Your Never To Old To Learn To Play Guitar: Part 1 The Basics
Getting Started
First thing you need to do is get yourself a decent guitar. A cheap one is OK but most of them sound a little funny. I have a Fender Acoustic Guitar which normally cost over £125 however I picked it up fr as little as £35 which is the same price as a cheap beginners one by CB Sky. Actually of all 5 Guitars I have ever owned only two were bought new. So to get yourself a great guitar look in secondhand shops and charity shops after you have looked in the big music retailers. Only buy the guitar from a main retailer if you cannot find one you like elsewhere.
I would however recomend buying new strings from a reputable retailer and restringing a used guitar.
You can get away with a cheap budget guitar but you will definitely need to replace the strings with good quality ones if you want a decent sound from it .
Take a look below for my recomendations.
D'Addario Strings
D'Addario do a great range of strings and these have been my favourites for all of my playing life.
They come in different gauges and they make them for nylon and steel strung acoustics as well as electric and bass guitars.
Squire by Fender
This is my favourite acoustic guitar. It is a steel strung guitar so can be hard on the fingers at first. I bought mine second hand and restrung it. I also replaced the pick plate as I had a fancy one. It has a great sound and looks great to. There are a few different versons of this guitar on the market with different color styles to choose from. Mine is the Black lacquered model.
Fender Classical Guitars
If you want a fender but would rather have the softer nylon strings then you can get a good looking and sounding Fender Classical Guitar for the same price as the Squire.
The Basics
Once you have your guitar its time to learn the basics.
First lets look at the Guitar and its parts.
A standard guitar has 6 strings. Each one is a different thickness and will give a different note. You will need to learn how to tune the strings so that the guitar sounds right. I will cover that a little later in the series.
Holding the Guitar
The guitare should be held so that you hold the neck with your left hand and place your right hand over the sounding board just below the sound hole.
You use your left hand to make the cords and your right hand to play them by strumming or picking the strings.
Now lets take a look at your first 5 Chords
Above are 5 different chords for you to practice.
The thick line at the top of each diagram is the head nut. The string on the left is the low E or thckest string and the string on the right is the high e or thinest string.
The o's represent played open strings
And the x's represent unplayed strings.
Once you are comfortable holding the guitar try placing your fingers on the fret board and making the chord shapes. I will go into better finger placement in a later hub.
