Ricky Sharples asked:
Now you have your guitar and you have found that if you are going to get any music coming out of it, you will be needing some basic guitar lessons – sooner rather than later. But you do not want to go signing up with a guitar teacher or buying a packaged course on the internet without having some idea of what’s in a guitar lesson, so here is a general overview.
The very basic thing you need in your first guitar lesson is to learn how to hold your guitar. Playing the guitar is a physically demanding activity and if you do not learn to hold your guitar properly you could be making your guitar practice a dreary and painful routine. You also need to learn the basics of how to hold your plectrum and how to strum the guitar.
Any guitar course is structured to teach you how to read some form of written musical notation, either tablature or sheet music. Tablature, or tab, is based on a picture of the guitar neck with the frets you have to finger to get the appropriate notes marked on it. It takes a few minutes to get the basic idea behind tab and maybe half an hour’s playing around to make sure you have got the principle well enough to start reading tabs for your favorite songs.
Sheet music is the conventional music notation that has been around for hundreds of years and is used for all musical instruments. The advantage with sheet music is that you can pick up any piece of music written for any instrument and pick out at least the basic melody on the guitar. The downside of sheet music is that it takes a little time and effort to learn because it entails learning some musical theory. If you are anxious to start playing your guitar real quick you probably think learning music is a bad idea, and many guitarists will tell you they do not miss knowing musical notation. But at the same time alot of guitarists will tell you that they are glad they took the little extra time and effort to learn theory and sheet music.
Basic guitar lessons are all about playing chords. Chords are written in the form of chord charts which tell you where to put your fingers to play the notes, and which strings are included in the chord. Some chord charts even tell you which fingers to use to fret the chord’s notes. Chords can also be written in tabs or in sheet music notes. If you want to play accompaniment for songs, you will probably only need to learn your basic chords and how they relate to each other. This info will enable you to get together a collection of chords which will let you play thousands of songs. You will also learn about chord progressions which is how chords interact with each other in songs.
So that is it. The guitar is a chord-oriented instrument and if you are taught chords and how to read them, that gives you the basic lesson content for the guitar. Of course, the guitar has alot more to offer than just basic chord playing but once you learn chords and strumming you can decide where you want to go from there.
Create a video blog…instantly.
Now you have your guitar and you have found that if you are going to get any music coming out of it, you will be needing some basic guitar lessons – sooner rather than later. But you do not want to go signing up with a guitar teacher or buying a packaged course on the internet without having some idea of what’s in a guitar lesson, so here is a general overview.
The very basic thing you need in your first guitar lesson is to learn how to hold your guitar. Playing the guitar is a physically demanding activity and if you do not learn to hold your guitar properly you could be making your guitar practice a dreary and painful routine. You also need to learn the basics of how to hold your plectrum and how to strum the guitar.
Any guitar course is structured to teach you how to read some form of written musical notation, either tablature or sheet music. Tablature, or tab, is based on a picture of the guitar neck with the frets you have to finger to get the appropriate notes marked on it. It takes a few minutes to get the basic idea behind tab and maybe half an hour’s playing around to make sure you have got the principle well enough to start reading tabs for your favorite songs.
Sheet music is the conventional music notation that has been around for hundreds of years and is used for all musical instruments. The advantage with sheet music is that you can pick up any piece of music written for any instrument and pick out at least the basic melody on the guitar. The downside of sheet music is that it takes a little time and effort to learn because it entails learning some musical theory. If you are anxious to start playing your guitar real quick you probably think learning music is a bad idea, and many guitarists will tell you they do not miss knowing musical notation. But at the same time alot of guitarists will tell you that they are glad they took the little extra time and effort to learn theory and sheet music.
Basic guitar lessons are all about playing chords. Chords are written in the form of chord charts which tell you where to put your fingers to play the notes, and which strings are included in the chord. Some chord charts even tell you which fingers to use to fret the chord’s notes. Chords can also be written in tabs or in sheet music notes. If you want to play accompaniment for songs, you will probably only need to learn your basic chords and how they relate to each other. This info will enable you to get together a collection of chords which will let you play thousands of songs. You will also learn about chord progressions which is how chords interact with each other in songs.
So that is it. The guitar is a chord-oriented instrument and if you are taught chords and how to read them, that gives you the basic lesson content for the guitar. Of course, the guitar has alot more to offer than just basic chord playing but once you learn chords and strumming you can decide where you want to go from there.
Create a video blog…instantly.
