Weekly update learning blogish kind of thing

Milk

Hello all!

I aim to give weeklky updates of my guitar playing after using various ways of learning. for now in the beginning i will use online videos. in the future i will use a guitsr tutor and also along the way i will learn from fellow guitar players. I have zero affiliation with any sources i will use. this is purely a experiment and a way to track progress for myself and i thought it would be of interest to others to pitch in with advice or a way to show how easily possibly it is to learn from scratch or new stuff. i encourage people to chip in as often as possible with critisism and tips for myself and also others.

My Guitar background - i got my first guitar when i was around 12 years old. It was a crappy acoustic with nylon strings from argos. I think it cost about £30 new then. when i was a teenager i bought a strat copy and loved it. i actually still have it but in a sorry state. My knowledge is that i can read tab and i know a basic scale and a few chords.. enough to get by strumming a song on a acoustic guitar. but i never taught myself any musical knowledge or the value of it. i would say i am still a beginner.

What i will be using - I bought  a Harley benton te-52 telecaster, which is a decent guitar for starting out and was  set up to how i like it. Cheap guitars are 100% better quality than when i started out forst time round. The guitar will be going into a cheap audio interface and using ableton and amp and cab simulations. The reason i went this route is first of all cost wise. All in all i spent less than £200 for gear that sounds good to my ear. i was lucky i am using ableton live suite which was already on the laptop i got from my brother as he was upgrading. but you can get cheaper DAWS or even free ones.

I will be learning a week at a time and posting a example of what i have learnt weekly as a way to track my progress and also detailed notes of what i learnt including any practical things and also theory. Both my acomplishments and mistakes will be revealed. To make things more interesting i will be starting from a point that i have never held a guitar before to see if there is anything basic i dont know and also for people to learn from my mistakes or knowledge.

I encourage people to help, post tips and also give critisism to help both myself and other people learning or improving to be able to develop.

Regard

Milk

Adi

That's very interesting, I'll be following your journey and I look forward to the updates.

Milk

Thank you Adi. It is aimed to be education to myself and hopefully if i get enough interest to others as well and i stress that any help, tips or advice are appreciated.

If i find time i will go into details of the equipment i chose, why and cost rundown for people who are interested.

Milk

So the gear i bought and full details of my setup are as follows

Harley benton TE-52 NA vintage series. featuring which is copied from thomann website

• Body: American ash
• Neck: Canadian maple with roseacer skunk stripe, bolt-on
• Neck profile: C
• Fretboard: Maple
• Fretboard radius: 350 mm
• Dot inlays
• 21 Frets
• Scale: 648 mm
• Nut width: 42 mm
• Pickups: 2x Roswell TEA alnico vintage TE style single coils
• 1x Volume and 1x tone control
• 3-Way selector switch
• Deluxe chrome hardware
• Kluson style machine heads
• Strings: D'Addario .009 - .042
• Colour: Natural High-gloss

The only things i had to do was re string as the strings were gross and level the fret slightly and adjust pickup height.

There are many guides on how to do this is you are unsure and it is fairly simple.

The guitar is running to a Behringer U-PHORIA UMC22 audio interface featuring

• 16 Bit / 48 kHz
• 2 Inputs and 2 outputs
• 1 x combo plug XLR/6.3 mm jack and 1 x 6.3 mm jack
• MIDAS design microphone preamp including 48V phantom power
• Guitar input
• Signal and clip display
• Direct monitoring with levels
• 6.3 mm jack headphone output
• 6.3 mm jack output
• USB bus powered
• Metal housing
• Includes USB cable and Tracktion software

I bought this as ive never used amp simulations before and audio interfaces so i didnt want to invest loads but it does the job what my usage now.

and finally on my laptop featuring 12mb of ram and a i5 processor which already had ableton live suite 10 installed using the built in amp and effects which sound best to my ear after playing around with others

So cost is-

Guitar -£118

Audio interface -£30

Amp simulation - £?? - free ones can be used. there are loads of vidoes on youtube and even information on here detailing free plugins.

Just goes to show that if someone starting out wanted to go the route i did then it can be obtained faily easily and cheaply.

and cheap guitars are better quality from even 10 years ago!

and obvuisly you can buy starter packs and even small amps if you do not want to use amp software like myself faily cheap to. my purpose for the amp software is that is is easier and worked out cheaper for me to record progress and to save space.

Milk

so mid week update. i have spent a few hours here adn there that i can spare to assess my knowledge. and it is a lot more than i originally thought! but by no means am i any good.i still know next to zero theory and the chords are muscle memory rather than even knowing names of them. The pentatonic scale is the same. muscle memory but no idea which key it is in or how to link to other scales and posistions.

So I think i have a lot to be educated on

Milk

a extremly belated update so i apoligise but here we go.

I really struggled for time the past week ish. finding where i am to get a starting point and actually where to start in the first place as there is so many things to learn. and to be honest im still changing my mind. Thats one thing i personally found in my opinion of ''self learning'' via the knowlesge of internet people and youtube. It is the self doubt you are learning the right things at the right time.

But after much deliberation and thought i decided to learn the GMaj scale (3 notes per string) in all 7 positions. I can comfortably play up and down the scales of the first 4 positions off my memory up to 200bpm. but i found it very boring. and no idea yet how to put it into practice other than playing the scales. a teacher of some kind would definatly be of help in my scenario for me.

once i have figured to my memory the rest of the GMaj scale positions and can play at simular speeds i will continue do practice them in thirds once i figured out how whilst moving onto something else.

I wish there was a tick list in order of learning somewhere haha it would make it so simple and avoid the doubt you are learning the correct things.

hopefully once the thread progresses and i progress i can post a list of my own of the orders i did. but of course every one learns differently so what i struggle with or find easy others could have the opposite expierience.

On a less negative note i discovered the Guitar picks i liked when i was younger i hate now and have found one i feel comfy with now. i would 100% say find one you are comy with when learning as it will help you. try different brand, materials, thicknesses and shaped. for me it is the yellow tortex ones by dunlop.

Any feedback is greatly appreciated for both my self and others. and this time i will try harder to actually update in a weeks time.

Milk

King85

This was the image that for me made scales and how to use them click. I knew the shapes but seeing them next to each other as so gave me that initial light bulb moment. Maybe it will help you but everyone is different.

I know it's a different scale but the principle is the same.

Milk

Thankyou King85. soory for the late reply i was in the hospital. but yo are correct seeing them all together everything clicks together in my mind. thanyou for posting

King85

Glad it helped bud and hope you're doing better.