What to do in your first electric guitar lesson is something most students don't have a clue what to do about. In this article I will go over the starting points and show you a good starting point in your studies. At this point I'm assuming that the student has no prior knowledge with playing the guitar.
As you start to handle the guitar and try to play something on it, you soon realize that the fingers aren't doing what you want them to do, that is your first problem. With that in mind, I will push you into the right direction and present a lesson that takes aim of the problem.
A good starting point for learning the guitar is playing simple chords. The simplest chords are the ones in open position i.e. notes played with open strings. Many songs can be played with the chords I present in this lesson.
The chord diagram
The diagram is a cutout representation of the guitar neck. In this case the first five frets of the board. Each vertical line represents a string on the guitar and each horizontal line represent a fret.
1. The numbers in the black dots show you where to put your fingers on the fretboard.
2. The numbers for fingering are represent by 1 = index, 2 middle, 3 ring and 4 little.
3. A x under a chord means not to play that string. A zero means not to finger and play the string open.
4. The letter above the chord represent the name of the chord, C, E, A, D and G.
5. The small m after the name of the last chord represent a minor chord.
6. If a chord only has one letter above it, it is considered to me a Major chord, like C, E, A, D and G.
How to practice
When staring to play the guitar your finger will not do what you want. You may in some cases have to use your right hand to place a finger or two of your left hand on the board, this is normal. Start by trying to finger each chord, see if you can do the fingerins with out using your right hand. After fingering a chord, strum the whole chord, pick single strings from top to bottom and back.
When you feel fairly confident about fingering a chord, try to change from that chord to another one. Your goal is to be able to change between any chord without any problems from your fingers. This may take some time so if you don't have it in the first week of two, that is normal. You will also notice after some practice that your fingers will get sore, this is also normal while you are building up finger callus.
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