Beginner Guitar Lessons

Beginner guitar lessons consist of you getting to know your first guitar. This guitar will probably be a nylon string acoustic which will enable you to learn what it takes to get music out of an instrument without relying too much on electronic enhancements and without cutting your fingers up on steel strings. What style of guitar do you want to learn?

Do you want to play along to your favorite songs or learn songs from a music book or off the web? Maybe you want to learn to play on an acoustic guitar. You just need to learn the basic chords, how to hold the guitar without straining your arms, back or shoulders, and some idea of how much practice you need to put in each day.

You will also need to know what you are going to be doing with your right hand. Do you want to strum chords using a plectrum, learn clawhammer fingerstyle picking or maybe you'd like to strum with your fingers and thumb, and keep note picking to a minimum.

Do you want to play electric guitar? Once again do you want to learn to play guitar solos or just play rhythm and let somebody else take the glory? If you want to play electric guitar solos, you might want to check out your favorite guitar player to get some idea of what he does. There's a world of difference between the playing styles of Eric Clapton, Mark Knopfler or Ted Nugent! What's all this stuff got to do with beginner guitar lessons? Well, if you want to play guitar, it's best to start out with some knowledge of your instrument.

Many people begin their musical education without much idea of the various styles of playing, and sometimes this can hold back their progress. The direction you're about to take makes a difference to how you begin. If you're going to take up classical guitar you'll begin with beginner's pieces. If you want to play jazz or lead guitar you'll need to learn chords and scales, and how to handle a plectrum for doing solos. To just accompany yourself singing you will need to learn chords only.

A great place to start to explore beginner guitar lessons is JamPlay, an online guitar lessons site which features online video guitar lessons in guitar techniques, chords, scales, reading tabs, and progressions to advanced techniques for blues, rock, and bluegrass genres. The big difference between Jamplay and other guitar lessons on the internet is that you can interact with the Jamplay teachers! You can start with basic beginner lessons or jump right into advanced genre lessons. They will teach you chords, how to read tablature, strumming patterns, fingerpicking, songs, scales, modes, barre chords, theory, song composition and if you get lost you can ask your teacher questions! JamPlay locates professional guitar teachers from across the country, films their lessons, and broadcasts them over the internet. All teachers are available for your questions. Ask them anything, and they will answer them on camera.

Different parts of the brain do different jobs. One part of the brain learns the words to a song. A different part of the brain learns and remembers guitar chords and where to put your fingers.

If you don't want to be making the same muffled notes and botched chord changes over and over for the next twenty years or so, you are going to want to learn some visualisation techniques. Visualisation means you break down a small series of muscular actions, like a chord change, into as many small stages as you can. Then try to visualize what you are going to do before you try and do it physically. Watch yourself as you go through the motions in your mind. But watch from inside your body. FEEL the chord change as you do it! Then try in the real world, but as smoothly and unhurriedly as possible. If you are not executing your series of movements smoothly you will find that you're muffing your chord change. Go back and try the chord change again smoothly and slowly until you know what you are doing that's stopping you from executing your chord change efficiently. If you continue to practice smoothly, your muscle memory will help you to get all your movements right when you are practicing your guitar playing.

One of the challenges for the learner guitarist is learning the basic chords. You will not only need to know where to put your fingers, but also how to change from one chord to another. The technique of smooth transition between chords is a learning process which we are never really finished with. Every time we learn something new on the guitar, that's another sequence of small movements our body learns, and these sets of movements must be executed smoothly through relaxed, calm practice.

Holding chords with your left hand is a new skill. It uses groups of muscles we do not normally use, so it takes time to learn the chord shapes without experiencing discomfort. There is light at the end of the tunnel, although sometimes the tunnel seems very, very long.

Another physical adaptation that has to be made when you learn your basic guitar chords is the left-hand fingers need to be toughened up. Callouses form on the tips of the fingers after a few weeks playing, but until they do you need to put up with the pain.

Fortunately learning the notes on the guitar is a job that does come to an end. As you learn more songs, chords and scales you will feel your ease with musical theory and notation growing even if you didn't directly learn much theoretical stuff. If you learnt in your own way the knowledge gets into you by way of constant practice and the enjoyment you bring to your guitar playing.

So the task at hand is to learn a basic group of chords. This is your toolbox you begin your guitar playing with.

Each chord is identified by a letter. If the letter is followed by the word, minor, it's a minor chord. If it is just the letter alone, it's a major chord.

Major chords contain the Root note, a major third above the Root plus a fifth above the Root.

Minor chords, which have a more "sad" sound, are the same except that they contain a minor third instead of a major third.

A basic rule of thumb for understanding major and minor chords is for a

major chord play the (1) (3) and (5) of the major scale, and for a minor chord play the (1) (3) and (5) of the minor scale.

A handy thing to know once you start playing barre chords is that if you learn the major chord shape, you only need to lift one left-hand finger to play the minor chord.

The basic chords come from the keys of A G C and D. The chords themselves can be played at all positions on the fret board, but beginners start with open chords at the first position. This means that at least one note is played on an open string.

We group the basic keys into families:

The A family contains the chords A, D and E.

The D family contains the chords D, E minor, G and A.

The G family contains the chords G, A minor, C, D and E minor.

The C family contains the chords C, D minor, E minor, F and G.