LESSON 10: POWER CHORDS

After several weeks of hard work and busy days with my career, I finally had my free time to pursue this blog that’s been neglected for a while.  Sorry for the delay and let’s move on to this new lesson that I’m about to teach you with these tutorials about guitars that we love so much. As you can see in the title of this lesson, this is actually an advance guitar playing. Power chords are a technique or style that most rockers use to compose thick, crunching, and bombastic sound which you can hear in their songs. For beginners, this is actually one of those easy task that you can learn less than a minute if you pay attention to what I am about to say.

Two or Three

Typically, power chords consist of two or three fingers, depending upon the player what fingers and position how he/she will play it. But, you can play all those chords with only two fingers. It is more of an easy way to do it. The only difference about it is its sound that it can give you when you strum how many fingers you will use. If you will use three fingers, then it will deliver bolder sound. Why? Because if you do that, you’re also using more notes and that also means, you’re using more strings (of course!), that is why. 

It is advisable to use your pointing and pinkie when you’re doing a power chord. It is more comfortable than using your pointing and your middle finger regarding this. If you will use three string (depending upon how you will play the guitar), it is advisable to use your pointing, ring, and your pinkie finger. You can also see the reason why if you will try it now or sooner when you had the time to practice and play your guitar.

Bass strings only

This is also an important thing to consider about power chords. Basically, a power chord is done in the bass part of the guitar or strings 6, 5, 4. The two strings 1, 2 will not be considered here and you need to make the string dead (no sound) when you hit a power chord. But, guitar expert can use all the string while doing those power chords that you can see in the chart.

These chords are useful if you intend to play fast songs with genres like punk, metal, and etc…, which does fast tempo with their music. However, it will also depend upon your skill how to play a specific song in a guitar. So, if you’re just trying to learn guitar and likes to play music like this, you must prefer these chords instead of doing basic chords that you can learn in the chart. You will have a hard time if you’re doing it (basic chords), trying to play a song with fast switching guitar chords. But, it will again depend to you.

Chords with bar/flats can be a power chord

It is, and if you’re having a hard time making those chords with bars/flats, then you should try to learn this. It is pretty simple and this will require you to use your three fingers to make this possible. Beginners in guitars struggle how to make particular chords likes these sound smooth and not muted. This is the part what makes beginners lose their hope that they can actually play and learn the guitar. And the reason that is making this difficult is because they can’t make the correct position of the pointing finger in the fret board to do the flat/bar that is required for the chord.

That is a big problem for a beginner, right? So, how would you eradicate that troublesome flat/bar that’s bugging you to do that chord needed to play the whole song? Simple! Instead of doing that stuff (bar/flat), you can use power chords and convert that chord to it. The process is simple, and you only need to change how your pointing finger will press the chords. Instead of laying your pointing finger flat to those six or five strings, you can actually do that equivalent chord by only pressing the number six string or the number five string. For example: if you’re doing an F chord, you only need to press the number six string. And if you’re doing a B chord, you will only press the number five string and since a B chord uses string number two, you will also need to ignore and stop pressing the number 2 string, since a basic power chord doesn’t need to use a string number 1 and 2. Always remember that the string in the tip of your pointing finger, when you’re doing a flat/bar, if you want to convert it to a power chords, you only need to hit that string and you are done.

Dead strings

Dead string is one of the most important parts of these chords styles. This will make the sound of your playing more precise and smooth in the ear of your listener. It might be a small thing to consider, but, as we all know it, small details in a guitar can be a huge role to make the sound of it good.

Usually, dead strings in power chords will be the string 1, 2, and 6. Those were the string that you need to consider about this. Again, how you will does this will depend upon the position of your finger and how you would do this. But, if you followed the instructions, what fingers you will use to make these chords possible, then it will be more easy and comfortable for you. If you’re using only the two fingers (pinkie and pointing); you only need to rest your remaining finger in the fret board mildly. Like an effortless fingers resting to a thing. You don’t need to press it, just rest it there and the fingers that will be pressing the string are those fingers that will be making the power chords. If you’re using three fingers, then you only need to rest your middle finger in the fret board mildly in the top of the strings. It may sound bad, but to make it easier for you to understand it, the position of your finger in the fret board while doing this will look like you’re doing a dirty finger.

Power Chords is a wonderful technique to learn how to play the guitar. It will turn keys to many songs that you want to play before but is having a hard time to do so. This lesson is now finished and I am thanking you for the time visiting and trying to learn here using these guitar tutorials for beginners. Hope you enjoyed the lesson I provided you and happy playing!

Note: Acoustic Guitar Image courtesy of Petr Kratochvil.

LESSON 9 – APPLICATION PLUS THEORY

Sorry for the delay and this lesson have been in my mind for some time, but I hadn’t had the chance to jot it down in my paper. So, this is the ninth lesson here in these sets of tutorials that had been previously made here.  I am glad that this is one of the topics that we need to tackle down and to learn deeper in this instrument that you tend to learn with your heart with it. 

You may notice that this is not related to that previous post that I had made here. If this concerns you, then, the answer to that query will be yes. This has nothing to do with the last post on how to play it scenario like I had in the past; but instead, this is more on adding some information on how you will carry on with this tutorial. This is more of my opinion, I guess, about learning guitar. This has a similar approach like my seventh post about the techniques on how to play this thing. Here, you will also find the big dispute of some guitar players struggling to learn it, or, some who claims that they don’t need theory to learn and play graceful with it.

Why theory

Generally speaking, a theory most of the time is pertaining to the musical notes that we see in a treble clef. That’s the importance of this thing regarding this. It is a very powerful thing to make you knowledgeable when it comes to music. It is like knowing the inner things to a system that you are doing or using it. Everything isn’t about just using it, but understanding each and every detail how it works every time you use it. So, I am a little bit astonished to some guitar players who says that they became this and doesn’t even know or learned this. Even if you deny it, before you do something that requires your knowledge you are using a certain theory that you used but isn’t aware of. Just like in guitars, when you first study or hold it, you did wonder how this thing works. There isn’t anything in this world that doesn’t come to its conclusions without the process of thinking.

Why theory? Because with this, you can write songs that is well structured and not just presumptions. I’m not saying that theory is better that application; instead, this is the right process to make your own arrangements when you are writing you own song or rather your music using this instrument. This is like the blueprint of your house or a building that you want to build with you own hands. That is how it is, literally.

Just a plain guitar player

Even if you don’t want to write a song using it, you still need this. You still need to know this thing to make your foundation harder and learn this, faster than those people who needed years to attain those skills that they have right now. It is not true that you need years to learn this. Many players, nowadays, learn and become good at this with just a year in their belt playing it and if you will ask them how they did it, the answer’s a solid understanding about the guitar theory.

Theory is not just a way how to write notes in sheets, but it also makes it easier for you to play this instrument that you’re eager to understand. It makes the time frame to learn all the chord combinations, how the family chords work, broken chords, and the timing to specific song with a smaller amount of time. But, if you think that you don’t this, then go ahead and memorize all those guitar chords with a whooping 4.5 million all in all (can you?).

Application is also needed

After you had learned the needed things how to do it, then, you need to execute that action in order to accomplish something that you had formulated using your theory. This is where the application enters the scene after you had furnished that theory in your mind. This is a powerful combination that you can do to make you a good guitar player in no time. As always, the right process is always correct and it will never let you down. It will give you the results that you expected because you ought about it first.

You will see the difference how this will help you. Many players claimed that they learned this without needing any theory. Well, it is possible and any one can actually learn this without any idea about it (theory). But, as I had said, if you don’t want to use this then you will memorize all the chords in your mind. That’s just an example how difficult it will be for you to reach the expert level and you will be stuck like them who only know how to play guitars because they just listen or see the chords in YouTube.

It‘s not bad to learn guitars in ears, but, if you want to be cunning and be good with it then this is the right track for you. Face it; you need a lot of work to do if you will just do the application part and forbid that other thing (theory) making it harder for you. I will say that theory plus application equals a good player. That is how I perceive this and hoping you will see that this is the right thing for you to do because there are a lot of people who has the wrong idea about this.

There you have it! My ninth installment with this tutorial and I hope you liked my point of views about it. This may seem strange but I felt that you need to know this cause, in the next lessons that I will about to teach you will be a bit advance than the previous posts that I made. I think it is now the time to make it more interesting. So, practice more and I will be back with a new lesson here in Guitar Tutorials for Beginners. Good day!

LESSON 8 - PLUCKING

In guitars, there are lots of technicalities that you can use to improve your playing capabilities. Clean sound, Aggressive tones, and soothing melodies that can make your listeners amazed on how you play it is some of the examples that these techniques can give you.

Now, this lesson is about to teach you a wonderful technique how to play it. This is often used, particularly, with folk songs and love songs (yeah!) also.  Most of the beginners that I had seen were eager to learn this stuff because they had “personal interest” to play a “love song”, for some reasons that you can think of. But some says they were just really into this stuff as their personality dictates their taste about music.

Whatever the reason that you had in your mind right now doesn’t matter. The important thing here is that you learn how to pluck your own guitar, and that’s the bottom-line.

Hand and Arm positioning

The first thing that you need to consider is the position of your hand and also your arm in the instrument. The position, as I had said in my previous lesson, is a crucial part. You must do this with comfortable position and you can freely move both of it (hands and arms) while you play the guitar. You also need to place each of your fingertips close to the string, or you can place and touch the string, is more of a good idea.

Another thing would be resting your arms into the second hump from the body of the guitar that we had been done in our previous lesson.  You don’t need to lock the guitar in your body and hold it tightly. Just relax your hands and arms, and focus on the chords that you’re doing while you pluck each strings with it. That way, your focus is in the sounds that you’re making instead of it.

Using your fingers while you pluck

This time, you will use all your fingers. This part has lots of technicalities, styles, and methods how to use your fingers to play a song with it. Since you are a beginner, we will do the basics, and that means we will use all of it. The fingers that will do most of the work plucking the strings will be: your Pinkie, Ring, Middle and Point fingers. These will pluck the last four strings in the fret board and the remaining finger (thumb) will be the one to do the bass of the chords. This is the finger allocations for each string:

• Pinkie - String #1
• Ring - String #2
• Middle - String #3
• Point - #4

You may notice that the thumb is missing. Well, the thumb is responsible for the bass of a specific chord that you do while you play a song in it. This finger has two strings that it can use unlike the rest of the fingers in a specific note. String #5 and String #6 are the strings that have been concerned about this, and either of them will be used by your thumb to produce a bass sound for a song making it bolder.

Plucking the guitar

Plucking is similar to strumming. They both have the same mechanics while you play it. The only difference is the style plus its details while you play it. The timing and the rhythm is just the same too. And to start plucking this instrument, you need to hit the bass string first with your thumb (of course!). After hitting that string, you will automatically start to pluck. First, hit the strings with an arrangement of 4, 3, 2, and 1 downward. And if you had reach the last string (string #1), you will hit the strings again with the arrangement of 2, 3, and 4 upward to make it a cycle. That’s it! You had made a cycle just like you’re strumming.

Usually, string #6 is used when a chord comes with a bar/flat. If there’s no finger pressing that string in the fret board use string #5, instead. That’s how simple it is. So you won’t be confused when to use string #5 and String #6 when you’re playing the instrument like this.

Pick or Finger

You can use either of them if you prefer it. But using a pick with a particular song, especially if it is a folk song, will give you a hard time playing it. It is possible, but you must have a tremendous amount of experience to do it. But still, it is your choice what you want to use.

There a lot of songs that plucking with fingers are more precise to use than a pick. If you’re good at it (pick), then there will be no problem to play with it after all. Picks can help you play without hurting your fingers, while, fingers can make your playing more convenient and faster while you pluck the guitar. There are a lot of advantages and disadvantages this two has. But, no matter what you use, it is you that matters in this. So, even if you use the pick or not. It always depends upon your skill in playing this instrument.

This post is quite long now, so I will wrap this thing up here at Guitar Tutorials for Beginners. You can watch some artist like Harem Scarem, Andy Mckee, Eagles, Eric Clapton and many other artists to give you inspiration about this technique and furnish it. Enjoy playing the guitar and cheers with your success with this instrument. 

LESSON 7 - THE GUITAR TECHNICALITIES

We had reached this far with our Guitar Tutorials for beginners and this is the seventh lesson that we will be conducting together. As far as I’m concerned about this, specifically about the technicalities while you play the guitar’s having a big dispute if this really matters after all. Well, this is my opinion and you can take this as a fact or not.

Technicalities, whether if it’s important to a player or not, can raise a big confusion for you as a beginner. You need a lot more to learn about this instrument and these technicalities, I think, can really help you a lot. How big the deal about this is for others, the most important part is that you’re learning this thing and that’s our goal here. To learn and explore this thing that we all loved to do. This technicalities I will be discussing will help you sound a lot more better than it used to be and play cleanly while you strum it with your favorite songs. Remember this piece of advice that I will give you: playing this instrument is not just to show off or to impress other people around you but instead; you do this because you love to and wanted to express yourself musically. So, enough with these lectures and let do this.

Bars and flats

I had mentioned in my last Guitar Tutorials for beginners that I will include this part here so, have a deep breath and this is it! The most intriguing and as I can say, is the hardest part of these tutorials for beginners who aspires to be a guitar player.

As you can see it in the guitar chord chart, you will be pressing all the strings or the strings starting from the fifth down to the first string (sixth string not included) that will give you a hard time to accomplish. But, don’t be afraid because we will do this process with easy steps for you to guide and learn this in no time. To make this easier and a convenience in my part, we will use F and B chords only. These chords will be the perfect chords that we will use practicing here in this lesson. The pointing finger is the cue here to make these two chords to make it sound good and this can also be the reason why it didn’t produce the chords’ sound. Usually, with the beginners first try attempting to strum with that chord, has failed and gave them a dead sound or nothing at all. It’s normal. Everybody was been frustrated about this stage when you’re trying to learn this for the first time. Even I had a hard time accomplishing this task when I was just like you. If you tried to strum and you ended up with no luck, try and try until you succeeded.

These are the following reasons why you had ended up without a sound: wrong positioning of the hand in the fret board while you’re doing the chord and the pointing finger presses the string in a wrong way.  Well, as I had said, its okay as long as you will not lose your desire to complete this task and go on to the next level. If you’re doing chords like these or any kinds of chords whether it’s just a basic, advance, flatter or not chords be sure to relax your hand. You don’t need to press the string hard and making all the strings dead. Just relax your hand and observe how the strings interact with your fingers while you strum with those chords that successfully produced that distinct sound for a specific note. 

Another is the position of your thumb in the back of the fret board. You need to press your thumb in the middle of that side with your pointing finger pressing against it in the other side of it, in the exact place where your thumbs pressing the pressure. This will produce a cleaner sound when you strummed the instrument plus, this will make your arms relaxed to and an extra room to shift to another chords with an ease. To make this accurately perfect while you do this, you must not forget about your other three fingers that’s making the remaining strings dead and making no sound at all. Even if the pointing finger will be the crucial part doesn’t mean that you can ignore the remaining fingers. You must also pay attention about this cause each finger that was required for a specific chord has a responsibility. Avoid making an open string in a chord to be a dead one. This might be simple error and a very technical one but, this can make you’re playing cleaner to listen to.

Technical or not technical

To be a technical player or not is not important for you right now. This can be a big deal for you if you are on an advance stage of your development in this instrument. But, this section in these Guitar Tutorials for beginners actually is more of an advice, rather than a requirement for you to be that player you were dreaming of. This is more on helping you as I had said earlier, to attain that goal of success in this. You can use this or not. It’s you to decide if you will follow this techniques how to play with a guitar on your hands. Or, you can have your own style or technique if you prefer that. Whatever it is that you think is the right and the most suitable thing for you is always the right way. I will share you some of these stuffs that will make your play more gracefully and be more accurate learning this thing inside your mind, also. So, these are the three technical stuffs:

Beat with your feet – This can help you with your timing while you strum the strings in a particular song. You can synchronize the strum with beat that’s been produced by your feet by hitting the ground like a pedal to a bass drum.

Relaxed strumming – When you play with your guitar, you don’t need to strum that heavy to play a song in it. You just need relax your hand and don’t just use your wrist while you strum with it. Use your arm with your hand to work instead to make the sound bolder and clearer to listen.

Learn how to use a guitar pick – This is very useful thing which you can use and enhance your sound and playing capability while you play it. Obviously, A lot of advantages this can bring to you. It is a tricky thing to use but, if you had mastered how to use this, you will be playing that instrument producing a bolder sound. You can use this thing whether you’re strumming or plucking the strings.

There, you had it! And this is all over. You’re near to your destination as advance player with these Guitar Tutorials for beginners that I had been teaching you. I’m very glad that you’ve manage to accomplish my previous task and assignment that you need to do after this. But, that doesn’t mean that you will stop learning this after you had attained that. You still need to furnish your skill to play more songs to it and perfectly sounded clean. This is just the beginning of your arduous journey to master it. Practice more and the next lesson will more of an advance one. Got to think about it first (sorry for the inconvenience that I can’t tell you what’s next) and rest for awhile. Cheers for your achievements!

LESSON 6 - PLAYING A SONG IN THE GUITAR

Now, this is the most interesting part that you had been waiting for, in these Guitar tutorials for beginners that we had been doing for about some time. Give yourself those big thumbs up for accomplishing the previous task that I had given you. You’re now quite growing as a player and this will make you more interested as an aspirant in this instrument, which we had been using. Playing a song in a guitar’s another easy task that I will be teaching you, and this will be the “icing” in that cake as we go on with this stuff, right away. But, if you hadn’t had the chance to see the beginning of these tutorials, you could go to my very first post here. Or, if you were through with that would phase, you can still proceed with this topic and you don’t have to read it. What’s important is that, you can understand what I’m talking here and that’s what I needed.

As I have said in my previous Guitar tutorials for beginners before you proceed here (if you’re following these lessons, the whole time around), you‘re confident that you had mastered that skill that’s been required, in order for you to make a sense in this lesson.  Please, be guided with these words and let’s move on to this very special topic of ours, to explore with your guitar (of course!).

Songs for the beginners

Before we begin to play a song, we need a particular song that we will play here. So, to make this thing short and go on with this stuff, we will choose the song titled “leaving no a jet plane” by John Denver. In my personal experience, this is my very first song that I had played when I was just like you, and this is a very easy song to play with it. You can look for it in "Google" and search for its chords plus its lyrics. You can download the song too, if you don’t know the song.

If you had all the things we needed here in Guitar tutorials for beginners, we will now proceed to this lesson and the first thing you need to do is to study how the song works. Yes! You must first understand how the song goes even if you had listened to it from the past; you still need to study its flow, timing, and its rhythm to make it faster for you to have the idea when to change the chords. Observing how the artist strummed the guitar and how the song goes until it’s ending will give you the idea, why you must do this first. If you think that you had understood what I had said, then, you can hit that strings after this lesson with more convenience.

Changing chords in a song

Usually, a song is composed of only three chords in one whole song.  An example of this is the song I had chosen to use in this lesson with only three chords:  G, C, and D. That’s the chords that we will be using a lot, cause, this chord were basically for beginners that I had mentioned in my previous lesson too.

Changing a chord from one chord to another in a song can be quite hard for beginners to understand this that is why I had to make you listen to that song, and observe it to make this easier for you. This phase is more on the timing of the song that we will be playing. Consider the song that I had given you; it changes a chord after the count of 4 times in a row.  Each cycle was doubled in this song and this means that, instead of the regular cycle that we had done in our previous lesson, you need to have two cycles first, to call it a count. So, a count has eight cycles in all and you will do this the whole time until the songs are finished. You need to copy the timing and the rhythm of that song; to let your listeners knows what you’re playing exactly in your guitar. This is one of the most important things about this, because that chords pattern- G, C, D could be from another song, based on how you strum these strings in that instrument whether if it is fast or if it slow.

You can also use a song book to see that particular chord in the lyrics of that song. This is easier to do if you’re having a hard time, understanding this and play the song in it. You can search for the lyrics with chords of this song in Google. The reason I’m teaching that other process to you on how to change a chord in a song, is to make you play the guitar more independently and learn how to realize the timing that I am teaching to you. That way, we will be eradicating you to be so dependent about it and learn to master the guitar quickly as possible. Using this method is pretty self-explanatory and I don’t need to include it here (I will not mock you’re intelligence cause, I believe in you!).

Practice makes improvements

This is the task that you need to do in order for you to sharpen your skills, not just by playing the guitar, but in other things as well. So, you must play that instrument over and over again. This will make you learn faster and will help you gain more knowledge about it. Experience is a good teacher because these tutorials will only guide and provide you the right processes to attain that success in this instrument.  You can experiment and look for a specific style how to do these stuffs. Watch videos and learn from other musician or guitarist, to make this stuff clearer to you. Play this instrument with your friends and interact with them. So that, you can study or learn from each other that can make you more interested practicing this lesson. Always maximize the resources and see the results for yourself.

Guitar tutorials for beginners – lesson 6’s now finally over. You can now play a song with it but, you’re still limited to these chords that I had mentioned or what you can easily do in your guitar chord chart which you possess, right now. Still, you need more patience about this but; at least you can now play song in it.  The next lesson that I will teach you is all about the technicalities while you play the guitar. I will also include how to do the chords with bars/flats that have been giving beginners a hard time, making the strings sounded well while they hit it with a chord like that. Let’s rest for now, and I will be right back with another lesson for you.

LESSON 5 - STRUMMING THE GUITAR

Congratulations! We had reached this far to continue these tutorials in Guitar tutorials for beginners to a higher level. Good work on your last lesson and I’m hoping that you’re learning this thing in the right process to make you better upon playing this instrument. Here in this section, I will now discuss how you can strum the guitar for the first time or rather strum the string with me in the first place. I wouldn’t know if you had strummed it before or maybe, you are practicing a lot and try exploring it. So, I will just assume that you wanted to learn the basics on how to make it sound good while you hit these strings with a chord in the fret board.

In these Guitar tutorials for beginners, you need to learn every detail. You must learn this thing in order for you to understand the terms that I will be using in the next topic we will be doing, accompanied with this tutorial. So, to eradicate that problem of misunderstanding or you’re missing something in it before you move to the next the round of this tutorial, you must concentrate and practice this. If you had perfected to understand every single detail about this topic then, you’re ready for the next lesson. 

First things first, before you hit those strings

The first thing you need to consider is the position of you and your guitar in your body. Positioning it in the right way can make it convenient and comfortable to play it. This is kind of a very obvious one, but, I have seen some of the beginners I had taught in the past had a difficulty playing it. Why? The position isn’t correct and that makes it hard to make a good sound, out of it. This is the basic element in order to make a good sound while you strum it. And wrong position about anything, I think, isn’t making any good to you. This is the advice I hoped you will be following. The right position can only be simple and you just need to put the guitar in your right lap and find a distinct position of your body to make it comfortable for you to strum the guitar. Let you’re right arm or if your left hander, your left arm (Off course!) to rest in the second hump (usually, this will be the bigger curve) in the body of the guitar in the side or If you had putted the guitar in your lap, then in the top right portion from the body of the guitar.  And your other arm will be in-charged making chords in the fret board. Your arm that does the chord must be outwards to your body not inwards. This will make you more ease in making a chord in the fret board while you strum it.

Just strum first

Now, you know the right position. We will now proceed to strum the string. You will strum it without doing any chords first. Why? As far as my experience teaching a guitar is concerned, this is a hard thing for me to make my student understand how to strum correctly. If I will teach you to strum while you do the chords will give you a hard time and this will turn you down and forget about learning it after all. So, to prevent this from happening, you need to do this first. This is the easiest way to make you perfect this thing and to fully realize how to do it and make it sound right, when you hit it with the chords at the same time.

To do this more easily, we will be considering each strum or hit to all the strings with “up” and “down” terms. If you strum the string downward, logically, it will be called as “down” and if you strum it upward, then it is called as “up”. Next, is the term I used if you strummed it “down” and you immediately followed it with an “up” strum is called a “cycle”. Each cycle that you produce is equivalent to a “count”.

If you know how to dance, then that’s the count I’ve been taking about. Or, in your P.E. (Physical Education) class when you do the exercise, you don’t just do it. But you count each particular routine 1,2,3,4, right? That’s what we needed. We will apply this rule in here. Now, strum the string without any chords, up and down once. In doing so, you had made a cycle. To make it more interesting, you can strum it a little faster and do it continuously. Count each cycle up until you had reached the count of 4. That’s how to strum! But, that’s not all. That’s just a brief example. If you want to do a particular song, then, you need a lot of cycles to do it. Just follow these instructions and you’re off to do your strumming with a chord.

So, what now

 So, you had learned the basic of strumming here at Guitar tutorials for beginners.  It’s quite simple, isn’t it? This is a very easy task that you can practice all day with no difficulty after all. Let’s dig deeper to this topic and learn more about its technicalities.

Usually, beginners make a robot like sound when they’re strumming the guitar for their first try or in their first full song. These are the reasons why they make this sound ugly: Their arms weren’t relaxed and they’re not confident doing it. Another thing is they’re not using their wrist and instead using the whole arm to do it. You can strum with that behavior but you can’t sound good in that. Use your wrist and relax your hand, go with the flow of the rhythm of the song. One of the most effective ways is to study or memorize the beat of the song. This will make you familiar with the timing on strumming.

This is important for you to make it sound more like a song and not just strumming. Strumming can tell what songs you’re playing even you do the same chord progressions in the guitar.

Play it, with simple chords first

I will recommend chords that you can practice you’re strumming skill with it. This will help you more comfortable strum the string with a chord. These chords, basic family chords, are easy to do. Again no bar/ flat cause it will give you a headache and we don’t want that to happen. G, D, E Minor or Em and C will be the chords you’ll be using and will be practicing to sharpen your skills in strumming. Look for these chords in a guitar chords chart (no other place you can find it) and just practice to make a cycle with each chords first. Playing songs will be discussed in our next lesson with chord routines, its progressions and when to change your chords in a particular song.

  

That’s it! The basic things you need to know on how to strum a guitar. Hoped that you learned it all and studied all the details that we need to precede to our next topic. This topic will be about playing with a song. Now, I know that you’re waiting for this to come. Thanks for dropping by, here at Guitar tutorials for beginners, to learn this stuff. Hope to see you soon.

LESSON 4 - THE GUITAR CHORD CHART

This is my fourth lesson here at Guitar tutorials for beginners and this will be an easy task for you than the last lesson I had discussed with you in these tutorials. This is a big help in order for you to be that guitar player you had dreamed in your life. The lesson that I will discuss will focus only on basic chords first. There are hundreds of chords in a guitar, and some of them, will give you hardship to make that specific chord. 

Chords with bar or flat will be disregarded first to help your finger interact well with the guitar and making you comfortable playing it when you learn how to strum the guitar right in the future.  I understand if you hadn’t learned how to tune the guitar right. Cause as I had said, previously, it takes time.  So, if you had skipped that phase for the mean time while you memorize the sound of each chord in an open hit of the string.  For the mean time, practice how to read a chord in a guitar chord chart in a breeze.

Why do I need to learn this? I want to play and strum the guitar

Take it easy, cowboy! You will, if you learned all the basics before anything else. This is the right direction for you; because if we proceed to that phase, we will be making no sense at all. Why? Cause you can’t read any chords at all. How can you play a song if you don’t know any chords to play it, right? So, you better sit back and learn the mechanics on how you can read those chords coming from a guitar chart.  This will make this lesson easier for your guitar playing. Plus, this can make you learn those songs you liked to play and sing it while you play the guitar, independently.

Numbers is the name of your fingers.

In this chart, fingers were considered as 1,2,3,4 except for your thumb. Your thumb normally, is not used to make a chord, so, in this tutorial I didn’t include it. We will concentrate only in your four fingers, and this includes you’re: pinkie, pointing, ring and lastly your middle fingers. 

This is how the numbers represent your fingers in the guitar chord charts:

• Pinkie  -   # 1
• Ring  -   #2
• Middle -   #3
• Point -      #4                

     Remember these number representations to make it easier for you to position your fingers in a specific chord to the fret board. Most of it (guitar chord chart) that uses this technique presenting the position or the specific finger how to do the chord. This helps beginners to do it much more comfortable to their fingers. This adds convenience to you. But, some of it doesn’t use this technique. Just a black point in a string indicating you must press it to do this particular chord.

This is astonishing, my first time!

Now that you had laid your eyes in it for the first time, how does it feel? Excited, don’t you? Well, this is just as simple thing that can easily be understood in these Guitar tutorials for beginners. 

From my previous lesson, I think that you can understand this more easily without any effort after all.  Just follow the instruction I had given and you’re finish with these lesson and go to the preceding topic. But, there’s something you need to consider here with a very little detail that can make you more precise on how to read it and eradicate confusions.

Some of it comes with a different position.  It comes horizontally or vertically. The first thing you need to consider is this:

·         If the chart has been presented vertically, you will read it starting from your left to the right (off course!).

·         If the chart has been presented horizontally, you will read it from top to bottom.

 And each, line as you can see it, corresponds to each string in the guitar.

How do I know what fret I will be using to make that chord?

You will know the fret of that specific chords looking at the Roman numeral character usually in the top of the fret image representation in the chart or in the right side if it’s in vertical position. You can also tell what fret it is if you can see the thick dark line in the top of the lines that represents the string of the guitar. This thick dark line is the representation of the start of the fret board of the guitar that I had discussed in my previous lesson about the guitar parts.  

You can see this thick dark line with the chords like  A, E, C, and also G cause these chords can be found In the first three frets in the fret board. It (the dark thick line) will be present. If not, this means the chord that you were looking starts with the fourth fret and above.

What’s that? Is that X and O?

Yup, it is and this is a very technical part to the string for a certain chord. X tells you that you need to make a string dead and by doing so, that string will not make a sound when you hit it or more precisely, If you make that chord as a whole. If you see that there’s an O in the string then, this mean that it is an open string. And open string is a method were you hit the string without pressing it. A brief example of this is this: don’t do any chord and strum your guitar. That’s an open string just like in my previous lessons about tuning a guitar. An open hit string chord is approximately called an open string chord to be more specific about our last topic. You’ deal with this dead and open string more when you are an advance player and learn its principal idea, deeper, when we advance our Guitar lessons for beginners..

Where can I find this thing?

There are lots of places you can get one of this. You can search Google using the keyword “guitar chart chords” or “guitar chart chords for beginners” to be more precise about your search. You can also buy  a song hits and they usually provides you one  there; or if you’re serious about this stuff, then, buy a guitar chord chart  for yourself, if you’re in fire to learn all those chords in an instant. 

That should wrap this thing up and I’m off to make my rest. This one’s an easy task for you to understand. Now, go and practice what you had learned this time.  Practice can help you improve your skills a lot. There’s a lot more to come so you need to be prepared in my next lesson on how to strum the guitar.  Give it some time and you’ll see the results. That’s the key to your success in this tutorial. The Guitar tutorials for beginners will help you reach those goals of yours to be a better player in this instrument called “guitar”.

LESSON 3 - TUNING THE GUITAR

If you recently had owned a guitar after that previous lessons that I taught you, or you previously have one before you had the chance to read this tutorials, and you wanted to learn the most important fundamental about the guitar. Yes, you heard me right that this is the most needed skill or knowledge to gain your status as the guitar god if you prefer it or the better player in your neighborhood. Honestly, you can’t learn this stuff so instantly or easily in just a nick of time. This can take time and you need to gain and play more and more in order to memorize the sound (as far as my experience and this Guitar tutorials for beginners is concerned) of a standard tuning.

I have seen many guitar players who reached as a good player in the guitar but, don’t know how to tune it right. Yep, this happens to some or maybe most of the time when they just borrow the guitar or asking somebody to tune the guitar for them. Now, that is some kind of attaining anything if you don’t know how to tune it. So, be serious about this stuff because this will help build you to be the best in this craft.  Master the art of tuning a guitar and surely, you will see the difference if you mastered this thing and play your favorite songs in a very smooth sound coming from your guitar.

What do I need to do?

First, you must know what a fret is. If you do, then great if you had read my previous lesson and we can now start this thing on. If no, you can see my first lesson about guitar parts, and you’ll see what I’m talking here about in order for you to follow this lesson quickly.

Second, you must learn what the open string hit chords of a guitar are and what the chord is all about. We will need this very often so you must understand this in this lesson for your convenience. This is the core of this lesson, a chord for each string in a guitar without a doing any chords using your finger.

Third, the numbers representing the strings is another thing to consider here in this lesson. If you don’t know the numbers of any string will give you a very big problem in the future so you must also focus on this one.

And lastly, memorize the tune of each guitar chord sound in a specific open string hit as we do the tuning. The principal idea why we are doing these things is for you to make your guitar in the right tune all the times whenever you want to play it.

The Fifth fret is the division and the standard tuning.

Now, you know what the fret is, this will be easier for you to do. A guitar has a 24 fret count in it. But, some had less been depending upon the brand, style, and quality you had bought or had. This is not important for now cause we are just in a beginners stage so were not needing all of those 24 frets to satisfy this lesson for you to learn how to tune. Here Guitar tutorials for beginners we will be concentrating in the fifth fret and also fourth fret in this lesson. The sixth frets up to the last will be ignored so you won’t be confused. Our goal is for you to realize the fret counts that we will be making in this lesson. We will be counting frets from the 1st up to the fifth fret. We will be using a standard tune in this lesson because it is the generic tune for all the songs you can hear.

So, how do I start?  To tune our guitars in the standard tune, we need to put our finger in the fifth fret by putting your finger in the first fret and slide it down going to the body of the guitar until you reached the fifth division or fret of the fret board(off course!) . This is the thing you need to remember, when you tune your guitar to this particular tune, always in this fret. There are a lot of tunings concerning this, for example: when you move two frets down to the seventh fret, and you tuned it there, you will be making the tune of drop D. A standard tuning that we will be doing is called open E tuning. But, experts called it as the “standard tuning”. When you play with an accompaniment instrument such as a piano their tuning is in open E all the time so this is the generic tune for the guitar. Other types of tunes were used mostly for rock music or more, specifically metal music.

Now, you know where the fifth fret is! That’s the first step to do this. So we will now move on to our next pit stop here at Guitar tutorials for the beginner. This is pretty easy to do right?

The open string hit chords

Now, I know that this is kind of confusing for you to understand. What is an open string hit chords that I am talking about? And what is a chord?

A chord is a collection of string or a string that you press using your fingers in the fret board or inside a specific frets. In doing so, you can create a chord with it. This is the note for any musical instruments including guitars off course. This is essential in playing a song and all the songs will not be made without this too. But, you can also create a chord for this instrument by just simply hitting the string with pressing any of the strings in the fret board and this is called the open string hit chords that we will use in this tutorial about tuning this instrument.

The open string hit chords are not specifically used just for tuning. This particular technique has lots of uses, mostly on a song using a pluck (usually love songs and folk songs) instead of a strum. And you can also use this, if you are making a lead gain in a specific song or score. But, as I said earlier, we will be using this technique to tune our precious guitar to make it sound smooth.

Numbers for strings

Now that you know the fret and the chords that you needed to make this lesson a reality. You need to learn how to the read tablature. This is a very technical stuff for a guitar player. In order for you to know how to tune the instrument, you must know the numbers that represent the string. Besides, when you buy a new string for it, you need to know what a string number has been broken so that the store keeper would know what string you need to buy and not the wrong one. Here the numbers that represent the string:

6 - The thickest string and is in the top position of the entire sting in the fret board.

5 - The preceding string from the top and the second thickest string of all.

4 - The preceding string from the second thickest string.

3 – The fourth string to be the fourth thickest and the preceding string to the fourth one.

2 – The fifth string from the top position and is the second thinnest string in the fret board.

1 – The thinnest string in the fret board. This string is positioned in the bottom the fret board.

Now, as you can see, the first 3 string coming from the top if you had a steel set of string. You will see these strings covered with copper and the other three has no copper in it. If you had a nylon set of string then you will probably see the first three having a dark or bold color rather than in the remaining three who has a plain color only. You may ask why? This is because, the first three strings from the top are called the bass part of the instrument and the remaining three is called the lead part. This is a more complex topic for you as beginners. So, again we will be leaving it as that cause will be discussing this thing further in the future.

    

In addition to this, each string has a corresponding chord in it or its position represented a chord to you hit a string without pressing it in the fret board as I had mentioned early in this lesson. The chord representation for these strings was:

6 - The Chord E

5 - The Chord A

4 - The Chord D

3 - The Chord G

2 - The Chord B

1 - The Chord Lower e

That was the chord representation of each chord and this chord representation is a standard tune. In the future, you will learn those things that you had encountered here that I had included or explained in this tutorial. Now, we move on to the main topic of this while the agenda.

Tuning the guitar for the first time

Now, we will apply of the things that I had mentioned earlier. This is the main goal of this thing that I had been mentioning to you from the start of this whole thing. We will now tune the guitar in the standard tune and finish this whole course and you can now move on to the next levels for these stuffs. 

So, how do we tune a guitar? It’s simple! All you have to do is to press down the string number six and place it in the fifth fret as I said earlier using your fingers (off course!) and simply hit with your finger from your other hand. In doing so, hit the preceding string (string number 5) and compare the sound of the two strings that they produce. In this process, you’re actually tuning the string 5 to string 6 and copy its sound when they sounded equally the same go on to the next string.  Do the routine for the remaining string except for the string 2 when tuning this you need to make your finger go up one fret (fourth fret), and you will do the routine just like from the other strings. The only difference is the fret. That is the process on how you tune a guitar, comparing two stings sounds from top to bottom. Sounds complicated, right? Consider these things:

              

How do you say that I am doing this thing correctly? Am I tuning it right? When do I stop?

In order for you to know that you are tuning the guitar right. You must know the sound of a standard tuning. How do you do that? You can use a piano and hit the e note or the e chord there. The number 6 string is a chord e right? So, you need to make the e string from the guitar and the e chord in the piano sound alike. That’s it. When you copied the sound coming from the piano, you made your string number 6 in the chord e. So, when you hit the string it will produce an open string hit chord of e. Do these in all the remaining strings when you had done it to all of it then that is the time to stop doing this thing.

I don’t have a piano, is there another to tune it?

Yes, there is another way, and actually it has lots of alternatives in doing this. If you had a very good ear (good listening skills in memorizing a sound) you can go to search Google for a tune of a chord in the string 6. Actually, in tuning a guitar the most important string you will tune is the string number 6 cause the rest is depending on the tune of this string. So, if you memorized the tune of the open string e chord you don’t need a piano and do the routine, or you can use gadgets and software for it. You can find these stuffs in Google too. In my days as a beginner I used software called Guitar pro. This thing is a very powerful stuff to consider and this will make you learn faster.

This lesson here at Guitar tutorials for beginners, on tuning a guitar has now been finished! Hope you liked the tutorial that I had made for you. Upcoming tutorials will be out soon that will try to help you to be a better guitar player. Playing a guitar and how to be a good player has a long process, so be patient my friend and look at the bright side it will give you. I know that this part of the tutorial will most likely be hard for you but, if you really like to reach your goal then go and try a little mote harder, and you will see the results for yourself.

LESSON 2 - WHAT YOU NEED BEFORE THESE SETS OF TUTORIALS

After you had learned the basic guitar parts here in guitar tutorials for beginners, you will now be inspired or rather be excited to play a song in it.  But, before you strum those strings and play your favorite songs, you must learn these things first.

As you can see from the title above, this is just a part of my lessons that I had included if you have no guitar that you own right now. If you had your own guitar then, of course, you don’t need to read this post and go on to the next lesson which is actually about tuning. I had decided that I must first teach this to those who don’t own one right now.  I was once a beginner, and this is a part where I first make very huge mistakes concerning guitars. So, in order for you to miss these grave mistakes I made in buying a guitar. This will help you make good decisions in purchasing a quality guitar.

So, why do I need to buy if I can just borrow to my friend?

First of all, before learning these stuffs on how to play a guitar you must have a guitar. Off course, this is the most important thing about doing these tutorials I’m teaching you. In order for you to learn faster, you should have the resources you’ll need upon making your goal on whatever you do. That’s’ why I am suggesting and encouraging you to buy one for yourself (of course!). But, if you don’t have the money, you can still borrow a guitar to your friend or your neighbor if this is the case, and you can’t buy the instrument right away. However, if the time had come that you can buy it then I encourage you, and it will be a best damn thing you can ever own. I promise you that if you’ll study hard and focus yourself achieving your goal. So be thrift for awhile and save money so you can be availing this precious thing, and you’re off to be a guitar player.

What do I use?  An acoustic guitar or Electric guitar is better?

In this tutorial, we will be using an acoustic guitar in these guitar tutorials for beginners. It doesn’t matter what type or style of the acoustic you will use or bought. There are three the most common type of acoustic guitar, namely: dreadnought, parlor and classic guitars. In this tutorial, we’ll only use 6 stringed guitars. You can use an electric to if you choose to, but you can’t maximize your potential using it in this tutorial because it consists of complex technicalities that I will not be able to supply for you. So, for the convenience for you and for this tutorial, I encourage you to use acoustic guitar instead.

How do I inspect the quality of the guitar before buying?

If you had decided to buy a guitar then, I am glad that you did. Cause it can bring you many things to your life. But, before you go to the store and are very excited to buy this precious thing, you need to know these things in order for you to miss the grave mistakes I had made during my new days as a guitar player. This thing can help you to know what to consider upon making a solid decision on buying the stuff. This can also help you make the price more cheaply but high in quality. This is the list you can use to make that possible:

First: Designs say the price and not the quality.

Most guitars with beautiful designs will be on a high price. But, those with cheap ones, I will say isn’t the answer to in this. My point is that, usually some guitars with quality come with a simple design or maybe not as appealing to a beginner I may say. But, this is the stuff you need, and it will be the best bet to own a good one. I know that choosing the right guitar really is kind of hard for beginners a decision to make. In my experience as a guitar enthusiast, this is my first mistake of all time. And it cost me a lot and ended up with a low quality guitar with a very bad sound. It is cheap but, it has a crappy sound. Hate to say but it is true (ouch!).

Second:  Straight arm for your guitar.

I think this is important also. During the time, you’re inspecting the guitar you wanted to buy carefully inspect the fret board if it has a straight or proportioned width from the body to the head stock. This is something adding quality to the product for its straight fret board. This also indicates that a very good job has been given to make this guitar.

Third: Soft is comfortable.

Most beginners I had seen while learning their first song has a common complain afterwards. Their fingers hurt and making them less motivated because of the hassle about this thing: the string is hard or difficult to press. This is the greatest reason also, that they give up learning guitar. If you will buy a guitar I suggest you pick a something that you can press the string easily down to the fret board or the string had less space above the fret board. In doing so, you can eradicate those complain and make your fingers comfortable making chords or pressing it repeatedly. This can also make you learn faster because your fingers don’t hurt that fast and badly and this makes you having a lot of time practicing.

Fourth: Big body can produce bigger sound.

This is another thing you can consider in owning a quality guitar in for yourself. Don’t buy a guitar with small body or a guitar that has no bold sound when you strum it. In my opinion, a guitar with a solid sound is an attribute to say that the guitar has a very good quality. Usually, the bigger the body of the guitar the bolder the tone or sound like it can give you. So, this is the easiest way also to choose what you need to decide what you will buy in a store if you are having a hard time.

Fifth: The heavier it gets the harder it can give.

Now this is something you can say to anything. Of course, the heavier the thing is the harder it will break. Some guitar may vary from its weight also, usually, light weighted guitar are not a good option when it comes to buying one. Why? It is because, this is the indication that can be a fake one or has been made with low class materials. A guitar with a good quality comes with a fine material and this will automatically tell you that this is the best choice.

That’s all folks! This is the end of our lesson for this day here in guitar tutorials for beginners. Hope you like the lesson I had made you and still have your patience learning things about the guitar. Now you can go to the store and pick the best guitar out there and own one with a quality sound in it. These steps can help you to learn all those major things that you must learn in order to be a good guitar player. The next lesson will be about tuning the guitar.

LESSON 1 - THE ANATOMY OF A GUITAR

So, you’ve finally decided to learn the basics of a guitar here at Guitar Tutorials for Beginners. This will guide you through the processes in order for you to learn the very basics of how to play a guitar. But, as a guitarist, these are the most important things you must know in order to be a good guitar player; or even a guitar god if you wished to. The guitar parts, as I can say, are the things as a beginner must know first before hitting those strings and strum them as a rock star.

1. Tuning pegs is used to tune the strings in a guitar. This can be made of ebony, boxwood, and rosewood or even. As a guitar player, this is one of the most crucial parts used to play a music using this instrument. This can make the sound of your guitar in a high tone or in a lower tone.  You’ll use this part so often when you’re playing songs in your guitar.
2. The biggest part of the guitar is called the Body. It is the main mass of the guitar. The sizes and shape of a guitar body may differ and depends upon the brand, style, and the type of a guitar. The sound of a guitar, regarding acoustic or echo guitar, can be big or small depending upon the body size of a guitar.
3. The place where you can find the Tuning pegs is called Head stock. But, sometimes this is called Peg heads for some reasons. The principal purpose of this is to hold the instruments' string. Head stock or peg head come from different sizes and shapes depending upon the brand or the design of the guitar itself.
4. The next part is called the Fingerboard. And this is where we make our chords and keynotes in the guitar while playing our favorite songs. This is the longest part in a guitar. Some fingerboards had markers in it to indicate the numbers of the fret without counting it while you play a song in a guitar. The image I had used doesn’t have a marker in it.
5. In a Fingerboard, you will find a line making divisions starting from the bottom of the head stock to the body of the guitar. This is called a Fret. Now, this is a very technical part in using a guitar instrument. This can make you distinguish what chords you are using especially when you are using power chords. A Fret has a lot to do with you playing a song with a specific tone and pitch. Without these frets in a fingerboard in a guitar, it can be very hard playing it. There are some guitars that don’t have a fret and this is for advance users only. The complete fret number for a guitar has a total of 24, all In all.
6. The hole in a guitar is called the Sound hole. And it is responsible making the sound projection increase while you strum the guitar. This is usually found and directly placed under the strings. But, some guitar’s sound hole can be found somewhere else.
7. The Bridge of a guitar is the one who handles the String. It makes the strings of your guitar aligned and this is located on the body of the guitar. Usually bridges were made with woods.
8. Some acoustic has a Saddle and some has none. The Saddle is like a lock for the strings that goes on in a bridge of a guitar. Usually, Saddles were made with ivory and come with a color of white or black. Saddles have nothing to do with the sound projection while you strum the guitar. But, you have to put the saddle in a right way while you put strings in the bridge so accidents won’t occur. Make sure that it is tight, and it’s not loose before you strum the guitar and play a song.
9. Off course, you can’t play this thing without a String. The String is the thing you will be strumming upon playing a song in it. A string has two types, and they were called nylon and steel. A nylon string is usually used for a classic type of guitar. Some guitarist, especially who loves folk songs or songs played by plucking the strings, used this. But, if you’re a rocker, you probably will use steel instead of nylon. Steel strings, in my opinion, sound good making lead or doing a lead gain in a song while playing a guitar. In these guitar tutorials for beginners, we will be using a six string guitar only. You can find guitars with different string numbers.

So, that’s the major parts of the guitar that has been covered here in Guitar tutorials for beginners’ blog. The very basic things you need to know before playing the guitar. This is your first step to reach your goal in learning how to play a song using it and become an expert. I didn’t include discussing the pick guard because beginners usually don’t use pick in their first attempt to use a guitar. And some guitar’s doesn’t have one that’s why I had skipped it. But, to sum it all, beginners must learn these stuffs in order for him/her excel more and faster. Cause, basics are the fundamentals of all the things you need in order to learn more sophisticated techniques in the future.