Welcome to Gaia! :: View User's Journal | Gaia Journals

 
 

View User's Journal

mightykeystone805 Journal
mightykeystone805 Personal Journal
Beginner Guitar Lesson Online
This lesson is intended for complete beginners: It will cover some general information related to guitars (common questions), the most common chords, and the basic strumming pattern. This single lesson will keep you busy for the next three months! You step by step guitar lesson basically have to practice switching between chords while maintaining that same strumming pattern, and that will take you some time to master.

THE GOOD NEWS:

Once youre good at this, youll be able to play 90% of all the songs in the world, and sound really good when you do. Most songs are just a combination of common chords and the basic strumming pattern.

THE BAD NEWS:

As a beginner, practice is frustrating and boring. Its going to take you a while to get comfortable switching between chords quickly, developing muscle memory, and having the chords ring out well (basically pressing down hard enough).

Hopefully this lesson will save you time (from sifting through tons of information online that is either too advanced, incomplete, or just plain wrong) or money (from costly guitar lessons). The truth is, at the beginning, there just isnt that much to teach (all you need to practice are a couple of things). Once you master this lesson (like I said, could be up to 3 months of practicing), then youre ready to learn more advanced guitar.

First lets cover some of the most common beginner questions for guitar, and well go from there.

ACOUSTIC OR ELECTRIC?

Each one has its advantages and disadvantages. Acoustic is harder to play (you have to press harder), but it is also easy to transport to parties and things. Electric is easier to play, but you need to have an amplifier (as well as an electric socket), or you wont be able to hear the guitar (i.e. its not too likely youll be taking it to the campfire). One cool thing about electric though, is you can really mess around with a lot its electronic sound modifiers lots of fun. Ultimately, I would recommend an acoustic for a beginner. Once youve been playing for a while, youll be able to choose an electric guitar a lot better anyway. You may go for a classical guitar too =).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gGekKM2mTrA

PICK OR FINGER PICKING?

BOTH!!! A lot of people never really master how to use only their hands when playing and always use a pick. Down the road though, youre going to realize a lot of songs cant be played with a pick. Buy yourself a pack of 10 medium picks (trust me, get 10 because youll lose them), but also practice strumming without a pick. Honestly, it is important to be able to play both ways, so practice each technique for all the songs you learn.

TUNING

Unless you have some music background, a lot of people have trouble tuning by ear at first. I honestly thought Id NEVER be able to tune by ear, but just like so many things in life, the impossible becomes fairly easy with some practice.

Having said this though, save yourself a ton of headache, and get yourself an electric tuner. Theyre like $15 bucks, youll be sure that your guitar is tuned properly, and you can focus on chords and strumming. Once you start getting used to the sound of a properly tuned guitar, learning to tune by ear will be a much easier task. Its important to learn, but I wouldnt worry about it until some time down the road.

CHORDS

Here comes the main part of the lesson...chords! Chords are basically when you play more than one string at the same time and it still sounds good. There are lots of types of chords, but the main two are either major or minor. Major chords have a happy kind of sound, and minor chords have a sadder sound (I know how silly it sounds to explain it that way, but its true!!). For example, when you hear a Weird Al cover of a rock song (that probably has a sad/angry feel), usually all he did was change the chords from minors to majors and speed up the tempo. Easy right??

Anyway, here are some of the most common chords. Now remember, all youre going to need for the next few months is the following picture. Memorize the chords, hold them, and play making sure they ring out correctly, and then switch to the next one, until you can do it quickly and still have each string ring out like it is meant to.

Side note: The F is very hard to play at first. Everybody hates learning it. Unfortunately, you have to. Suck it up and practice!

Start off learning these chords, and then learn the rest of the ones on the chart.

Major: G, C, D, E, A, F

Minor: Dm, Em, Am





 
 
Manage Your Items
Other Stuff
Get GCash
Offers
Get Items
More Items
Where Everyone Hangs Out
Other Community Areas
Virtual Spaces
Fun Stuff
Gaia's Games
Mini-Games
Play with GCash
Play with Platinum