and ask any guitar friends to teach you basic chords. I learnt guitar by having my dad teach me some basic chords, then I learnt the entire The Kooks first record through tabs, and then Laura Marling’s Alas I Cannot Swim. And from that I basically learnt all the chords you need, and to finger pick and strum in different patterns. If something was a little more complicated id look up YouTube videos of people playing stuff to see what their hands were doing. I learnt how to play covers on piano purely from YouTube tutorials. And I’m literally a musician! its maybe not like the way to learn “properly” but it is the way that worked for me! I’ve linked Ultimate Guitar tabs website here which is where I still get my tabs for covers from 🤘🏼
Apr 22, 2024
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this is presumptuous of me, cause youre maybe already good at finger picking! but for me, once I’d got the hang of strumming a fee chords (mostly by learning The Kooks song lmao) I felt my guitar playing really stepped up a notch by looking up tabs of finger picked songs. I basically learnt all of Laura Marling's Alas I Cannot Swim, and it was pretty easy to follow the tabs and i started to feel more like a “real” guitar player. So I’d recommend that! Good finger picked songs to learn are Failure by Laura Marling, or Ghosts off the same album. Or Underneath The Stars by Kate Rusby. begin my playing them realllyyyy slow and your fingers will warm up to it quickly!
Jun 25, 2024
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I was in your same position when I was younger & decided to take lessons: friend, it completely made me hate the idea of playing guitar. I wanted to rock and roll but they were having me learn hot cross buns. One day I put my guitar into its case and slid it back under my bed where it stayed for years.
I only took it out again after some friends and I jokingly created a band, ironically.
At that point there was no taskmaster other than my whimsy, so I learned what a power chord was and went bananas. With every goofy punk song we wrote, it seemed like I’d learn a new technique or chord to utilize and it was fun and exciting.
After awhile I learned about tablature and how many people would notate the songs I loved, and so I used those to pick up new progressions and such. It was helpful because every now and again a song would deploy something I had never tried, but it was easy to learn when motivated by the song, ya know?
Anyhow, that’s my two cents.
Apr 22, 2024
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i stopped taking piano lessons when i was like 12, so it takes me a really long time to actually learn how to play a song using sheet music, but i do still know all the major and minor chords. Ultimate Guitar has an app and website with the chords to pretty much every single song ever. presuming someone's also singing along, it's super easy to fudge sounding like u can fr play the piano. makes you feel musical and spontaneous even if you lack the discipline to practice an instrument!
Apr 8, 2024
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I am by no means traditionally religious, but I fully understand how being in the presence of beautiful stained glass can feel like being with god. ALWAYS stop off at a church on the way if you think it might have good stained glass. The bluebells in the bottom right corner of this made me loose my breath for a moment.
2d ago
Apr 14, 2025
I used to be envious of people who had “MySpace friends” or “tumblr friends”. Now I have PI.FYI friends. Thank you capyboppy for your lovely letter and this illustration of a capybara and a mouse with fruit on our heads, it made me weirdly emotional ❤️
Jun 11, 2024