Learning material for a guitar beginner recommendations?

[ArneyS]

Hello gang

A friend of mine recently bought a basic beginners guitar and she's absolutely adamant in learning how to play it. It's been a dream of hers for a long time.

So I am here in hopes that someone could point me to a book or a instructional video or anything of the kind that a beginner (with no experience in basic music theory or anything of the sort) could greatly benefit from. She will be getting lessons from an instructor, but she wants to learn some things on her own.

Thanks a bunch guys, any help is greatly appreciated!

[opiadream]

see what you can find here
http://www.hitsquad.com/smm/win95/GUITAR/

and buy one of these little books

[Sicklecell666]

Get her Black sabbath's first four albums & she's set.

[Lunch Money]

Her best asset will be to find a friend who can figure out the basic chords for popular songs, or at least songs she knows. I started off with some CCR! Songs with only 3 chords are ideal... G, C, and D OR A, D, E being the chords for a major I-IV-IV progression that's used in bazillions of songs.

When she can play a simple 3-chord song with even a bit of rhythm, she's going to say, "COOL, I can play something!" and she'll be hooked.

It's the getting hooked that's the secret. Once you're hooked, all kinds of different books become helpful and sought after. But if you start with the wrong book, she might not get hooked at all.

Greg

[Chickenman]

Once she plays the first riff out of Iron Man there's no turning back...

[Homebelly]

Ask her what her favorite song is,, get a good recording of it,, see if you can find some chord charts for the song,, maybe you could help her by writing them out,, show her the chords,, again may be you could draw her the chord diagrams,, then split the arrangement into parts and have her learn each part till she is able to put it all together,, if she's still into it and is excited by the whole experience then take a look at what is available to help her learn,,
There are a couple of good books by Ricky Rooksby I would also recommend Chords & Harmony by Jim Aikin and the chord and scale dictionary that is available through the guitar workshop people,, can't remember the name off hand,, in fact they have a whole heap of good stuff,,
I wouldn't recommend that you just buy her a bunch of books and just throw them at her,, make it so it's not to academic,, keep it fun and pace it so she can see results,, learning her favorite songs is way better that just learning a bunch of chord progressions and scales that have no immediate appeal or use, and it may just kill her desire to learn,,

[Lawnmower Of The Damned]

Make sure that what you are getting her is relevant to what she wants to play. Showing her pop chords isn't going to do her any good if she's into Tool and whatnot. If she is into rock just tune the low pitched E string down to D and have her start practicing on hitting the e, a and d string simultaneously. All you have to do is move that around the fretboard and you can play most any Tool, Marilyn Manson etc.

Also, if she doesn't have a nice tuner then that would be high on the list. I think one of more common mistakes that beginners make is assuming that they can tune a guitar by ear. In reality we all know that your ears build skill along with your hands, and in the beginning they will both fumble a bit. I still think the reason that my girlfriend quit playing was because she didn't have a good enough ear to tune the guitar, so when she tried to play chords it always sounded awful. In the end, she thought that the sour chords were her fault and now she's too embarrased to play.

It also doesn't help that her uncle, who is into classic rock, bought her a Fender Twin knockoff. That's all well and good, but my girlfriend is a black metal kind of girl, and the Twin wasn't exactly up to the task. When she said she wanted a distortion pedal he bought her a Tubescreamer, which of course, was not at all what she was looking for. Ultimately, she gave up because she was never in tune and her gear didn't suit her style.

So make sure your friend has whatever it is that lends itself to what she plays. A Rectifier Solo Head, or perhaps even a Bogner Uberscall (Drooooooool) would have suited my girlfriend best (assuming she could get me to stop playing them), but if your friend is into pop then it's a whole different story.

The most important part is making sure that she doesn't get discouraged. In general (Oh no, I'm about to make a generalization. I don't mean it in a sexist way, even if it does sound a little sexist) I think girls get discouraged more easily than guys do. In general, us guys are kind of oblivious to our own capabilities, not to mention the response to our music by the people around us. Girls seem to be more self-conscious, and more likely to shy away from people when learning to play.

And odds are that she'll suck for a long while. I certainly did. Just don't let her know that she sucks. One day she just may surprise you when she comes up with a catchy riff or two.

Sorry if I said a bunch of stuff that you already knew, but you didn't mention whether or not you play guitar, so I'm just going on the safe side and explaining everything.

And if my generalization offended anyone, then I am very sorry.

[Lunch Money]

Good solid advice. The only way to get hooked is to learn to play something she loves. On the other hand, if she's into classical fingerstyle, it might be better to get her started with her second choice (blues, pop, metal, country) instead.

Agreed about the equipment, too, though there are many cheaper ways a beginner can get the kinds of sounds they like than to buy a Rectifier head.

Greg

[Sepheritoh]

Good solid advice. The only way to get hooked is to learn to play something she loves.

Nudity not allowed

Would she be interested in rhythm or solo? In any cases playing easy chords of favourites are the best way. You can get any of those 101 songs for easy guitar books for about $10 at the nearest flee market. Let her do lots of songs for easy guitar. Next step could be to improve the technical abilities, like complex rhythms. And give her lots of encouragement. Whatever she plays just tell her it is awesome.

[ArneyS]

Thanks for the suggestions guys! We ended up going to a local Chapters store and picked up some reading material, so hopefully things will start progressing from there.