Guitar Lesson One

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Guitar Lesson One - Music

Music

This section of each lesson is entirely devoted to playing. Very little will be provided as to the "why's and wherefore's" of what you will be doing. This will be covered in future theory lessons.

At this point, I just want you to learn the material and try to sound "musical" when playing it.

Anatomy of a chord diagram:

Below are 8 chords for you to learn. These 8 chords are often referred to as "the cowboy chords". This is because they are easy to play while riding a horse (hey...just foolin'). These chords are called "cowboy" chords because a billion songs have been written using these few simple chords. Many of these tunes are they type of song that you see somebody strumming while sitting around a camp fire in those old "cowboy" movies. But don't let that fool you. These are the "bread and butter chords" that EVERYBODY uses. If you don't know these chords, you can't call yourself a guitar player.

The chords:

Here are MIDI examples of what each chord sounds like:

EMaj

AMaj

DMaj

GMaj

CMaj

Emin

Amin

Dmin

The hardest part of playing chords is getting all of the notes in the chord to ring. The culprit is most often the finger that is trying to play a note on an adjacent string. That other finger will sometimes touch the string that won't ring and be the cause of your problem. The trick is to use the tips of the fingers and to make sure that each finger is touching only the string that it is holding a note on.

Also, check to see that you are not playing any of the strings that do not have a circle.

Practice each chord in the same manner as demonstrated in the MIDI files. Pick each string individually and then, strum the entire chord.

Once you can play each chord correctly, then it's time to practice changing from one chord to another. The idea here is to change to another chord without stopping. Pick any two of the chords and practice changing from one to the other and then, back to the first. Try to play the chords in time with the metronome MIDI. Strum once per click, four strums per chord. For now, just use down strums and concentrate on switching to the next chord and staying in time with the metronome.

Once you can go from any chord to any other chord and stay in time, try stringing three or more chords together into CHORD PROGRESSIONS.

Here are just a few possibilities:

DMaj - CMaj - GMaj - DMaj

GMaj - CMaj - DMaj - GMaj

EMaj - DMaj - AMaj - CMaj

AMaj - EMaj - GMaj - DMaj

Amin - Dmin - Emin - Amin

Amin - Dmin - GMaj - CMaj

Emin - Amin - DMaj - Emin

I'm sure you have noticed the Maj and min attached to each of the chord names. We will learn what this means in a later lesson. For now, all you need to keep in mind is that Maj chords sound bright and cheerful, while min chords sound dark and moody.

These chord progressions may not sound like your rockin' out, but there's a lot you can do with a few basic chords. If you add some rhythmic variation and a lead lick or two, you'el be amazed.

You'el probably have the best luck if you practice these chords with a clean sound on your amp with a bit of reverb. Once you get the chords down you can experiment with some distortion, but these chords don't always sound so good with a lot of distortion until you learn a few right and left hand techniques.

When it comes to playing OPEN POSITION chords, I will usually use the baseball bat hand position. This is so I can use my thumb over the top of the neck to keep the E and A-strings from ringing on the chords that don't require those strings.

Best of luck!

This lesson is divided into four parts:

Theory

Technique - Left hand

Technique - Right hand

Music

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