Learning Electric Guitar Learning Electric Guitar

Play The Guitar – A Beginners Guide

If you're really serious about learning to play the guitar, you're going to have start somewhere.

As in all things in life, if you have a good teacher and you understand the subject you are learning and more importantly enjoy, then you can be sure that your practice won't be so much of a chore as a pleasure.

Let's be honest you aren't going to be able to play the guitar the instant you pick it up, you'll have to go through a series of processes to get there first.

Here’s a really great video clip from an English girl called Brooke who gives a fantastic introduction in to how to start learning to play the guitar.

Here's a rough transcript of her covering the basics of to play the guitar...

She clearly introduces the names of the strings. The thickest string is called the E string, the A string, the D string and the G, the next one is B and E again, but an octave higher.

A really cool way to remember the name of each string is to use Brooke’s acronym - Elephants and Donkeys Grow Big Ears.

Next Brooke explains how to number your fingers and shows a great diagram where she explains that holding out your left hand in front of you can easily remember the numbering of the fingers, like this...

The index finger is number 1
The middle finger is number 2
The third finger is conveniently number 3!
And the little finger is number 4

The next important thing to remember when learning to play the guitar is how to read chord diagrams. Brooke shows a diagram on screen where the horizontal lines signify the frets and the vertical lines correspond to the strings as follows E,A,D,G,B,E.

The thickest E string is on the left hand side and the thinnest string is on the far right. All chord charts show the first 4 frets of the guitar and circles shown on the strings help to explain where the fingers should be placed in order to play the chord correctly.

Next Brooke gives a description of how to play the chord - C Major

To play this chord the first finger goes on the first fret of the B string, the second finger goes on the second fret of the D string and the third finger goes on the third fret of the A string, she then follows this extremely simple demonstration with an actual picture of how the fingers should look when playing this chord. You then need to strum all of the strings with your other hand to play the chord C major.

This really is a great, albeit basic starting point for learning to play the guitar and Brooke does a great job of explaining things very clearly. Remember, it is important to get the basics right first if you have any hopes of being able to play the guitar well. Get the foundations right and the rest will follow.