In has arrived!

Soooooooo.... I just checked the parcel tracking website and the guitar has been delivered!!!

It's sitting... somewhere at home right now, in it's box, just waiting for me to finger it's g-string.

"Yeah I did..." :p

So now begins the wait to get home...

6 hours of work left
1.5 hours of travel time home
2 hours dinner with the folks as the old man is in town

And then... then... I get to unbox it!

You can expect pictures and a jumbled post tonight as I stuggle to type with the excitement of offically owning a guitar.

Cheers n OUT!

Guitar is on it's way... Oh yeah!!

Just received my tracking details for my parcel(s).

I'm hoping the guitar will arrive by the end of the week and I'll be strumming by the weekend.

And that's right, I said "strumming", I'm down with the guitar lingo!

Anyway, I've had some friendly peeps suggest some more usefull sites for me to check out as a beginner.

http://www.justinguitar.com/

This site is pretty awesome, some really good information for beginners on all aspects on playing guitar. I think I will be frequenting this one alot!

Also,

http://www.ultimate-guitar.com/

This site has a WHOLE bunch of guiatar 'tabs'... from what I gather tabs are for people who can't read music but want to learn to play some songs the like.

AWESOME!

Songs like a good starting point to be!!

I do want to learn all the chords and the names of chords and all the rest, but I think when motivation is low it will be good to jump on the site and try and play something using tabs.

Both those site also have forums attached with even more knowledge to be shared with a beginner like me, so I just have to decided which one I want to join.

I'm leaning towards justinguitar and I'll just use ultimate-guitar for the tabs stuff.

Anyway, everyone cross your fingers that this guitar come in this week... and it's in one piece... :)

Cheers,

The ball is rolling...

Alrighty, the ball is well and truely rolling at this point.

My beautiful fiance said I can order the guitar now and I won't have to wait till XMAS before I can start playing with it! Sweeeeeeet!

The one I'm getting is called a Nature by jixing... Yeah, it's chinese without too much literature about it. From what I have ready they are 'OK' quality and acceptable for a beginner (that's me).

It coming with a electric tune with a thing that clips onto the guitar for "easy tuning"... ok.. that's a good thing in my case.

I've also been reading up on barre chords, I've seen pictures like this:

I had no idea what the chop the line meant, but ends up that I just need to have my finger across all the strings. Now I just need to work out what the "R" on the E string means. :)

Also, I've been searching for a good way for remembering string names.

One suggested phrase is:  "Every Adult Dog Growls, Barks, Eats"

Errr... ok, yes... I suppose the do... but puppies also do those things... hmmm...

Another phrase is: "Eat A Dog, Get Big Ears."

I don't think there is any scientific evidence of this, but I think this phrase is more memorable.

So from here, I think I really need to wait until the guitar arrives before anything more progress can be made other than finding more sites with free tutorials and videos.

Feel free to share any tips or sites you guys know of.

Cheers!

You what now?!?

Fat Penguin!

Ok, now that I've broken the ice, on with what the chop this blog is about.

I'm Raf D (aka Lil Raf) and I want to learn guitar and stuff...

I've decided to have an early life crisis and I figure learning guitar is as good a new hobby to take up as any.

Generally, there are people who have natural musical talent and those who don't but are committed to learning an instrument anyway. I fall in neither category.

I have absolutely no musical talent apart from clicking "shuffle" in iTunes and I am a fairly lazy person.

My prediction is that either:
a) I discover I'm a white Jimi Hendrix and this whole adventure into the land of musical awesomeness will be a breeze
b) I discover I'm crap at playing guitar, but I want to proven to myself that I can atleast learn how to learn Pink Floyds - I wish you where here
c) I end up with a really nice guitar decoration to go on the wall in the study.

Anyway, with the prospect of this whole thing coming up short and me throwing in the towel early on to instead pursue my true passion, drinking beer, I will be starting with the cheapest guitar I can find.

eBay is looking like a goer as I can get something for about 150 bux with a practice amp.

Brilliant!

Other than that, and because I'm cheap, I'm going to try and make this a free "self-taught" affair. So far I've found a bunch of useful sites and youtube will be my friend.

So, there is it... that's the plan... lets see how I go.

Things I need to do to learn guitar and stuff from here:

1. Get a  guitar
2. Get some more "beginner guitar" material
3. Work out how the chop to read music.

Wish me luck!