I want to stop screwing around and actually learn to play the guitar

thanks dan that's exactly what i was looking for!

Can anyone recommend a book that is a good beginner's tutorial for playing electric guitar? I've read this thread and I'm not really serious enough to start taking lessons at the moment but a good book would be invaluable. Thanks.

What would you want such a book to have ideally? (All I wanted from a book was to reveal how to make wheedleywoo sounds, which no one has written a good book for)

I think that's what I want to be able to do as well. But if there's no book for it...

Mel Bay's Shredding for Beginners is somewhere in Borges library

What sort of wheedleywoo sounds? Like shreddy metal? Noise?

All of it -- guitar center hero to Glenn Branca

Those are two very divergent paths. Guitar Center Hero = learn scales and modes, work on your tapping, bends, hammer-ons, pull-offs, etc. Branca = buy a lot of pedals and spend a lot of time fucking around, and if you learned scales try not to think about them.

Just find a song that you love and learn how to play it. Then repeat

^ buy the $5 songsterr app for you phone. It plays through the tab and you can slow it down or loop sections. Pick a favorite section of a favorite song. Set it to slow speed. Play along. Ramp up the speed.

the only thing wrong w/ something like this is that it plays all notes at equal volume. So you do eventually need to learn to play it like chet atkins after you learn to play like robot chet atkins.

I want to write an instructional book called "Start Screwing Around and Learn to Play the Guitar"

Troy Stetina's books were recommended to me for teaching hard rock/heavy metal guitar technique and I found them to be successful. The metal lead guitar and rhythm guitar books are the core of the method, although Total Rock Guitar works well for students who are not very advanced. That one assumes that you can fret notes and count a beat and starts you out on power chords. (He uses an 80s definition of 'metal', even including Slash and Hendrix.) Like a good snob, I had my reservations about the reliance on tab and the total absence of standard notation in the metal books but I doubt most people would mind. The metal books might be one side of what you're looking for, Philip?

Branca = buy a lot of pedals and spend a lot of time fucking around, and if you learned scales try not to think about them.

I don't think Branca ever used pedals very much, actually. He has worked a lot with customized instruments and alternate tuning systems (particularly just intonation).

i'll check it out, thanks! (but basically less interested in learning to play all along the watchtower than how to make a guitar sound interesting while it is on fire)

Well, there's always this: http://users.wfu.edu/breckers/howtoplayguitar.htm

Still recommend Arnie Berle's Chords and Progressions for Jazz and Popular Guitar for learning, um, chords and progressions. That and Rikky Rooksby's books, particular the Beatle Chord Songbook and How to Write Songs on Guitar.

But really came to post that FB is recommending me to get a Danelectro 12SDC 12-String Electric Guitar Black at Musician's Friend for $399.99, but I don't play electric or with a pick so...

xp or this:
Captain Beefheart's 10 Commandments of Guitar Playing

Richard Lloyd had some good lessons on his site, I heard, but I believe he took them down.

What would you want such a book to have ideally? (All I wanted from a book was to reveal how to make wheedleywoo sounds, which no one has written a good book for)

― Philip Nunez, Friday, 22 January 2016 14:24 (2 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

'Play In A Day' by Bert Wheedlon

^Worked for Steve Jones.

I bought an acoustic a few weeks ago, been playing around with a few random shapes that I like the sound of, including 000220, which apparently is E13sus4. Can I start a song with this chord or do you have to start with the tonic chord?

Can I start a song with this chord

Yes. You can start a song with any chord you want. Joe Meek said it best: "If it sounds right, then it is right."

all songs need to start with a b-minor chord iirc, it's the law

Chuck Berry to thread.

Because each one of songs usually started with a particular "fanfare," as somebody said, such as the augmented chord at the beginning of "School Days."

I came across this cheat sheet to help me with chord progressions, and am a bit confused...
https://www.adsrsounds.com/music-theory-tutorials/music-theory-cheat-sheet/

Question: My verse is in C Major. It says that I can write my chorus in a different key, and that I can use one of C Majors 'neighbours' in the circle of fifths, so F or G. If I take F, and use the same I - IV - V - V progression, I get F Bb C C. Bb isn't part of the C Major scale is it, so if I use a Bb chord in my chorus, won't that sound 'wrong'?

Sorry this probably should have gone in the music theory thread.

No such thing as wrong though, surely?

I thought that but then wondered if I was reading the circle incorrectly.

You seem to be over-thinking this guitar playing thing. Are you a keyboard player by any chance?

Anyway, everyone has their own approach, I don't understand anything about music theory beyond the names of the notes on the fret.

Having the chorus in a different key than the verse is not common practice. But hey you can do what you want

Using a Bb chord (or Major VII) does sound weird since you would expect a diminished 7 chord (B-D-F) but I've seen it used like that in pop music for sure. calstars and Tom are both right, basically

McCartney does this for the middle 8 in Two of Us iirc (altho I guess that's in G?)

That modulates to Bb major from G major, so that's a bit farther. Three of the seven notes are different, whereas in Chris' example - C major modulating to F major - Bb is the only note that's different.

Modulating to a key a fourth away or a fifth away is pretty common, I would say. And as soon as Bb is used, the song will start to suggest that the modulation has occurred, so that is something you can play with.

I should say - once Bb is used, it CAN sound like SOME modulation has taken place. That could be to any key that includes that note.

The other possibility is that Bb can be used as a modal variant. That's also pretty common and can be done without ever really straying from C as the key center.

Like here's a four-chord song in G and they're using F natural all the time. It never sounds like it's in any key other than G.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=apGvd765dmk

the F sounds like a power chord w/just two notes (F/C) though which makes it a little easier to get away with

The Beatles' "You've Got to Hide Your Love Away" is also in G. All kinds of F major chords in that and it's the full triad.

The note A shouldn't create a problem, I don't think. It's part of the G major scale and part of three diatonic chords in G major (A minor, D major, and F# diminished).

Tim is correct. If the chorus is in F, you don't need to use the C major collection, even in the strictest 18th century diatonic harmony exercise. b^7 is a common borrowed pitch (modal variant) in any case, even in classical music, let alone 20th century popular music. (Nearly every blues song includes it over the tonic.) "God Only Knows" begins on b^7!

Sund4r (or anyone), you ever hear anyone talk about a "multi-plagal progression" or "secondary plagal progression?" I think that's a pretty common use of the bVII chord, to go from bVII to IV, and that would be a secondary plagal progression.

Similar of course to how we talk about secondary dominants.

Feel like somebody, like me, mentioned that on the theory thread.

Here: Rolling Music Theory Thread

This guy calls it (chorus of the Kinks' "Celluloid Heroes") a IV/IV chord.

http://johndorhauer.com/4-for-iv-part-i-secondary-plagal-progressions/

xp oh nice!

Better yet he calls the C chord in "Hey Joe" (key of E) a IV/IV/IV/IV chord!

I'm pretty sure there was an MTO article about this. I'll look for it.

Sorry, the paper on the other thread I was referring to was first linked here: Rolling Music Theory Thread
and is Rolling Music Theory Thread. I believe you are quite familiar with the author's work.

Aarrgh: http://www.academia.edu/1435121/Triadic_Modal_and_Pentatonic_Patterns_in_Rock_Music