A word to the music lovers...
Firstly, I don't consider myself a professional guitarist, Its my hobby. I was always passionate about guitars. I've been playing this amazing instrument for the past 3 years and I still have a long way to go.
Based on my experience, I wanna instill the knowledge to beginners out there. I'll let you know some basic theories which is not too complicated but fair enough to be a good guitarist I guess.
Have passion, bring it all out, love it, feel the music..You'll be an axeman in no time. Enough of the chitchat, lets play some guitar..
The following gives you some necessary concepts which is needed in the course of playing.
Notes And Tuning
You don't need to know much of a theory but you gotta have the basics such as notes, position of the notes on the guitar fretboard and some commonly used chords.
On the fretboard there are different positions where you can press. Each place corresponds to a note. When two or more notes are played simultaneously then what you've played is a CHORD.
A guitar is always tuned properly before played. There are different tunings but most of the songs are played in standard tuning. The different notes in any music piece are A, A#, B, C, C#, D, D#, E, F, F#, G and G# which is in order.
For a standard six stringed guitar, each string has been named according to these notes. The thickest string which is also the 6th string is called E(bass) string, the next string(5th) is A string, the next (4th) is D string, the next (3rd) is G string, the next (2nd) is B string and lastly, the 1st string is E(treble). So from top it is EADGBE. And this is also the standard tuning used i.e., when you play the E(bass) string openly, the note sounded should be E note.
A note is defined for a particular frequency. Lets say that the E(bass) string has been tuned to E note (which is done by a digital tuner). The 1st fret of the the E(bass) string is an F note according to the above note order. The next fret sounds F# note and so on. The fifth fret corresponds to A note. For a standard tuning the next string should have A note value. Therefore, the sound produced by 5 fretted E(bass) string and open A string should sound same. If not then either increase or decrease the tension of the 5th string to sound the notes same. Now the open 6th and 5th string have been tuned to standard tuning. In the same manner we have to tune the 4th string which is suppose to have D note. Like in the previous case, moving up to the 5th fret on the 4th string note by note, we have D note and this should sound same with open 3rd string according to standard tuning which is again EADGBE. The same rule applies to tune G string. On the G string the 4th fret has the note value B and this should sound same with the open 2nd string. Lastly the 5th fret of the 2nd string and the open 1st string should sound same having the same note which is E.
The more you experiment with the notes and comparing the notes on different frets on different strings, the more comfortable will you get.
Now we have to know what an octave is. For instance, lets consider the E(bass) string. The corresponding note is E note, and moving on the fretboard, the note changes in the mentioned above order (A, A#.......). The note at 11th fret is G#. And at 12th fret the note repeats that is the corresponding note is E. This cycle is called an octave.
Chords
There are a lot of chords but for beginners we'll stick to MAJOR AND MINOR CHORDS. First, it'll be helpful to learn the Major and Minor chords for the notes mentioned above.
There are several softwares that shows you different chord structures. There is always internet where you can check out the chords or you could download the software like chord dictionary.
There are theories as how the chords are formed but complexity increases as we look deeper into theories. But for now you can stick to some few basic chords like minors and majors for the above 12 notes.
Position yourself
Hold the guitar firmly to your comfort. Guitar can be played using your fingers to pluck the strings. It is done in classical style of playing but here I'll teach you to play with a Pick or Plectrum(a small flat tool used to pluck or strum a stringed instrument).
Hold the pick between your index finger and thumb and start plucking the strings, experiment the guitar. There are different ways in which you can sound a note or a chord. But in this chapter I'll tell you how to sound a note and a chord using the pick by holding it in two different ways.
Playing a song
For easy learning, pick a song sort out the chords used in the song(which is available at several websites. Just google it out). Using the chord dictionary, refer the chords. In order to strum effortlessly, hold the pick gently as shown in the above figure. You can strum the strings either in downward or upward direction. Get comfortable with the strumming part first. Then start playing the song by listening carefully. First it'll seem almost impossible to change chords. This is because your finger muscles are exposed to new environment. Try time and again and you'll end up changing it in few hours. With practice, you're gonna master changing chords in a week. This way, you're gonna build up the confidence and you'll feel like moving on to more songs. Just keep playing, conquer it.
As of now, this will do the work. There are secrets to get better and better which I'm gonna let you know later.
