Introduction
If you are reading this, it probably means you own or planning to own a guitar and desperately want to play some cool riffs on your guitar. If not so, at least you have some interest towards the instrument. Either way, this article is for complete beginners and especially for people like me who don’t really have time to take proper classes and/or all they care about is to be able to play guitar at some friends' parties, camp fire, or any such social events just to impress your friends and girlfriend. Just so that I make myself clear, read the previous sentence one more time. So this might not be the best way to get started but it worked for me. So it might just work fine for you too. So, this article is gonna give you a little heads up on some of the most obvious obstacles that you will come across as you try to learn playing guitar yourself. By the end of the article I'll also get you started on some really simple songs that you can start practicing right away. Plus, you should also note that most of the things discussed here will apply to both electric and acoustic guitars, I'm writing this article with an acoustic guitar in mind.
Parts of a guitar
Okay, so before we get started Lets get the basics out of the way. The below images labels all the different parts of a right handed acoustic guitar. most you will find this boring (so did I ), but trust me, there was a point where i wished i knew what exactly is this Bridge or neck this guys was talking about. You don't need to know everything by heart, just a glance would be enough I guess.
A right handed guitar means that you'll be holding the strings with your left hand and strumming or picking using your right hand. If you are a left handed person, you'll need a left handed guitar or as an alternative, you could just restring the guitar upside down from top to bottom. (we'll talk about strings in just a moment).
Strings and Frets
From the above image, you can see that the fret board (the long part where the strings are) is divided into many segments. these segments are called frets. The first fret is the one that is closest to the tuning knobs/ tuners and the subsequent frets are numbered accordingly as 2nd, 3rd and so on. Holding a string at different frets produced different sounds. Its on the basis of this, that different chords are formed to create various types of sounds. In a guitar there are 6 strings (there are 12 strings guitars too) and they are named from top to bottom as E A D G B e. The top string is called low 'E' and the bottom most string is called a High 'e' as shown in the image below.
It will take a while to remember which is which, but you'll get used to it.
Chords
This is probably the most important word in the world of guitar. All the guitar music that you've ever heard, all those beautiful sounds, are a result of some chords. Chords are nothing but your fingers holding different strings at different frets. So, changing your finger position would mean changing the the fret you are holding, thus creating a different sound as we discussed earlier. the two images below show some really basic chords. (D minor and C major)
D minor C major
Holding the Chords (strings)
There is just one last thing that i want to talk about before we actually start playing. As simple and straight forward as it may sound, it required a lot of practice and patience to learn how to hold the strings properly. Honestly, from my personal experience, this is the toughest part of learning guitar. But trust me, once you cross this hurdle, there's no turning back. Every single friend of mine who comes over to my place, picks up my guitar and try to play it. As they try to do so, i notice a mistake that each one of them does without fail. And that is, holding the strings. I admit that even i went through the same thing and it took me a lot of time to realize that I'm holding it all wrong. So I'm here to save your precious time and give you a little heads on.
The wrong way to hold the string is to hold it with the 'fingerprint' part of your finger. i.e. its as if you are trying to leave a fingerprint on the fret board with the string running between your fingerprint. There are some places where you need to do so. But for now, lets just say it is wrong.
The correct way to hold the string is with your finger 'tip'.As marked in the image below.
I'll tell you why this is the correct way. In the image below, the person is holding a D minor chord.
Notice that the middle and ring finger are holding two subsequent strings at two different fret positions. If he were to hold the strings in the wrong way, he would end up MUTING one or more strings . You should note that muting is a technique used in playing guitar that you can learn later on. Though putting a finger flat on a string might mute a string on top or bottom of that string (which is desirable in some cases), but holding a finger flat at fret to hold down two or more strings is called a 'BAR/ BARRE'. Even this, like muting, something that you will need to learn once you are comfortable playing most of the basic chords.
LETS PLAY!!!
As a beginner, you need to know that there are two different ways of playing a guitar. Either you can PICK or you can STRUM. In simple words, Picking is when you hold a chord and play each string individually (In the next topic or so, we'll discuss how to read tabs). And its called Strumming when you play all the string in one stroke. Going top to bottom or bottom to top. As far as I've researched and spoke to people, you should always start with strumming. End of this article I'll provide some easy chords and easy strum patterns that you can practice. Once you have a control over your hand, you are familiar with the gap between the strings and the general positioning of the strings, you can start learning picking. Now picking has lots of different types. Each on of them is used to produce slightly different sounds. You can do a further research on the Internet to learn more about the finger picking methods.
Chord Changing
This is another one of those things that that takes some real practice.(but i guess its not as difficult as learning to hold the strings). CHORD CHANGING or CHORD SHIFTING is of course moving from one chord to another. As a beginner, you'll play one chord and then you'll take another 4-5 seconds to position your fingers in place for the next chord. Just be patient and keep practicing. Remember every great guitarist once went through he same process. I quickly want to cover two methods that will make the transition sound better. The speed at which you change chords come out of shear practice. I'm going to take an example to explain each method.
Method 1.These two chords are A minor (Left) and C major(Right). Take a good look at both the chords.
You'll see that the Index finger and the Middle finger don't move at all. They remain in the same position. This is called ANCHORING. You find a finger or two that are common between two chords and you can move your other fingers without lifting your 'anchor'(or the common finger). This will help you to orient your fingers and reach for the correct strings much faster and there will not be a bizarre sound variation when you switch between chords.
Method 2.consider the two chords in the picture. they are C major(Left) and G major(Right) open chords.
Lets say you are shifting from C to G. You'll notice that there are no 'anchors' between these two chords. In such a case what you could do is, when you need to change chord lift up all the fingers from the fretboard and do an open strum. i.e. strum all the strings open. And when you are doing that, change your finger shape to the next chord (remember, when you are changing , your hands are still in the air, not holding any strings.) and bring it down on the fret board.
Unlike other stuffs in the process of learning to play guitar where you practice till you are good at it, changing chord is something that you will constantly need to practice. Because, as you learn new chords, you will need enough practice to quickly get your fingers in and out of the new chord position that you just learnt.
Reading Tabs
Tabs are widely used on the Internet to show music notes. It might seem a little confusing at first, but its totally easy. Here's a quick run down..the following is the tab for the intro of the song Hero by Enrique Iglesias.
As you can see there are 6 lines representing 6 strings on a guitar. Each string is named. While I was learning to read tabs, the most confusing part was this. in the diagram, the bottom most string represents the topmost string of your guitar. Once that is hard embedded into your brain, its a walk in the park.You read the chord left to right. A number on a string shows that, that string has to be played at that fret. In this case, the first note that you'll have to play is low E on 3rd fret. After that the first number that you encounter is 3rd fret of high E. then comes 3rd fret of B string. To make things more clear, imagine a vertical going through this image.
And you play every note on a first come first play basis :P. Some times you'll have 2 or more numbers touching the line at the same time. In that case you'll have to play all those strings at a time.
Practice Time.
As I've mentioned in the introduction part, this is for people who just wanna get started. So, out of my personal learning experience, What I'd suggest is this. Learn these 5 chords first.
G major, C major, D major, E minor (used to be my favourite chord when I was learning. Its the easiest chord :P) and A minor. Use google images to find out how these chords are held. Use a very simple strumming pattern like D DU D DU D DU. What that means is hold a chord. Strum downwards once (from top to bottom), wait for like half a second or so, then do another down strum and immediately do an up strum (from bottom to top). Learn to play these chords and learn to switch between these chords. Once you are comfortable with these. You can learn more chords like A major, E major, Cadd9. E minor 7, Dsus2, D sus4. etc. Don't let the names scare you. you'll just need to reposition one or 2 fingers to get to these chords for example, Cadd9 is nothing but G major, but just bring your index and middle finger down one string each.
some really simple songs that you can play to practice these chords
Ronan Keating: When you say nothing at all - uses Gmajor, D major and Cadd9. (first song that I learnt)
Justin Timerlake:What Goes around comes back around- uses A minor, C major, G major and D major
Enrique Iglesias: Hero: G, Cadd9 and D
Boulevard of broken dreams: Greenday: Em, C, G, D, A
Time of your life: Greenday: G,Cadd9 , Em7and D
Bryan Adams: Summer of 69: intro and verse just used A and D
This list should get you started. There are probably 1000 more songs that you can play using these chords. Just do a google search for "easy beginner songs" or something. Or you can search in one of the resources I've given below.
More Resources:
All that I've learned till now is completely on my own. And Internet has been my primary source of learning. So, in the past few years I've come across some pages that provide tabs and chords and tutorials for guitarists. But seriously, there are only 3 sites that I go to for getting any guitar related assistance.
www.youtube.com you get anything you want here. just type the song name followed by "guitar lesson". Most likely you'll find a video that teaches you how to play that song. On a side note there is this user who goes by the name 'gally042', who is by far the best guitar tutor I've seen on YouTube.
www.ultimate-guitar.com for all your chords and tab requests. You name it, you'll get it.
www.fretplay.com another site that never fails me.
www.freeandeasyguitar.com that is run by Aaron Gallaghar ( gally042 on YouTube). Another awesome site.
Conclusion:
So this is all I have to give you. Remember, there is no shortcut to get something that comes out of hard work. So ultimately it's up to you to give in your time and effort to become good at what you do. Practice well and happy guitaring. -\m/
