hello nation, i have started building cbg's but there is one problem i have never played a instrument in my life, thus don't have a clue on how to read, tune or understand music in general. So if anyone can point me in the right direction  to get started that would help out greatly .  thank you Jason.

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  • As much as I love stick dulcimers, I think that a better starting place is a 3 string fretless slide CBG.... set it up with an open tuning and then youtube some of the classic blues songs like "Sweet Home Chicago"... This is in a 12 bar blues chord pattern where the player of a fretlless CBG in open tuning only has to find three positions to play along....

    I know to someone without musical experience this and other posts sound like a foriegn language.... So... if you need help email me and we can either go to chat or do a phone call....

    Don't give up... do what you can, try to do more... over time you'll get there...

    the best,

    Wichita Sam
  • 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.
  • 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.
  • 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.
  • 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
  • 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.
  • Please check out my instructional video CD:

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

    Available for sale at:

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