Just thought I'd find out if any of you learned to play guitar AFTER piano. I'm doing so just now ... been playing piano since I was 8 yrs old, just started learning guitar (in my mid 20s), and finding the differences pretty tough.

Eg, nearly gave up because of the f*cking F chord, which is a horrible chord on guitar, but no harder than any other on the piano.

Why do you think Prince choses to play so many songs in 'flat' keys? ... Is just because he's so good that he can play in whatever key he wants, and it's left to we less talented folk to struggle to try to play his stuff?

Purple Rain is a prime example. Most folk would play with capo on 1 and just play in A. But then you can't play the E (open 6th string) before the F bar chord ... I bet he threw that 1 note in there so that he could tell whether folk were playing with a capo when he heard them play.

OK, ramble over. As you were.

L

Levi said:

Yeah I learned guitar after piano.

Levi said:

The F chord may be the reason that I stopped taking guitar lessons

I started on classical piano. But then when i started playing guitar I said to myself. Fuck Of Bach, i wanna play jimi hendrix. So nowdays i just use keys to compose, I like blues improvisation, and i hate classical music, because it's full of rules and I hate sheet music. So go on for the guitar, But i am biased. :p

It 's funny how I gained a reputation as a Keyboard player for 10 years in one circuit and I am now making good money playing guitar that I learned in 3 years. The transition I made from instrument to the other was very quick. What I do is I use the knowledge I gained on keys and related it to the strings. And I play with so much desire and energy that it rubs off on the other band members. They love me as a guitar player and respect me as a keyboardist. (Or maybe they just fear me!) And knowing both instruments helps with composing. And I'm never left out in a jam session.
[This message was edited Sun Jun 8 3:36:41 PDT 2003 by csharp57]

csharp57 said:

Why are you Csharp? Do you have anything we can hear?

Hi. I am a vocalist. I actually have an acoustic guitar which I learned to play 5 years ago. Now I have moved onto the piano. I find the transition to be easier.


"I'm blinded by the daisies in your yard".

Drop a sound byte hear or there if you feel like it. People tell me I have an ear!

I actually learned piano first - tho I wouldn't call it learning... I learned to play by ear. So I never learned what chords I was playing, except that I knew which note was which. I switched to guitar at 16 and learning the chords wasn't the hard part - I just bothered to learn songs that I could play the chords to, instead of the other way around. If it had a chord I couldn't play, well, so much for that song.

Slave2daGroove said:

The csharp became my marker because I am a self taught musician that learned everything in the key of C-sharp/D-flat. I don't have alot of pre-recorded music because I am new to the studio side of making music. I was a church organist for 10 years between two different churches before I was banned for being a renegade and a hot-head. I much rather create my own styles now than go back to what I used to do. Many of my friends make great livings being church musicians, but I don't like always being told when to play or what to do.

The only music I have recorded is on some floppy disks from my Korg Triton. I mostly have actual instruments in my studio like: real drums, fender rhodes, C-2 Hammond organ, two more keyboards and 6 guitars. What I need now is the sequence type equipment to record. Any suggestions from the studio wizards out there on what to get first, what is essential?? Any and all tips will be appreciated.

csharp57 said:

Sound more like Penis becoming guitarists in your case csharp57 !

csharp57 said:[quote]Slave2daGroove said:[quote]

csharp57 said:

Thanks for the info! Church Renegade

All I have is a laptop (with Cakewalk, Fruity loops), cheap mixing board and a diaphram microphone. Oh yeah, a web site too. For everything (no instruments/amps) around $2,000 with the laptop being $1400.

otan said:

Ditto. Only I play both instruments by ear. I just mess around with guitar tho. I would like to learn guitar!


Peace,
JD

otan said:

I wen't to newfunk order.com and I am really feeling the song "surrender to the truth".

Levi said:

That's interesting. I kinda think the opposite. I play piano and guitar. I think learning piano first is probably the best thing for any musician, especially young musicians. I mean, for learning theory, the piano is the way to go if you are just starting out. I think I learned guitar quickly purely because I knew chords and scales etc from piano. I mean, sure you can know basic chords on a guitar without much knowledge of theory, but piano helps BIG TIME if you are working out chords yourself etc.

SEXUALCHOCOLATE said:

I agree! Paino has always been my composing instrument cos rather than having to fret, blow or hit the note correctly, all the notes are laid out in front of you

SEXUALCHOCOLATE said:

I agree ... in terms of theory, scales, chords etc, piano gives you as good a grounding in music as you could wish for. But piano seems so logical ... starts low, ends high, and is sequential in between. And on piano, pretty much any chord is as easy as the next chord, but on guitar, difficulty varies largely.

I'm doing reasonably well on guitar I reckon, and now that I've mastered F and bar chords, it's getting a bit easier.

Was just interested in how others had found the differences between the 2 instruments.

L

This is quite interesting. I don't play the piano, only the guitar and I've always suspected that the giutar is more difficult if only for the reason that notes on a guitar aren't colour coded

maxwell said:

I suspect that both would be equally tricky if starting both from scratch. I reckon that if you learn a particular instrument, then try to transfer to another, you maybe assume that learning the new one should be fairly easy because you've already learned a lot of the theory type stuff. But techniques for both instruments are completely different and that's maybe the difficult bit to adapt to.

Mind you, Prince doesn't seem to have struggled. Maybe we should ask him how he did it

L