and the price is fairly affordable at $22.50/hour. He gives me some stuff to practice and I do that. I been practicing every day still and I think I've gotten better, but there is definitely a lot more to do.

[Ryan-ZenGtr-]

My tip would be....

There are two types of guitarist:
1. The guy who sits for hours noodling, collects his "good ideas" and then practices them VERY slowly playing along to a metronome or drum loop (etc. to keep precise time) until he can perform the music he is working towards comfortably and precisely at the desired speed.

2. The guy who always improvises insane complex playing that no one can comprehend.

He started out as the first guy....

Once you've decided you're serious about guitar and want to invest more time to get "better", devote time to learning the major scale, with metronome, just like piano players or other traditional instrument players do. It's worth it and is the basis of theory, a language to describe music i.e. bar 4, beat 1, G major scale etc. It's easy but time consuming to learn the patterns and muscle memory at first.

Best thing to do is play scales really slowly with a metronome, pickup down-up-down- (alternate picking.... as in alternating between up and down)... Music only works because it uses notes from a scale, just as the notes in ANY chord come from a scale. It turns out there are only a very few possibilities once you get into the detail.

Essentially what I've suggested will KILL any FUN you may have on guitar, but it will make you better at playing. Check out John Petrucci's Rock Discipline DVD, has some great excercises and explains a lot of things.


Rule number 1, gear is pretty useless at the end of the day. As long as you have a comfortable guitar, you will probably sound the same or similar on any amp. Gear will not make you instantly amazing and there is a lot of information about it, too. Keep away from the salesmen for a while and get your playing into shape!

2. Metronome is king! Get one, or a drum machine or anything that you can set to a specific BPM (speed in beats Per Minute, also known as Tempo, meter, time etc.) and practice your excercises for 10 minutes every day, more if you can be bothered.

Best excercise ever...

12-13-14-15

Repeat that 1x on each string, starting on the lowest string and moving up each time. When you get to the last string, go backwards...
15-14-13-12

You can play it anywhere, but high is easier as the frets are closer together. Play that REALLY slow with a metronome and alternate picking, down up down, PRECISELY to iron out any errors. Is doesn't sound very musical, but by the time you understand what your doing, you'll already be benefiting from the excercise.

There's a lot of trends, fashions and bigotry (stuck in a school of thought, won't move on) in guitarland, so try to be open minded and check everyone out.

Now, GO LEARN FOR WHOM THE BELL TOLLS!!! Once you've got smoke on the water nailed, time to hit 'Tallica! Great 1st song to learn to play. Very easy to play, very hard to master!

Nice post SpiritCrusher!!!

[CrushingAnvil]

Originally Posted by jarrhead

If you have POD Farm, run that sucker through a noise gate. Noisy pickups. My tone patch I use to emulate Bulb's tone has seven noise gates in the chain.

Input > EQ > Gate > Gate > Gate > Gate > Screamer > Gate > Compressor > Big Bottom > Treadplate 4z12 > 57 off-axis > Gate > Gate > Out


If you don't... stay away from super high gain.

What kind of lame arse rule is that?

He can do whatever the hell he wants, it's music.