Guitar Lesson One - Music

Music This section of each lesson is entirely devoted to playing. Very little will be provided as to the "why's and wherefore's" of what you will be doing. This will be covered in future theory lessons. At this point, I just want you to learn the material and try to sound "musical" when playing it.

Anatomy of a chord diagram:

Below are 8 chords for you to learn. These 8 chords are often referred to as "the cowboy chords". This is because they are easy to play while riding a horse (hey...just foolin'). These chords are called "cowboy" chords because a billion songs have been written using these few simple chords. Many of these tunes are they type of song that you see somebody strumming while sitting around a camp fire in those old "cowboy" movies. But don't let that fool you. These are the "bread and butter chords" that EVERYBODY uses. If you don't know these chords, you can't call yourself a guitar player.

The chords:

Here are MIDI examples of what each chord sounds like: EMaj AMaj DMaj GMaj CMaj Emin

Amin Dmin

The hardest part of playing chords is getting all of the notes in the chord to ring. The culprit is most often the finger that is trying to play a note on an adjacent string. That other finger will sometimes touch the string that won't ring and be the cause of your problem. The trick is to use the tips of the fingers and to make sure that each finger is touching only the string that it is holding a note on. Also, check to see that you are not playing any of the strings that do not have a circle. Practice each chord in the same manner as demonstrated in the MIDI files. Pick each string individually and then, strum the entire chord. Once you can play each chord correctly, then it's time to practice changing from one chord to another. The idea here is to change to another chord without stopping. Pick any two of the chords and practice changing from one to the other and then, back to the first. Try to play the chords in time with the metronome MIDI. Strum once per click, four strums per chord. For now, just use down strums and concentrate on switching to the next chord and staying in time with the metronome. Once you can go from any chord to any other chord and stay in time, try stringing three or more chords together into CHORD PROGRESSIONS. Here are just a few possibilities:

DMaj - CMaj - GMaj - DMaj GMaj - CMaj - DMaj - GMaj EMaj - DMaj - AMaj - CMaj

AMaj - EMaj - GMaj - DMaj Amin - Dmin - Emin - Amin Amin - Dmin - GMaj - CMaj Emin - Amin - DMaj - Emin

I'm sure you have noticed the Maj and min attached to each of the chord names. We will learn what this means in a later lesson. For now, all you need to keep in mind is that Maj chords sound bright and cheerful, while min chords sound dark and moody.

These chord progressions may not sound like your rockin' out, but there's a lot you can do with a few basic chords. If you add some rhythmic variation and a lead lick or two, you'el be amazed. You'el probably have the best luck if you practice these chords with a clean sound on your amp with a bit of reverb. Once you get the chords down you can experiment with some distortion, but these chords don't always sound so good with a lot of distortion until you learn a few right and left hand techniques. When it comes to playing OPEN POSITION chords, I will usually use the baseball bat hand position. This is so I can use my thumb over the top of the neck to keep the E and A-strings from ringing on the chords that don't require those strings. Best of luck!

Hello there, I am Chris Standring and I'd like to welcome you to this free guitar lesson, taken from my hugely popular "Guitar Made Simple" home study CD ROM program. This specific lesson is a couple of chapters in, but if you are an absolute beginner you can still have some fun with this. Take it nice and slow and in a short while you can be strumming a fun groovy rhythm! OK off we go...

To get you strumming we are going to focus on "open" chords. These are all chords that contain open strings and are all played in first position (around the first fret). Some players call these cowboy chords because all the country guitar players use them to write songs. Have a good look at these and see if you can finger them correctly. For now simply brush across the strings and try to keep your fingers upright so all the sounds are audible. Focus on keeping only the tips of your left hand fingers on the frets. Any time a finger falls flat, a dead string sound will result. This of course will take a little practice. Pay special attention also to a string with an "X" above it. This means don't play that string. In the C major example, simply brush the strings across from the 5th string (where your 3rd finger sits). Don't forget a "o" means open string so be sure to let those ring through where needed.. (Click on images to hear audio examples)

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When you have gone through all these chords, go back over them again and again. When you feel like you are making headway and really getting your fingers sitting upright on the fretboard, learn the names of the chords. Test yourself as it is very important that you memorize the shapes of the chords when you see the chord names. Well, how about I test you right now: So, without looking at the chord diagrams, how do you play the following chord shapes? C major D minor E minor A minor G major E major A major D major D7 G7 C7

How did you do? Get them all in your head and we can learn to strum them. OK here we go... All this and a whole lot more can be found in my ground breaking guitar course "Guitar Made Simple". Why not check it out right now!

So let's get you strumming! For now we are going to do a simple strum with the right hand with our fingers only. I.E.: no pick. Let's take our C major chord that you just learned: (Click on the images to hear sound)

fig 35a

I want you to extend your right hand and imagine you are going to shake someone's hand. Now close all your right hand fingers a little (not all the way) except your first (index). Keep that one kind of pointing forward. Brush your right hand downwards, across the strings using the back of your (closed) 2nd, 3rd and fourth fingers. You should be brushing the strings with your nails. Do this just once. Like this: Step 1: Downward strum

fig 36

OK now your right hand should be below the scratch plate of the guitar. Leave it there for a second. Now brush back upwards using just your index finger. You should be brushing up using the fleshy part of your index finger. Once you finish this movement, your hand position should be closer to your face. Step 2: Upward strum

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OK. The next little movement is a "chop". Imagine you are brushing down again but as you go to do this, make a percussive chop sound, kind of like deadening the strings. Don't alter your right hand position as you do this. Don't splay your hand out, keep it in that original position, index finger out and middle fingers closed in a little. Step 3: Chop

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The last movement is exactly the same as your second, simply brush upwards again using the fleshy part of your index finger. Step 4: Upward strum

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Now we have to put it all together. Here are the movements to remember:

Down Up Chop Up

The trick is to get it to flow. Once you finish one movement you need to go straight into the next. Here are some audio examples to listen to. The first is the sequence really slowly:

Let's take two chords that we know. G major and C major. Just to refresh your memory they look like this:

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The first thing to do is to practice switching from chord to chord without strumming. We can add the strumming in a short while. So for now, I want you to make a G major chord shape with your left hand, keeping your fingers very upright so all the open strings sound. Now change to the next chord C major. Try to form this next chord shape in mid air so to speak. Visualize the shape in your mind and form the chord shape before you place your fingers on the fretboard. Does this make sense? In essence you are 'preparing' your fingers to play the chord. In other words, have your fingers sit in mid air over where your fingers are supposed to be and then just drop your fingers onto the frets. Voila! This is the secret to great chord switching. Finger preparation. Now switch back to the chord of G major, doing exactly the same thing. Prepare your fingers over the frets and then drop them down onto the G major chord shape. Practice doing this, switching back and forth until you feel comfortable. This will not come immediately! If it does you are an absolute genius! Have a little patience and get used to the movements. Now we are going to learn to strum these two chords and switch from one to the other without stopping our strum. But first, we need to understand the 'pulse' of the music we are about to play. Most pop music is in the the time of 4/4. This means that there are 4 beats to a bar. If you tap your foot to a regular rhythm but place an emphasis on beat 1 (of four foot-tapping beats) you will get a feel for this next exercise. So a bar (often called a measure) might look like this:

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If we put four bars in a row, it might look like this:

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Now, remember our strumming rhythm? The four steps are: Down Up Chop Up

This strumming movement represents just half a bar. So if you completed this 4 step movement twice, you would have 1 bar of music. So you could think of it also like this: Down.... Beat Up Chop.... Beat Up Down.... Beat Up Chop.... Beat Up 1 2 3 4

So, for our next exercise we are going to strum a chord for 1 full bar and then change chord and strum that chord for one full bar. Like this:

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Here's a tip. If you mess up changing your left hand chord shapes, don't stop strumming with your right hand. Just keep feeling the rhythm whatever happens with your left hand. When you go to 'prepare' your fingers for the next chord, don't worry about strumming between chord changes, it's all good. This is all part of the sound. Just do your best to get all your fingers in place for beat one of each bar you play. It should sound like this:

LEAVING ON A JET PLANE Words and Music by John Denver G / / / C / / / All my bags are packed, I'm ready to go G / / / C / / / I'm standing here outside your door G / / / C / / / D ///////

I hate to wake you up to say goodbye G / / / C / / / But the dawn is breakin' it's early morn G / / / C / / / The taxi's waitin' he's blowin' his horn G / / / C / / / D /////// Already I'm so lonesome I could die Chorus: G / / / C / / / So kiss me and smile for me G / / / C / / / Tell me that you'll wait for me G / / / C / / / D /////// Hold me like you'll never let me go G / / / C / / / 'Cause I'm leavin' on a jet plane G / / / C / / / Don't know when I'll be back again G / / / C / / / D /////// Oh, babe, I hate to go.... Verse 2: There's so many times I've let you down So many times I've played around I tell you now, they don't mean a thing Every place I go, I'll think of you Every song I sing, I'll sing for you When I come back I'll bring your wedding ring CHORUS Verse 3: Now the time has come to leave you One more time, let me kiss you Then close your eyes, I'll be on my way Dream about the days to come When I won't have to leave alone About the times I won't have to say CHORUS end on G chord

Leaving on a Jet Plane - performed by John Denver NOTES: when playing the G and C chord, strum them 4 times each, but when playing the D chord, strum it 8 times MP3: iTunes download

A New Scale

Names of Guitar Strings

Learning an E Minor Chord

Learning an A Minor Chord

Learning a D Minor Chord

Learning to Strum

A guitarist with a good grasp of strumming can bring a two-chord song to life. In this first lesson on strumming, we'll examine some of the basics of strumming the guitar, and learn a widely used strumming pattern. Grab your guitar, and, using your fretting hand, form a G major chord (review how to play a Gmajor chord). The pattern above is one bar long, and contains 8 strums. It might look confusing, so for now pay attention to the arrows at the bottom. An arrow pointing down indicates a downward strum. Similarly, an upwards arrow indicates that you should strum upwards. Notice that the pattern starts with a downstroke, and ends with an upstroke. So, if you were to play the pattern twice in a row, your hand wouldn't have to vary from it's continual down-up motion. Play the pattern, taking special care to keep keep the time between strums the same. After you play the example, repeat it without any pause. Count out loud: 1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and 1 and 2 and (etc.) Notice that on the "and" (referred to as the "offbeat") you are always strumming upward. If you are having problems keeping a steady rhythm, try playing along with an mp3 of the strumming pattern.

Make Sure:

if playing an acoustic guitar, you strum over the sound hole all strings ring clearly Make sure the volume of your downstrums and upstrums are equal Be careful not to strum too hard, as this produces an undesirable sound Be careful not to strum too softly, as this will produce a "wimpy" sound. Your pick should be striking the strings with a relatively firm, even stroke Think of your elbow as being the top of a pendulum - your arm should swing up and down from it in a steady motion, never pausing at any time.

Most of the picking motion should come from a rotation of the wrist, rather than from the forearm. Be sure not to keep your wrist stiff when playing.

racticing at least 15 minutes per day on the guitar is recommended. Playing every day, even for this small amount of time, will get you comfortable with the instrument, and you'll be amazed at your progress. Here's a schedule to follow.

Make sure your guitar is in tune (how to tune) Go over material from lesson one. Concentrate on the chromatic scale and major chords. Review the open string names. Play the E phrygian scale several times. Play the scale forwards and backwards, slowly, in an even tempo. Concentrate on accuracy! Spend at least five minutes on strumming. Try these patterns with different chords. Try playing the strumming patterns with one chord, switching chords, and playing the pattern again. Play this week's minor chords. Say the name of the chord as you play it, to help with memorization. Practice switching from one minor chord to another, or from a minor to a major chord. Try playing some, or all of the songs listed. Review songs from lesson one.They will certainly not sound very good at first. Try only to think of the songs as a way in which to practice playing chords.

You can see that we are quickly building a large amount of material to practice. If you find it impossible to practice the above in one sitting, try playing them over several days. Be sure not to ignore any of the items on the list, even if they're not a ton of fun to practice. You will undoubtedly sound pretty rough when you first start playing this new material. Everyone does... that is why we practice. If you can't seem to get something right even after a lot of practice, shrug your shoulders, and leave it for tomorrow. We're done lesson two! When you're ready, move on to lesson three, we'll discuss even more about chords, more strumming patterns, the basics of reading music, plus new songs and more. Hope you're having fun!