Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Diane in Chicago on January 23, 2010 at 4:12am

Your next instrument should be a stick dulcimer. Easiest to learn to play! Same instrument, but with some of the frets taken out so there are no wrong notes.

http://www.cigarboxnation.com/group/dulciworld/forum/topics/fret-sp...

There are more dulcimer tabs out there than you can learn in a year, and once you've got the dulcimer down, playing a 3-string with all the frets is an easy transition.

Visit here to see how easy they are to learn to play:
http://www.strumstick.com/html_pages/Strumstick%20Information%20pag...

I had one of these and I liked it It was the thing that started me on building because I wanted a shorter one with a wider fretboard and a bigger more comfortable box, and, well, here I am.

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Permalink Reply by Outhouse Instruments on January 23, 2010 at 5:59am

Here's a couple of added bonus to a stick Dulcimer.
1- You can build it like a CBG.
2- Learn the stick dulcimer chord fingerings for D,G,A,C,E ( D,G,C - first) . It's quick and easy, and there are hundreds of songs you can play ( regular 3 or 4 chord guitar songs.


Matt

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Permalink Reply by Outhouse Instruments on January 23, 2010 at 6:10am

Oh yeah, here's a quick tip. Tune the stick dulcimer to DAd( probably the most common). Learn the chords for DAd.
As long as you always tune the same as Dad ... also known as 151 tuning ... the fingerings will be the same. The chord name may change, but the song will be ok.

Example of 151 tuning Dad,AEa,CGc etc.


Matt

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Permalink Reply by Roger Martin on January 23, 2010 at 7:01am

I have a lot of customers that want to play but have never played an instrument.A lot go ahead and buy a 3 string but I sell an awful lot to folks that want it even simpler to start with. So I sell them a 1 string DB.If they can get comfortable with a 1 string its just a short hop to a 2 or 3 string ,,,,,
I tailor my sales pitch to people that had maybe tried to learn a 6 string and got discouraged for 1 reason or another. Some cant get passed the sore fingers thing, some just cant get learning all the chords etc.
So I show them that they CAN play a DB or a CBG and explain that its a no pressure relaxing instrument to play.
So far since March of last year I've sold a tick over 300 of these little CBG's or DB's , its just a matter of getting folks to understand that they can play, IF they want to bad enough.

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Permalink Reply by jason peterson on January 23, 2010 at 1:32pm

thanks for the advice , but i need to learn everything , i don't even know how to tune! i would not even know what a Dad,AEa ,CGc is or a cord for that matter , i guess what i am asking is ,would taking a beginner guitar or bass lesson's teach me the basic's of understanding music. or is that not the way to go if my goal is to only play cbg's. thank you Jason.

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Permalink Reply by Diane in Chicago on January 23, 2010 at 1:55pm

Build your dulcimer and buy a digital tuner.

A chord is any three (fine, two if you want to argue about it) or more notes that go together to make a particular sound. Like playing three notes on the piano at the same time. Some sound happy, some sound sad, some sound weird. Most simple songs only have 3 chords, so that's not so hard to learn.

Did you watch those videos over at the strumstick site? Watch them again. And then later watch them one more time.

jason peterson said:

thanks for the advice , but i need to learn everything , i don't even know how to tune! i would not even know what a Dad,AEa ,CGc is or a cord for that matter , i guess what i am asking is ,would taking a beginner guitar or bass lesson's teach me the basic's of understanding music. or is that not the way to go if my goal is to only play cbg's. thank you Jason.

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Permalink Reply by Keni Lee Burgess on January 23, 2010 at 2:10pm

Please check out my instructional video CD:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aGX3bWHSHt0

Available for sale at:

http://shop.ebay.com/njmikeb/m.html?_nkw=&_armrs=1&_from=&a...

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Permalink Reply by Tim on January 24, 2010 at 4:50am

personaly i would say pickup a six string and take some lessons, The reason i say that is theres tons of people that are willing to teach you how to play but most "guitarist" look at a cbg as a toy, so it will be much easier to get your theroy and every thing from a six string and then just take what you know and put it towards a cbg.

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Permalink Reply by Wes "I'm Baaaaack" Yates on January 24, 2010 at 8:26am

Check out tabs -- Tablature that is. Easy to read notation that will help you learn the instrument in an easy way. NOTE: tabs are NOT music NOR will they teach you music, chords, theory or even how to read music, but if you want to at least start to learn how to play, they use 'em. I do -- but then again, I also know chords and music.

First off, learn chords as mentioned above. Also know some tunings as mentioned above. Kenny Lee Burgess (above) has some great information and in the youtube case -- free to get you off the ground. Please think about buying his vids too!

There are also tons of great resources online that can get you running. Happy playing!

-WY

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Permalink Reply by Wes "I'm Baaaaack" Yates on January 24, 2010 at 8:27am

Well said and very true!

Tim said:

personaly i would say pickup a six string and take some lessons, The reason i say that is theres tons of people that are willing to teach you how to play but most "guitarist" look at a cbg as a toy, so it will be much easier to get your theroy and every thing from a six string and then just take what you know and put it towards a cbg.

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Permalink Reply by jason peterson on January 24, 2010 at 12:47pm

thank you Diane for all your advice ,yes i went to the stumstick site and that helps , i have started my dulcimer build,bought a tuner and am on my way to playing music not noise .

Diane in Chicago said:

Build your dulcimer and buy a digital tuner.
A chord is any three (fine, two if you want to argue about it) or more notes that go together to make a particular sound. Like playing three notes on the piano at the same time. Some sound happy, some sound sad, some sound weird. Most simple songs only have 3 chords, so that's not so hard to learn.
Did you watch those videos over at the strumstick site? Watch them again. And then later watch them one more time.

jason peterson said:

thanks for the advice , but i need to learn everything , i don't even know how to tune! i would not even know what a Dad,AEa ,CGc is or a cord for that matter , i guess what i am asking is ,would taking a beginner guitar or bass lesson's teach me the basic's of understanding music. or is that not the way to go if my goal is to only play cbg's. thank you Jason.

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Permalink Reply by CaptNick on January 30, 2010 at 2:57am

Keni Lee Burgess has a great instructional video. I have never played before buying this video and now after some practice I am beginning to recognize notes and actually playing a little of a couple of songs, just takes lots of practice and I mean lots. Try it out.

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