Q. What is the best way to teach yourself how to play piano and guitar? I have a keyboard in my room, I don't know how to actually play. I just learn songs off of YouTube. I wanna eventually learn how to play it and read music. What would be the easiest way? I also have a guitar and electric guitar in my household and I would like to learn how to play that also. What would be the easiest way to teach myself? Please give a good description.
Thanks!
A. I taught myself guitar mostly, and piano. What you should do is learn a few simple songs, which you've been doing, but keep doing it. Then once your fingers get a little better and you can pick out where stuff is without looking then you'll want to start spending some money. For guitar I bought the Mel Bay series, it costs around $110, but it's a lot cheaper than lessons, it's a book series, it teachers a lot of reading sheet music, for guitar you have to play it an octave lower than it's written, and piano it's played at the octave shown. It also teaches tab, which is important for guitar, the majority of guitar music is written in tab as it's an easier method of reading music and faster to learn, although it's less universal and harder to transpose onto other instruments. I also bought a book called Scale Guru, you don't need that exact book, but definitely get a book with a bunch of scales in it, go through the book and learn as many different scales as you can and all of the positions, the main ones are Major, Minor and Blues, then there are other popular ones like Pentatonics and then the two Minor alternatives which are the Harmonic Minor and the Melodic Minor. Once you've learned some scales then you'll want to learn chords, pick yourself up a chord chart, which should have the majority if not all of the open chords in standard tuning for guitar. After you've figured out a bunch of open chords, or at least how to form an open chord, which is pretty much the same way you form any other type of chord that isn't altered, then you'll want to learn barre chords and triads. If you can take a music theory class, take as many levels of you can of it as possible, I'm going onto music theory 3 in high school, it's a college level course, I use what I've learned every time I play guitar and any other instrument(I play lots of instruments). In music theory you'll learn how to write and understand music, it's the most important part for knowing any instrument, depending on where you live in the world you'll have different things, but you speak English obviously so I'm assuming you live in Western civilization, so you'll learn Western music which is what i've been talking about, but also learn different types, I apply African, Middle Eastern, Indian, Byzantine, Greek, Japanese, Mongolian, Chinese, and so many different types of music into what I write, it helps give you a more unique sound that nobody else will have. But back to chords, there are also power chords, which you will probably want to learn early on, they're probably the most simple type, for most music it's what the guitarist doing rhythm generally plays through the whole song. Once you learn a lot on guitar you can start transposing your knowledge to piano, that's what I did, it worked for me. If you take a music theory course most of the things taught are taught on piano though, so you'll probably learn a lot just through that.
How long does it take to learn bass guitar?
Q. I'm a grade 2 on piano already.
How long would you need to play to be able to cover the bass of a rock band?
And how hard is it compared to piano?
A. Having not played a string instrument before, it will take you a bit of time to build up your fingers and dexterity for playing bass guitar. Your piano knowledge will help some, but honestly, most rock bassists don't read the bass line from music or anything like you would a piano score. They typically know and understand their scales and chord theory and improvise the bass line around the chord structure of the song.
Compared to piano though, I think you'll find bass pretty easy. You have 4 strings (E A D G from thickest to thinnest). Each fret is a half step, so the first fret on the E string would be F, 2nd fret is F#, 3rd is G, etc). The easiest way to get going on bass is to look at a chord chart of the song (has the chord names above the lyrics) and just play the root note of each chord on the bass, so if you see a C chord you play a C on the bass, if you see a G chord you play a G on the bass. If there is an alternate bass note (ie. D/F#) you'd play the note to the right of the / (the F# in this case). The tricky part is getting your rhythm down. Typically you'd play whole notes, 1/4 notes, or 1/8 notes depending on the dynamics of the song. Really not that difficult to do a passable job on bass, but there's way more you can do with it with enough practice and musical knowledge.
How much does piano help with guitar?
Q. I've played guitar for seven years, and I'm taking up guitar. About how long does it take to get really good at guitar, and does being pretty good at piano help with learning guitar?
A. If you have 7 years of piano under your belt you probably know more music theory than most guitar players ever will. You will also benefit from the fine-motor control/dexterity that you have developed. If you have practiced with a metronome then you should have good timing which will also transfer nicely. Learn a few basic chords-G, C and D for songs in G and A D and E for songs in A. There really is no substitute for time spent with the instrument and the fingerings will not translate. Guitar is harder on the beginner's Left hand (if playing righty, opposite if'n you're a southpaw) but your nerves become desensitized fairly quickly and then the callouses start to develop. It is irrelevant whether you start with a pick or fingerstyle but after a while try the other as both styles produce effects the other style really can't match. Once you can make the changes and keep your rhythm going you're ready to tackle other keys and to get your barre chords down. Do not be intimidated-there's an old joke you might find encouraging: how do you get a guitar player to turn down? Put a chart in front of him. How do you get him to turn off? Put notes on the chart. With 7 years of piano you won't have those problems and using only your left hand to make chord shapes will be easy. Last tip: more than half of playing guitar involves muting the unused strings-let your fingers touch the strings next the ones you hold down; it might seem like poor technique but it actually makes the guitar sound better and the shapes easier to hold and play-Eddie VanHalen often uses only part of one finger and no one can say he can't play. You'll be fine. Getting good can take as little as a month or as long as a decade-depends on your criteria and your self-discipline and how much time you can devote to practice. Give yourself permission to be terrible, take the time to actually tune up every time you play and you won't be bad for long. Cruise the web for resources-there's a lot of material to help anyone learn to play.
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Title : What is the best way to teach yourself?
Description : Q. What is the best way to teach yourself how to play piano and guitar? I have a keyboard in my room, I don't know how to actually play...