Guitar lessons for beginners and more

Music Theory for Guitar: Major Scales

I’ve talked before about the music theory behind guitar scales some, but for this guitar lesson, I want to back up just a bit.

In that lesson, we learned that a scale is simply a group of notes (pitches) arranged in ascending and descending order. There are different types of scales: major, pentatonic, melodic minor, harmonic minor, whole tone, etc. We’re not going to get into the differences between each one in this lesson, but we are going to look explicitly at the major scale. Most of the music we hear on the radio is based on the major scale, so if we know the major scale, this will give us a huge foundation from which we’ll learn other things in the future.

Before we talk more about the major scale, we need to know about half steps and whole steps. All of the pitches (C, D, E, F, G, A, B) are separated by whole steps except that E to F and B to C are separated by half steps.

If you start on the 1st fret of the low E string, which is an F note, and move up one fret to the 2nd fret of the low E string, which is an F#, you’ve moved up one half step. If you were to move up two frets, you would have moved up a whole step. A whole step equals two half steps. [...]

11 Easy Guitar Lessons for Beginners

One of the most challenging aspects as a beginning guitar player can be knowing where to start. That’s why I introduce to you Guitar Friendly’s twelve easy guitar lessons for beginners. These guitar lessons are perfect for beginners and an excellent place to start.

1.) Frequently Asked Questions by Beginning Guitarists - Are you thinking about playing guitar? Did you just take the dive into learning guitar? Find out some answers to the most frequently questions asked by beginning guitar players like: how much will I need to devote to practicing guitar? how bad do your fingers hurt when you first start playing? is it better to learn on electric guitar or acoustic guitar? how much is guitar going to cost me? These are just a few questions.

2.) Basic Guitar Chord Chart Library – If you are a complete beginner, then you will want to start learning the basic finger positions for guitar chords.

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Guitar Games Review: Learn Guitar & Fight Space Monsters

Lately, we’ve had some great lessons about guitar scales, learning the fretboard, and theory. If we’re really honest though, this stuff isn’t always very fun to digest. However, unbeknownst to me until just lately, there is a fun way to put all of this material into practice.

Just recently, I received an email from William Wilson, a classical guitarist from San Diego. William has put together a very fun and interactive resource created to help you learn the guitar fretboard, guitar scales, and theory called Guitar Games. I asked William if he would let me try it out and write up a review, and he gave me the okay.

Guitar Games Features
The goal of Guitar Games is to help you learn the guitar fretboard, guitar scales, theory, and how to read music. They’ve created a variety of interactive and fun games to help you learn all of this information that can often times be very boring.

I was pretty skeptical when I first received William’s email. I was honestly expecting the games to be cheesy and not very helpful. How can you possible make theory and learning the fretboard fun? It seems like a paradox.

However, I was pretty surprised once I took a look. [...]

So, You Want to Learn How to Play Guitar?

In talking with a lot of my non-musical friends about music, it’s not uncommon for me to hear them saying something like, “Oh, I wish I knew how to play guitar. It’s such a cool instrument.”

At my university, all students, regardless of your major, are required to take two applied arts courses. Some will take voice, others piano, and the really weird ones will take theatre (kidding of course!). However, most people take at least one guitar class.

What I’m noticing is that there is just something that draws people to want to play the guitar. I’m not sure if it is because everyone and their mother seems to know how to play and they feel left out, or if it’s because it seems cool. And to be real, playing guitar tends to be seen as a cool thing.

I’m not sure what it is, but if you find yourself drawn to learn how to play guitar, there are a few things to keep in mind before you get yourself into it.

A Great Way to Develop Better Rhythm and Time

When it comes to playing guitar, and playing it well, an unsteady rhythm and tempo just won’t fly.

Perhaps, you remember the video lessons on strumming patterns where I stressed over and over again (probably more than you had hoped for!) the importance of playing with consistent tempo and rhythm. You might know the sickest guitar riff or the most rockin’ strumming pattern, but if you’re timing is all off, then what good is that guitar riff or strumming pattern?

For some, a good sense of timing and rhythm comes very naturally to them. For others, this isn’t the case. However, no matter who are, we can all improve at keeping good time. Let’s look at some exercises we can do to improve our timing.

Meet the Metronome

First off, in case you don’t already know, a metronome is a nifty little device that sets a straight tempo to a click or a tick-tock. The picture on the left is an old-school metronome. Now days you can get an electronic metronome that looks just like guitar tuner. In fact, there are some guitars tuners that have built in metronomes.

Harnessing the Power of the Metronome

This might seem obvious, but simply setting the metronome to the tempo of a song you want to practice, and then playing along with the metronome, will definitely help you [...]

Best Guitar Lessons: Review of Online Guitar Lessons

I wanted to take time to review some online guitar lessons. It’s quite convenient to be able to receive professional guitar lessons online from right at home, especially, if the techniques and skills taught in the online guitar lessons is comparable to that of a private guitar lesson. Not to mention, you also save a ton of money doing online guitar lessons! But, it can be hard to find a good beginner guitar lesson online. If you want to take your guitar playing to the next level, but don’t know how, then check out these online guitar lessons for [...]

Guitar Chords: Learn Your Major Chords

I thought it’d be a good idea to take a look at guitar chords. Every now and then I’m going to post some guitar chord tabs (A.K.A. “diagrams”–whatever you prefer) with pictures of the guitar chord’s finger position. If you are just beginning guitar, a good start is to learn some major guitar chords. I’ve tabbed the guitar chords out and then show a picture of the guitar chord’s finger position.

Finger Placement For Guitar Chords: Eliminate String Buzz!

There is a common mistake that I’m always seeing with beginning guitar players. From what I’ve noticed, this mistake accounts for a lot of string buzz, and it’s all because of poor finger placement. I want to show you correct finger placement for guitar chords. This will help you out tremendously so you can play clean, no buzz, guitar chords. Let’s take a look.