How to Play Guitar For Beginners - Guitars For Beginners

Walk into any guitar store and you will likely find hundreds of different guitars. This can be an overwhelming selection of guitars for beginners. Should you buy electric or acoustic? New or used? Black or blue? OK, the last question is not that important, but you get the point. This article is meant to give a few tips on the different types of guitars for beginners.

Yes, it's true high quality comes with a price. If you are a beginner this may be the last factor you should consider. The most important factor for a beginner guitar player should be playability. You are going to be spending a lot of time with your new instrument so you want to be comfortable with it.

The first step is simply to try one out. Is it comfortable to play? Is the neck too thick or thin, or just right? Strum the strings a few times. Don't worry about playing anything in particular; you are just trying to get a feel for the guitar.

Now pick up another guitar. Compare what you like about each. It shouldn't take long for you to get a feel for what you are looking for in a guitar. There are literally thousands of combinations of necks, bodies, and layouts so you should be able to find a few you like.

Now that you have a few in mind it's time to consider other factors. Check out the overall tone of the guitar. Some guitars are known for their 'warm' tones while others are known for crisp sounds with a lot of sustain.

If you are not comfortable trying out the guitar in front of people, ask a salesperson to demonstrate it for you. Tell them what styles of music you like and what you are planning on playing. They will be able to point you to the right guitar.

Ok, we have comfort and tone out of the way; now let us start looking at cost. Guitars can cost as little as a hundred dollars or so and go up to the thousands of dollars range. As mentioned before, quality comes with a price but when looking at guitars for beginners an expensive guitar is not needed. Don't feel like you have to buy the best brand right away. Until you have some practice under your belt you will be able to tell very little difference.

The last aspect is appearance. This is one of the ways a guitar player gets to express his or her personality with the instrument. Notice this is the last aspect mentioned. This can be a major mistake when choosing a guitar for beginners. What good is a killer looking guitar if is a chore to play? Sure you want to look good, but what is more important is being comfortable with the guitar.

So check out your local guitar store and sit down and try a few. You know you have been dying to do it for some time. If you follow these simple tips you will be on your way to becoming a guitar hero before you know it!

Rik used to play the guitar many many years ago (in his mis-spent youth!). He would spend hours upon hours locked away in his room with the amp cranked up annoying many people.

Well of course life chances and he moved away from home, started doing other things. However he recently rediscovered his passion for the guitar, and is now a re-born guitar enthusiast! Not only that but he thought it would be nice to try to help others who want to start learning and hopefully also become passionate about playing the greatest instrument there is, the guitar! Back in the old days there was of course no such thing as the internet.

Rik has also recently created a website called How To Play Guitar For Beginners [http://howtoplayguitarforbeginners.net] Please feel free to visit the site, he'd love to hear from all you guitar fanatics out there!

Learn to Play Guitar - A Beginner's Guide

This article is devoted to learning how to play guitar (and even those just thinking about learning to play or giving the gift of music to a loved one) and how to approach gaining some kind of proficiency on the instrument. Now, we've all seen people playing the guitar at various times, sometimes on TV, sometimes up close (a real treat), playing various kinds of music and at varying skill levels. I think the hardest obstacle to overcome when you're earning how to play the guitar or thinking about starting is the thought that playing the guitar is only something musicians can do, or is only for people who are musically inclined. The simple fact is that anyone can learn to play the guitar. It's just a matter of spending some time with it on a regular basis, and practicing in a manner that's both fun and productive. Once it becomes part of your routine, it's only a matter of time before your skill level and confidence develop.

When I started learning the guitar, there were a couple of learning aids I found to be indispensable. They include:



Learning to Play Guitar Chord Reference Book - This is really helpful when you're not sure how to play an F chord or a B minor, or want to learn some other ways to play it

Artist Songbook - This is a songbook which has the piano, lyrics, and guitar chords to your artist's favorite songs, and is great for learning how to strum and change from chord to chord

Classical Guitar Book - This helps you familiarize yourself with the feel of scales and arpeggios, and also improves your sight reading

Guitar Tab Songbook - As you progress, you're going to want to play some of the guitar parts from your favorite songs note-for-note, meaning exactly as your favorite guitarist plays them. This type of book has the music for this both in standard notation and guitar tablature

I had a very insightful guitar teacher who started off each lesson by showing me a new chord and how to play it. Some good chord reference books that tackle these types of chords are the Whole Book of Guitar Chords and The First Book of Chords for the Guitar both written by Dan Fox. Once I had a feel for the chord, he would choose a song from a songbook from one of my favorite bands that used this chord (say a B minor or an A7) and would have me learn that song using an appropriate strum pattern. My mom played the piano, and would often visit the music store to buy sheet music songbooks from her favorite artists, so eventually I got her to buy me a few gems of this type:



Beatles Complete - This is a valuable book for two reasons. One is that it's The Beatles. The second is that The Beatles composed songs with relatively few and very easy to play chords ("I Saw Her Standing There" has three), and also songs with many and often unorthodox chords ("Michelle" has, um, a lot), especially when used in rock music. This makes it a great vehicle for learning new chords incrementally via their songs

Neil Young - Decade - My brother wore out this recording and when I started playing some of the tunes from it on the guitar, it gave his little brother some instant credibility. Many of the songs in this book were recorded by Neil on the acoustic guitar, so it lends itself to the beginner who's learning on an acoustic

Led Zeppelin Complete - This is a strange and beautiful book. It has the main guitar riffs for every Led Zeppelin song on the first five albums (I - IV and House of the Holy) but it's in standard notation. I spent a summer learning every song in this book and not only did my guitar playing improve, but so did my sight reading

Eric Clapton Deluxe Revised - This contains some of the best songs from Cream, the Layla disc by Derek and the Dominoes, and some of Eric's early solo work, but it's unique in that it has a separate section with some of Eric's best guitar solos transcribed. Eric is a great role model when you start learning how to play a guitar solo, because some of his solos are simple enough that they can be played by a beginning-intermediate guitar player (though it takes a lifetime to learn to play it with as much feeling as Eric)

Once we covered the chord of the week and the song that went with it, we would tackle a classical piece. One of the best classical books I can recommend, especially if you're not a classical guitarist, is Classical Studies for Pick-Style Guitar - Volume 1. This book is great for developing your right-hand picking and also for developing your sight reading since all the music is in standard notation. There are some interesting pieces by Matteo Carcassi, which require you to arpeggiate various chords, and also some Bach Inventions that are arranged for duet guitar, so you can play with a friend. You can hear how this sounds in an on-line guitar lesson I created at WholeNote - Bach's 8th Invention.

The one thing that's changed over the past decade in sheet music for guitarists is the emergence of guitar tab songbooks. In the late 1990's, an archive of guitar tablature files was collectively created and dubbed the On-Line Guitar Archives (OLGA), in which random guitarists from around the world created text files containing their own transcriptions of how to play your favorite songs by your favorite bands. The problem was that the quality and accuracy of the transcription was hit or miss. Sheet music companies finally wised up and started releasing accurate note-for-note transcription books, which were the real deal. In my day, you were a god if you could play the guitar solo, "Eruption", played by Eddie Van Halen off Van Halen I, because you had to learn it by ear off the record, which is pretty much impossible. Today, you can just buy the Van Halen I guitar tab songbook and get all the music for Eruption both in guitar tab and standard notation. Oh, and they also throw in the rest of the songs from Van Halen I, and from Van Halen II, as well. I've always loved the whacked-out intro that Eddie plays in Mean Street, which opens the Fair Warning recording. The Van Halen Guitar Anthology Series has the tab for this, note for note, including every last harmonic, pick scrape, bend, and tap. It's unbelievable. And it's not just Van Halen. You can find similar guitar tab songbooks for The Beatles, Metallica, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Dave Matthews Band, Nirvana, Green Day, Audioslave and pretty much anyone else you can think of.

Finally, as you develop your practice routine, the one thing most often overlooked during practice is being able to play in time. When you start to get comfortable with chords and strumming, there's a natural tendency to stop or to hesitate while switching between chords. A good metronome will make you aware of this and force you to play in time. The Qwik Time QT-7 Quartz Metronome is a good budget option and provides a good click, while the Wittner Wood Case Metronome w/ Bell and Cover is the kind you can hang onto forever and pass along from generation to generation (and I should know - I have one from my grandfather). The Fender MT-1000 Chromatic Tuner/Metronome is unique in that you get both a metronome and a guitar tuner in one convenient package. Very handy, indeed.

You too can learn to play the guitar today! Hopefully, this gives you a bit of direction as you learn to play the guitar. Remember that it's simply a matter of spending some time regularly practicing some of the basics and then applying them to your favorite music. Keep expanding your knowledge of the basic chords and learn to play songs that use them, along with the strumming patterns of the tune. Combined with some classical pieces for dexterity and developing your sight-reading chops, you'll be well on your way to mastering the guitar in no time!

Rick Ferguson
Learn to Play Guitar

How to Play Guitar for Beginners - 5 Steps That Will Surely Accelerate Your Learning

Learning how to play the guitar is one of the most fulfilling skills you can learn and master. If you're a beginner, then this article will do you well because it will show you how to play guitar for beginners.

Your first task of course is to familiarize yourself with the instrument. Know your guitar well. Be intimate with it. Familiarize yourself with the tuners, the sounds of the different strings and also the frets. You have to be able to locate the first fret, second fret, etc.

The second step on how to play guitar for beginners is to know how to handle properly your guitar. Handling the guitar well is a key to producing quality sound while playing music. It is also important to maintain proper posture when you play. A common mistake of beginners is to watch their fingers on the string which leads to slouching. So from the start, avoid slouching. Proper handling of the equipment would also mean taking care of your guitar. You should keep your guitar clean and safe because it's a substantial investment on your part.

Learning how to play guitar for beginners is not really hard if you have the proper mindset and drive to learn this amazing skill. Imagine being able to perform for your family and friends. It's also a positive feeling when you are able to play your favorite songs using your guitar.

The next step on how to play guitar for beginners is to learn how to tune your guitar. Initially, you might want to use a guitar tuner first but as you learn to play the chords and are able to distinguish the different sounds, you can proceed with the manual or by the ear version. Tuning is an important skill to master because you can't produce great music without a properly tuned guitar.

Lastly, learn the basic chords. Use a chord chart as reference. Master and memorize it so that you will gain muscle memory and you won't need to look at the chart for reference when you play songs. You may start with the simplest chords like G, C, D, E, A, and F.

These steps will surely accelerate your learning in playing the guitar. You just have to put in lots of time and effort.

If you truly want to learn guitar and see the best videos, articles and free lessons available, visit http://www.LearnAndMasterGuitarGuide.com

Learn to Play Guitar For Beginners - How to Get Started

The guitar is a popular instrument with all ages. Its fun and rewarding and you can share your music easily with friends and family because your can take your instrument with you. Try doing that with a piano! But it can be difficult to know how to start to learn to play guitar for beginners.

When you first decide to learn, you must decide if you want to take professional lessons or purchase a course and teach yourself. Professional private lessons from a good guitar teacher are a great way to learn but can be very expensive. And that is extra money that you have to spend in addition to buying the guitar itself. For the price of one lesson, you can get computer courses that include videos, software and books and do a great job teaching beginners. The key to becoming a great guitarist is practice and patience.

Your first step is to learn how to hold your guitar correctly and use a good posture while playing. It is a very important part of starting to learn to play guitar for beginners. This can make a world of difference to the quality of your playing so it's a good idea to spend time on this and get it right before you pick up bad habits. The easiest position to start with is sitting down on a an armless chair with a straight back. You should be sitting comfortably with your back against the chair back. Now hold your guitar so the body is against your stomach/chest and the neck is parallel to the floor. The thickest string should be at the top. For most styles, the body of the guitar will rest on your leg that is furthest away from the headstock (the bit at the end of the neck with the tuning knobs). The thumb of your 'fretting' hand (the hand that is on the neck, forming chords) should rest behind the neck of the guitar, with your fingers in a slightly curled position, poised above the strings.

Now you are ready to start playing. First, you should learn to strum 3-4 basic chords. This is enough to get you started playing simple songs. Its much more satisfying to start out learning chords that you can play a song with than to learn scales. You'll be impressing your family and friends with your talents in no time!

If you want help to learn to play guitar [http://www.easybeginnersguitar.com] for beginners without expensive lessons, this complete guide to learning guitar [http://www.easybeginnersguitar.com] can provide everything you need. Just add a little practice!

Guitar: Can You Learn To Play Guitar Without Goals?

In many articles on the net on learning to play guitar you will find many article authors stressing the importance of setting goals. Well, it would be interesting to find out if you can learn to play guitar without goals. Let us investigate the matter!

I have many memories of my first attemps to play the guitar. Like many boys I had many interests like reading, playing piano, singing, listening to music, athletics, chess, stamp collecting, painting and other things at different times. Playing guitar was just one of them.

I remember that I had my own way of practicing guitar playing. I always had my guitar on my bed waiting for me. I sat down on my bed many times everyday playing for a while and then starting to do other things.

Sometimes I felt inspired to play guitar for an hour or two and other times just for a minute. Did I have goals or not?

I know that I was developing as a guitarist quite fast and I think it must have been something in my way of playing and practicing guitar that was good.

I believe that some of the reasons for my progress during those early days of my learn to play guitar career were:

1. I felt no pressure to become an accomplished guitarist. I just felt the joy of sitting down with my guitar trying to find out the treasuries in the land of music.

2. My father was a guitar teacher giving me lessons at times and I always heard him play guitar in our home. Other guitarists visited our home many times and these visits inspired me a lot.

3. I never felt a pressure to play fast and thereby building tensions by playing too fast. This is one of the big mistakes beginning guitarist and even accomplished guitarists sometimes make.

4. As I mentioned previously I did a lot of other things besides playing guitar and I guess all these things I was involved in kept my mind quite healthy and helped me retain my joy when I learned to play guitar.

I guess in a sense I had goals that was not so apparent to me that directed me towards somewhere even if I was quite content being on the road of progress towards guitar land.

Can you learn something from my early guitar experiences? At least you can learn the following:

1. When learning to play guitar always remember to enjoy the act of playing without thinking too much on what you can or cannot do as a guitarist.

2. Try to associate with good musicians and guitarists that inspire you to play musically and that give you the motivation to learn to play new things on your guitar.

3. Beware of playing too fast on your guitar. There is a risk of building up muscle tensions and thereby actually reducing your ability to play fast. A remedy for this and a way to tame yourself is to use a metronome at a low tempo to reduce your speed to a level where you can play your guitar in a relaxed manner.

4. To become an interesting guitarist and musician you might benefit from being involved in other activities like listening to good music, having another hobby, reading good books, assiciate with other people and more.

Do you have to have goals to become a good guitarist? Well, even if you don't have learn to play guitar goals in the ordinary sense you can help yourself to play everyday by having easy access to your guitar.

I had my guitar on my bed. Maybe you want to have your guitar in your favorite armchair. I guess you understand the principle....

Peter Edvinsson is a musician, composer and music teacher. Visit his site Capotasto Music and download your free sheet music and learn to play guitar resources at http://www.capotastomusic.com

Learn to Play Guitar With a Visual Approach

There are those who can hear and name notes the same way the rest of us can look at paint chips and tell what color they are.  And if you're one of the few lucky soles who process that gift, you can stop reading here.

On the grid:

The good news for the rest of us is that the strings and frets of the guitar form a near perfect grid.  If you combine that with our lifetime of schooling that has been teaching us to recognize patterns, you have a simplified way to learn how to play chords on a guitar.

Basically, there are four different visual forms to help you learn to play guitar:

o    Chord Charts

o    Scale Charts

o    Guitar TABs

o    Standard Music Notation

They each have their limitations, and they each have their strengths as well.

Chord chart and scales charts look very much the same.  They are both grids that represent a portion of the neck of the guitar.  The strings run vertically and the frets (and the nut) run horizontally as if you were viewing the guitar and it's hanging on the wall.  So, the lowest E string is on the border line on the left, and the high E is on the right.

Since it is designed to show only a portion of the fingerboard, if the top line is anything other than the nut, a number is show on the left side of the chart to indicate which fret the charts is shown for.

Learn to play guitar by the numbers:

A chord chart will have dots where your fingers should be placed.  Sometime they have numbers inside the dots to represent which finger that specific dot should be played with.  Open strings won't have a dot on them (they sound, but their not fingered).  Sometimes some strings are not meant to be played at all, and those are represented with an "x" above that string on the top line of the chart.

After all strings are fingered in the chord, you can strum to sound all the strings (except for the ones notated to not sound).  How to play chords on a guitar with specific strumming patterns, however, is not indicated.  But the chord charts are usually shown above standard music notation and are commonly accompanied with "hash" marks that usually either represent strums or beats for measure on a music stave.

A scale chart also has dots, lots of dots.  A chord chart will only have one per string, but a scale chart will usually have two, three or four dots per string.  As with the chord chart, the scale chart typically has numbers in each of the dots to represent which finger is to be used to finger each note.  The name of the scale (i.e. major, minor, etc.) is usually indicated above the chart.

When you learn to play guitar, you might notice that some scale charts may also have two different colors of dots.  One color is used for the "root" note which might occur twice or three times on the chart and the other color represents all the other notes in that scale.

Instead of sounding all the strings at once, to typically learn the scale form you play only one note at a time starting with the lowest note (whichever note that is on the sixth string closest to the top).  All the notes played on the sixth string are sounded before moving to the next (the fifth) string and so on...

After you learn how to play electric guitar using the scale forms, you'll rarely play all the notes in ascending or descending order during a song, but rather uses those notes to create a melodic sounding solo.

These forms, as long as they don't contain any open strings are know as movable forms, meaning you can use this same form starting with different root notes.  Start on a G, it's a G scale; start on a C, it's a C scale.

Waiter! TAB, please...

Guitar TABs are an extremely useful form that doesn't require the ability to read music to perform it on the guitar.  There is a chart with six lines that run horizontally, each representing a string.  The lowest string (low E) is on the bottom, and the highest string is on top. 

Numbers are used to show where the strings are fretted (rather than which fingers are used to fret them as with chord and scale charts).  In this way, if numbers are stacked vertically on top of each other, it represents how to play chords on a guitar.  Numbers that run from left to right form melodies.  Very versatile indeed!

The draw back with TABs is there's no way to indicate the value of the note; how long the note is held out.

The good news is, guitar TABs are usually accompanied by standard music notation, so you can learn how to play electric guitar borrowing from both forms of notation.

Standard music notation, the universal music standard, is great for guitarists who are already trained knowing where each note on the five line stave can be played on the guitar, but not so much to those who don't have that training.  Basically standard music tells you what note to play, but doesn't show you where it is played (as done with guitar TABs).  But it does give you the note value (whole, half, quarter, eighth, etc.), and as mentioned before Tab readers can "steal" the note's value when standard music notation is accompanied by the TABS.

By using these simplified visual approaches, you can learn how to play guitar chords, scales, and melodies all without having to have the ability to read music.  So...you can learn to play guitar with the knowledge you possess right now!

I could go on, and on, and on. Here's a great resource: learn to play guitar, that can really jumpstart your playing and show you more about how to play electric guitar Now, go forth and make music!

Learning the Guitar For Beginners - Some Tips to Learn the Guitar Fast

If you are just starting to learn the guitar, it is important to prepare yourself to commit a lot of patience and more time to focus on learning the instrument. Learning the guitar for beginners cannot be done in one day, although if you are well equipped with the determination to really learn, you will eventually learn it a lot quicker.

If you are interested to play like a rock star and have your hands swiftly running across the frets of the guitar, you have to start from the very basic - have your own guitar. Choosing the right guitar for you is important in speeding up your guitar lessons, thus you have to consider what type of music you really want to play with your guitar. If you want to learn to play rock with your guitar, you might want to start with the electric one.

However, you have to consider that although the strings in an electric guitar may be easier to press, the many buttons may make your learning complicated. When it comes to portability as well, electric guitars are not quite an appeal. If you want to learn to be more versatile of the types of music you want to play, you may want to start with an acoustic guitar. Learning with acoustic guitar can be a little difficult than an electric but starting with it makes you play better with the electric one.

- Learn the chords. It may be as easy as getting yourself a chord chart and following the finger placements of some basic chords. You may be overwhelmed with the many 'dots' in the chord chart but you can start with the simpler chords. The basic G-A-D-C-E are probably the simplest you can learn. You can also find songs that have these chords and practice shifting through them until you get to hear the melody. Also make sure to pick a song that you are familiar with.

- Learning how to strum. The next thing about learning the guitar for beginners is knowing how to strum the guitar. If you can master and memorize the chords and finger placements but you can't get the right timing and strumming, you may not be able to identify the song you are playing. Start by practicing some simple strumming patterns. You can also find some audio courses to guide you on the proper strumming so you will be guided as to how the strumming should sound.

- Learn how to read tabs. One of the best tips in learning the guitar fast and being able to play your favorite songs on the guitar is learning how to read tabs or tablatures. Although there are also flaws in this system, it is however one of the best ways to learn the guitar fast and share music with other guitarists. It may be too confusing to look at a guitar tab if it is your first time but once you get to understand its different notations, you will find out that it is easy to learn. Asking help with a friend who knows how to read tabs can be a great way to learn the tabs easily.

- Practice, practice and practice. The key to learning the guitar for beginners is building muscle memory that allows you to play a song even without looking down on your fingers. With lots of practice, you can learn to play your favorite songs in no time.

Carolyn Anderson is a freelance author who loves to play the acoustic guitar in her free time. For a fun and comprehensive guitar playing course, check out Jamorama. Also check out Riffmaster Pro, a software program to help you learn to play by ear.