Essential Tool for the Beginning Guitar Player – Free Online Metronome

Wow.  I cannot believe it has been months since I last posted here on Watch Me Learn Guitar dot com.  I am absolutely disgusted with myself!  Even moreso because I’ve been receiving a ton of great email from those of you have stumbled onto this little corner of the internet.  The sheer volume has been a bit overwhelming — not only a lot of great comments, but also a lot of tips from veteran guitar pickers looking to help out a newbie like myself (and keep me from looking like an ass in the videos). 

To pay you all back, I’ll be back on schedule posting my guitar progress at least a couple of times a week and letting you watch my mistakes through the wonders of streaming internet video.  We live in an amazing age where it only takes me a few minutes to post a video and completely embarass myself in front of thousands and thousands of complete strangers.  Yay, progress!

Check back on Sunday for a new video post as I continue down the path to becoming a guitar hero.  For right now, tho, I want to start with a very helpful little piece of software I found online — the free online metronome.

For those of you who are new to playing a guitar like I am, sometimes you become so focused on getting the darn chords right that you completely forget about things like keeping the beat.  Heck, for me just putting my fingers in the right places is more than enough for me to worry about without having to remember to tap my foot in proper time. Full Story →

They Learned Me Good – My First Guitar Lesson…boy, do my fingers hurt!

Weeeeeellll, doggy!

I just finished up my first lesson using the “Learn and Master Guitar” program and it was a lot of fun.  Well, technically I just finished up the first 30 minutes of the first lesson.  It went over a lot of basic information -

• the parts of a guitar
• frets and finger placement
• what note each string is
• the C and G7 chords
• and basic strumming technique

My first thought now that the lesson is over for the day: Damn, my fingers hurt!  A lot of the practice today was done on the higher note strings (E, B, G) and those things tear you up when you’re first starting out!  After the first 10 minutes of practice I felt like I was playing with razor blades.  Of course, that could just be because I’m a wuss.   Still, my first lesson in how to play guitar was a great one for sure.

Beyond the pain, the “Learn and Master Guitar” program seems to be fantastic.  The instructor, Steve Krenz, does a great job in explaining things, has got a great teaching style and the whole thing almost feels like you’re taking a private lesson with a teacher.  He asks questions and then stops long enough for you to answer.  I wasn’t sure how well learning from a set of DVDs would work, but after my first session I must say I was very impressed.  The DVDs come with a printed teaching guide you can use away from the TV to practice on the side (think of it as a homework book)…and I know I’ll be making use of that late at night while my wife is sleeping.

Aside from today’s lesson I learned a few things.  First, my pinky finger doesn’t seem to want to work right in making chords.  Some of the practice exercises were just about impossible…I’m going to need a lot more practice.  Second, that the fingering on chords can be tough.  I’m not sure if I’m holding the guitar at a wrong angle or what, but nailing the chords is very very difficult for me.  Maybe my fingers are just too darn tubby.  If anyone has any tips, drop me an email or a comment on this article.  I’d love some pointers!

Well, that’s it from Day One on my road to becoming a guitar superhero.  So far the lessons are great and I’m having a blast with learning to play guitar.  I’ll be back later this week with more from the first “Learn and Master Guitar” how-to DVDs.

-Mat Nastos
http://www.WatchMeLearnGuitar.com

Get with the Program – my lesson packet has arrived from “Learn & Master Guitar”

Today was like Christmas in March.  Well, without the snow…although, since this is Southern California, we did have smog.  A loud banging on the door announced the arrival of the Priority Mail package containing my 25 disc set of learning materials.  Having been researching the whole guitar learning process for months now, I found the single best reviewed “how to play guitar” course to be “Learn and Master Guitar” by Steve Krenz.  Every single review I read was positive and glowing.  My sister, Sia, recommended it as well due to some of her friends having tried it out.

The package itself was huge, with 20 DVDs, 40 sets of lessons (20 learning “sessions” as they are called and 20 more bonus workshops) and 5 jam CDs that the marketing material says I’ll be able to play along with.  It all looks very cool and I am very psyched to get started on the lessons.  I would have gotten started on my quest to learn the guitar this evening but my mother-in-law dropped in for dinner and to watch American Idol with my wife. 

I’ll be filming and posting the results of my lessons and practicing a few times a week so everyone can see my progress.  It’ll also give you an idea of how effective the “Learn & Master Guitar” course is and what to expect if you pick it up.  I am looking forward to tomorrow for sure!

-Mat Nastos
http://www.WatchMeLearnGuitar.com

Keeping it all in Tune with the Korg GA-30

Alex down at the Guitar Center in West Covina helped get me set up with a bunch of equipment to get started with my guitar learning.  One of the things he made sure I got was an electronic guitar tuner…that way, even if I can’t play, my guitar will still be in tune.  The particular tuner he had me get was the Korg GA-30 guitar/bass tuner.  Unfortunately, the GA-30 didn’t come with any instructions really and I’d never used one before so it took me a bit of fiddling around to figure out what all the flashing lights meant and how to use them. 

Korg GA30 – an electronic guitar/bass tuner perfect for beginners at $14.95.

With no experience, the Korg GA-30 let me get my Takamine GS330S guitar all tuned up and ready to go.  Hopefully the rest of my learning to play guitar will be this easy!

-Mat Nastos
http://www.watchmelearnguitar.com

I have an Axe to grind now — yup, I found my guitar!

That’s right, I now have a guitar to learn to play on.  I wandered down to the local Guitar Center in West Covina, California, and spoke with a salesman named Alex.  He was very knowledgable (and incredibly patient) and spent almost an hour walking me through the process of picking a good beginner guitar.  He also got me set up with everything I needed – a case, stand, guitar tuner, extra strings and all that fun stuff. 

My sister, Sia, suggested I start out on an accoustic guitar because they are a lot better to learn on.  Plus, the lesser noise level will keep my beloved wife from killing me during the learning process.  I wound up picking up a Takamine GS330S G Series Acoustic Guitar, which ran me about $299.  Knowing absolutely nothing about playing guitar I can’t really comment much on the Takamine myself, but salesman Alex played it for me and it sounded great…and it looks really slick too.  Sure, that doesn’t affect my ability to learn to play guitar, but as an artist it makes me smile when I look at it.

The Takamine GS330S G Series Accoustic Guitar

I’ll post more tomorrow as I figure out how to tune my new instrument with the Korg GA30 Guitar Tuner Alex had me buy as well.  Right now all I know how to do is turn it on.  Thanks for dropping by and I’ll be back tomorrow with a new video.

-Mat Nastos
http://www.watchmelearnguitar.com

The first step on the path to Guitar Hero…or, at least, guitar sidekick

Welcome to WatchMeLearnGuitar.com.  My name is Mat Nastos and I started this page to follow my progress as I started down the road to learn how to play guitar.  I’m started with absolutely no knowledge or skill in guitar playing, so my upcoming posts should enlighten people as to what it takes to master the six-string guitar.  I’ll be posting in video format with supporting text here in the space below. 

I grew up in a musical family.  Most of my brothers, sisters, nieces and nephews all got in to music in one way or another.  My sister, Sia, is an incredibly talented musician who was part of a popular country band in the 80s and continues to perform as a Scottish folk singer.  Beyond that my dad, who went by the stage name Nick Masters, was a professional musician all of his life.  He started on the radio when he was 12 in the 1940s and eventually went on to become the lead guitar player for Bill Haley & the Comets.  He joined up with them in the late 50s as a steel guitar player but quickly became the band leader for more than 20 years. 

As a life-long musician, my dad made sure to keep me away from music because of the trials and tribulations musicians go through.  Unfortunately for him, I decided to go to art school instead of law school and have been a professional commercial artist since the early 90s. 

Anyway, I’ve recently gotten the bug to get in to music and to learn to play guitar.  The downside is that I’ve got zero music experience beyond playing sax in junior high and school.  I say downside because I truly sucked at it and had no interest in playing at the time.  I’m really not sure “sucked” is a strong enough word for how bad I was.  Hopefully that suck-titude doesn’t carry over to the guitar. 

 Anyway, sit back and enjoy the videos as I slowly learn to play a truly awesome instrument.  I’m going to head out to the local Guitar Center to find a guitar later today.  I’ll post the fruits of my guitar-quest tomorrow.  Feel free to send me an email or post a comment, and I’ll try to answer you in my videos.  Thanks for dropping by!

-Mat Nastos
http://www.watchmelearnguitar.com