My very first electric guitar :-D

Meticus

Hi together!

After some time of consideration I finally decided to get me an e-guitar, before I'm too old to learn something new 😅

I only played acoustics in fingerstyle so far, so it's an unexplored area and I'm starting from zero.
I'm still dropping the pick from time to time. I wouldn't have thought that it is THAT difficult to pick a pick from the floor without aid 😀 At least it cannot disappear into the guitar body 😃

I bought a simple beginner model, it's an Ibanez GRX70QA-TRB GIO. Not very special, but I think it will do for getting started.

Now the journey can start 😀
I guess I will have some very stupid questions in the next weeks 😆
Any tips where to start? Holding the pick, learning powerchords, try to play famous riffs? 😃
Probably my acoustic chords will not be very useful on my new friend ^^

Greetings
Meticus

NorioDS

Meticus she’s pretty, congrats!

modulator

Meticus
Looks pretty! Do not neglect your acoustic skills here, and start off with a pick you can hold comfortably. Then learn to use it gently, trying to not rip the strings off the guitar with it. Practice soft picking and "digging in" to vary sound, and do practice fast picking without holding in your breath and tensing up.
Do not stick to classical pointy finger fretting exclusively. You need to keep that skill, but using fingers "flat" is a skill you need to acquire sooner rather than later, and then, dampening strings not played. The electric tends to let you hear all the sympathetic harmonics when you really don't need them...

Decide on clean sound vs. all-out fuzzy noise. I prefer the cleaner side. But the fuzz hides a lot of stuff. Fun as well, for a change of noise.
Get the action as low as possible, probably will need to lower the nut, maybe dress a fret or two. Then, fret the strings gently. Avoid getting "lazy" fingers because the electric plays so easy, keep up the old steel-string skills.

Have fun.

Yeti

Hardly an expert here but I reckon the best place to start would be to find a couple of songs you love and learn how to play them. You'll quickly figure out which techniques you need to pick up and will have as some fun in the process.

Don't be too quick to throw out your finger style and chords from acoustic. You might have to apply them differently (especially as you crank the gain) but they can be magic.

Out of interest, how are you amping your new beast?

Meticus

Thanks @ all for your tips!

I started an e-guitar tutorial on Youtube now. I'm doing all the boring simple exercises rigorously 😃 But so I prevent getting frowsy according to @modulator's hints.

Playing with a pick is not that difficult as expected. Easy tabs played slowly work fine already. Only when it comes to power chords I've still some problems catching only the two intended strings without touching a third.

Once I got through the basics I will pick some cool songs to practice as suggested to keep it interesting.

Yeti Out of interest, how are you amping your new beast?

I do not have a physical amp yet. I use an audio interface (Focusrite Scarlett i2i) and a virtual standalone amp (Audified ampLion). I practice with headphones. My neighbours are tortured enough with by bagpipe already 😄

NorioDS she’s pretty, congrats!

modulator Looks pretty!

Thanks :-)

Btw, do you give your guitars names? 😃
I named my bagpipe Heinrich. Now I ponder if my new guitar should get a name too. But then the two acoustics probably want to have names as well. And what about the keyboard, accordion and the 6 flutes xD

guidothepimmp perhaps look into the generic pentatonic scales

I'm a little bit scared of music theory 😃

guidothepimmp

I agree with Yeti..

Find some tunes you like and start there.

If you havent delved i to lead guitar.. perhaps look into the generic pentatonic scales for some whiddly whiddly

RCVN

Good On you!

I've aslo only recently joined the EG world. Loads of fun.

Meticus Playing with a pick is not that difficult as expected. Easy tabs played slowly work fine already. Only when it comes to power chords I've still some problems catching only the two intended strings without touching a third.

In regards to the point mentioned. Don't torture yourself trying to only hit 2 strings.
Muting is where it is at. Modulator referred to it in his post above/below.

modulator You need to keep that skill, but using fingers "flat" is a skill you need to acquire sooner rather than later, and then, dampening strings not played.

Meticus

RCVN I've aslo only recently joined the EG world. Loads of fun.

Cool, what kind of EG do you have?

Is that damping a ruse for those with a slight lack of fine motor skills (like me) or a general technique which also the veterans use?

I tried very hard to only catch the 2 power chord strings. It's quite a challenge 😃 But in that case I focused on the wrong hand and it doesn't matter if striking 2 or 3 strings?

modulator

Meticus
Seems like damping is a standard thing with good players. You can use your fret fingers, or your pick hand. Takes some coordination, just one more thing to complicate matters. Damp the string at the wrong place and you will get harmonics from it as well. As for hitting more strings than aimed for, that takes practice, go slow, look at the strings you want to pick, strike only those two, shift position, repeat. Slow is good. You will find it gets easier as you go along. That "muscle memory" thing, which also leads to problems later, making you do stuff automatically while you really want something else.

RCVN

Meticus

Got Myself an Epi LP Top Pro second hand.

Meticus Is that damping a ruse for those with a slight lack of fine motor skills (like me) or a general technique which also the veterans use?

Veterans definitely use it. I've got a little more background in bass and a per Yeti's comment, playing percussive on an instrument would generate way to much noise, and this is especially true for bass, with slapping etc.

Further to the above, studio muso's do it religiously for recording purposes.

Yeti

Muting the strings you aren't replaying is a skill that you will require for any electrical playing, particularly if you are turning up the gain. You might even see some guys putting a hair band around the neck just below the nut, although the real greats don't need this. Obviously you want to only hit the strings you want to sound as far as possible but even if you get this right, with enough amplification the sympathetic vibrations can cause unwanted sound and you will find your playing becomes mushy. Learning how to mute effectively with both hands is a core skill.

On the subject of power chords in particular, you can always play a 3 string power chord, where the D string (or G if you are playing root on the A string) is fretted at the same place as the string above it. This gives you root, 5th and octave, which works fine most of the time.
Something else to watch out for is that if you are battling to hit only the two strings, you might be digging in too deep with your pick. Try holding it so that only a mm or two protrudes from your finger and thumb. It takes some practice but gives you a lot more control.

Meticus

I'm slowly making progress 😀 I practiced the last weeks. I've learned some powerchords and the damping thing is working somewhat. I also can play some simple melodies with the pick.

But for powerchords I'm still using the upper 2 or 3 strings. Changing one string down so that the fat E is not used is giving me some trouble. I'm too slow so that there is a short pause, that sounds not so good.
And I don't know how best to damp the fat E. I tried to take the middle finger but it is very slow and not unerring enough. And I tried to damp with the finger which presses the A-string but my fine motor skills are not sufficient for that technique 😅
Fortunately all chords I need are reachable on the strings I use 😆

I recorded a first try. The hobby musician Günter Frei composed a short tune for me (a bagpipe tune of course xD) and I used it to practice my first instrumental metal song 😀

RCVN

Meticus
Great stuff man, glad to hear you're making progress.

I generally mute the "e" string with my index/ "a -string" finger when playing power chords. I also use my thumb on stuff like full d chords etc.

Whilst working on speed, maybe try one upstroke with the open strings between chord changes. It should give you enough time to transition between chords without sounding off.

Good luck man!

studmissile

Very cool Meticus. Keep it up.

Meticus

Thank you 😀
I'll continue to work on it 😀

Meticus

Besides my bagpipe I'm still practicing on my new e-guitar. Unfortunately I don't make much progress in playing melodies with the pick. In general it works fine, but I still can't play a 2 or 3 minutes song without missing a string or hitting the wrong string a few times. I'm stuck in the details, that can be a bit frustrating sometimes 😃

How do you practice the more delicate stuff? And are you able to play melodies safely once you managed it or do you always have to repeat and practice to keep the skill? Maybe I practice too rarely ^^

Anyway, at least I can have fun with the power chords, especially when staying on the same 2 or 3 strings 😃 That's quite easy 😃
Here is a little recording project I finished last weekend. I recorded two identical bagpipe tracks and two different power chord tracks. The rest is virtual stuff, drums, bass guitar, strings, choir and bass kick.
Some bagpipe rock music to start the new week 😃

V8

Meticus ut I still can't play a 2 or 3 minutes song without missing a string or hitting the wrong string a few times

What happens is you still make mistakes, but they just become smaller/less noticeable. I critically watch some big name players and very few don't make a miniscule mistake - Jimmy Page makes says, if you make a mistake do it twice more and people will think you meant to it play it that way 😁 .

But...yeah....mostly it's a investment of time and intelligent repetition. And, like anything, you gotta maintain what you learnt. Though I find , the more time I took to learn something initially - the less time m I need to practice to ''remember' it.

Meticus

Hi,

I keep on practicing with the pick and slowly make some progress.
Here's a little composition I created while practicing, it took me some attempts to record the melody without making mistakes and have to restart 😄

V8 make a mistake do it twice more and people will think you meant to it play it that way

I did so, there was a difficult part in my composition where I always made mistakes, so I updated the tab 😆

I figured out that it's easier playing with the pick on my acoustic as the string distance is a bit higher. Now I regret that I discarded playing with pick back then when I started playing the acoustic guitar. Who could have known that I buy an electric guitar a decade later 😅

The song is kind of a ballad because it can be played slowly, according to my pick skills 😀

I also recorded 2 power chord tracks and added virtual bass and drums (standard VST of the Cakewalk DAW).
All guitar tracks were recorded clean, I used the ampLion Free plugin afterwards.

The special feature of the song is that it doesn't contain any bagpipes 🤣
Maybe I can submit it for the next fitting challenge (and maybe get a little vote bonus for the lack of pipes 😅 )

guidothepimmp

Nice. Well done

klaasvakie

Cool tune!