Tips for moving from beginner to intermediate guitar.

[Sean150]

So after playing bass for a couple of years a bout of GAS led me to buying a 6 string acoustic guitar. That was about September of last year and in the last year I have gotten pretty comfortable with the basics of the instrument (I went through the first two Hal Leonard books pretty quickly since a lot of the stuff is the same as bass). I have been having a lot of fun having a second instrument but I am kinda lost on how to proceed with learning. It seems like there are so many different paths compared to bass and the online resources I have found are not as in depth as bass (they seem more to be shortcuts to pentatonic solos more than actually learning the instrument).

So I was wondering if anyone else had been in this position and what they found were good resources for growing in guitar.

I’m looking to learn guitar in the same genres I like on bass, mainly Jazz, Funk, Folk, Blues and a bit of rock (though that usually is covered by the other genres in my tastes).

 

[Picton]

So after playing bass for a couple of years a bout of GAS led me to buying a 6 string acoustic guitar. That was about September of last year and in the last year I have gotten pretty comfortable with the basics of the instrument (I went through the first two Hal Leonard books pretty quickly since a lot of the stuff is the same as bass). I have been having a lot of fun having a second instrument but I am kinda lost on how to proceed with learning. It seems like there are so many different paths compared to bass and the online resources I have found are not as in depth as bass (they seem more to be shortcuts to pentatonic solos more than actually learning the instrument).

So I was wondering if anyone else had been in this position and what they found were good resources for growing in guitar.

I’m looking to learn guitar in the same genres I like on bass, mainly Jazz, Funk, Folk, Blues and a bit of rock (though that usually is covered by the other genres in my tastes).

I was in your situation in 1995-ish.

I was a pretty good acoustic player, mostly because it's not hard to be a pretty good acoustic player, but then I went to see Pulp Fiction. From the opening ascending line of "Miserlou" during the opening credits, I realized acoustic was in my past: I had to learn surf music. Next day I went out, bought a Strat and a 25-watt amp, and just started teaching myself surf songs. By ear. In the process of doing that, I learned the fretboard, I learned about tab, and I learned about bending, trem, all of it.

Might not work for you, but it worked for me.

Of course, my epilogue is that twenty years later? I switched to bass. So take what I'm saying with a grain of salt. I still love playing surf on my Telecaster (the Strat had too many pickups for me).