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Permalink Reply by The Phrygian Kid on March 8, 2014 at 12:25pm

if theres a dulcimer in the house you're off to a really good start.  Tune up to the same as that dulcimer.

now, if you see where the dulcimer has frets (and where it does not) thats a scale!!

just follow that, and practice practice practice.

Any guitar teacher worth his salt will pick up on 3 or 4 string guitar straight away, it doesn't matter if he's never seen one before if he's any good

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Permalink Reply by Ken Vickets on March 8, 2014 at 2:37pm

Glen...check out some of the great videos here...search "beginner" or something or "lessons". Really good info here at your fingertips.

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Permalink Reply by Yankee Dog on March 9, 2014 at 3:00am

Learn the minor pentetonic (blues) scale. 

I started out with no music or guitar background at all. This is what helped me

Learn the 12 bar blues. 

Look at this guys vids on youtube. They will start at the very basics. 

 http://www.youtube.com/user/LLJJEEYY?feature=watch

Instructors are hard to find. Some can pick the CBG up and play. Some seem afraid of it. You know which to pick. 

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Permalink Reply by Cause the Blue rat on March 9, 2014 at 6:24am

A good teacher will help you with right hand technique. It's also important to decide if your looking to play this with a pick or your fingers. A guitar teacher can help with 'Travis' style picking and using a pick. Banjo teacher might be better for claw hammer.

When choosing a teacher don't settle for what you don't want. It's your time and money. I had a robotic violin teacher. Every response she had was pre planned. No personal attention to me at all. I kept telling her over and over. "Please don't play the song before I learn it." She would automatically whip the tune out. I'd then close the book and play it back to her. I'd pul the learners tape off the violin. She'd put more on. I left. Please don't settle.

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Permalink Reply by Barsymes Cratchnee on March 13, 2014 at 6:06pm

Seriously if you're willing to pay a guitar teacher, then I would just pay for the Beginner course on http://www.learncigarboxguitar.com/

 

Patrick Curley is the teach and has a course outline, lots of great videos and tools.  My wife actually found this site and got it for my birthday.   He actually has taught music before and will take you through step-by-step.  Its for a total beginner.  He's exceptional because he actually mentions timing and syncopation unlike most on-line guitar instruction I've seen.  I highly recommend.  $47 bucks is a steal for what you get.  I wish I'd had this guy when I was first learning 6 string.  He's an exceptional teacher.

 

Of course, check out videos at this site as well. 

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Permalink Reply by Ron "Oily" Sprague on March 13, 2014 at 11:01pm

No! Do NOT take lessons from a guitar teacher! Struggle for months trying to figure out music theory on your own. Stay away from helpful Internet websites and YouTube. Don't even pretend to watch anyone that looks or sounds like they may know what they are doing. You are trying to develop your own raw, primal, artistic voice, as so many thousands before you have done. Put your slide on any old finger, and wave it around any old which way on the strings. Do not even bother to tune your git. Pick with your fingers, your nose; heck, pick yer nose. Play Mary Had A Little Lambchop until your significant other's ears bleed. Then go out on the street to try to earn money with your reedy, adenoidal voice. Stand there morosely in the wind and rain, while passersby ignore your latest rendition of Milk Cow Blues, and try to figure out, unsuccessfully, what you are doing wrong.

Then, take up the harmonica. Rinse. Repeat.

Only when you have surfed the waves of Despond, eaten from the tree of Disappointment, slogged through the fens of Frustration, built and rebuilt your first git a thousand times, will you be deemed worthy to accept the challenge of the Next Level:

Recording.

Alternatively, you could ask your wife, very humbly and sweetly, if she could larn you a musical thang or two. Have the divorce papers and a pen handy.

But whatever you do, stay several thousand kilometers away from The Blues.

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Permalink Reply by Slowpaw Steve T on March 14, 2014 at 12:52am

do what Oily said...ha ha!   it wouldn't do any harm to have a few lessons on the basics of playing any instrument, the principals are the same - A B C D E F G  etc, it gave me a good grounding in music which helped me repair guitars and make my own (-:

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Permalink Reply by Glen Irven on March 14, 2014 at 1:16pm

Thanks for all the help :D

I think I will go cold turkey and learn it from the head and heart. I feel much happier there is a site like this for me to ask for help :)

"I look up and see a mountain to climb? I will do it in dog biscuit chunks at a time"

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Permalink Reply by Ron "Oily" Sprague on March 15, 2014 at 7:28am

You do know I was kidding, right?

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Permalink Reply by Clock The Wolf on March 15, 2014 at 7:33am

I thought you were deadly serious, myself. Old Grimface Oily, right?

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Permalink Reply by Ron "Oily" Sprague on March 15, 2014 at 7:36am

Damn. I been found out. Not enough curmudge, eh?

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Permalink Reply by Glen Irven on March 15, 2014 at 1:17pm

Indeed :D

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