Guitar Lessons for Beginners

The guitar is an instrument like none other. No matter how big a crescendo a drum may create, how sweet a melody a piano may play, nothing comes even close to a gorgeous six-string. The guitar is unarguably the numero uno when it comes to popularity, sound, as well as beauty of a musical instrument. It is undoubtedly one of a kind and is something that has over the years, consistently managed to win the hearts of boys and girls, guys and gals, men and women, uncles and aunties, grandpas and grandmas, and everyone else that I may have missed out. Regardless of whether you are the Sultan of Swing or the King of Pop, you would agree to the fact that each and every music lover loves the guitar and many of them share secret ambitions of playing it too. Therefore, for all you guitar lovers, here are some guitar lessons for beginners.

Parts of a Guitar
All beginners are advised to first begin with an acoustic guitar and later graduate to other types such as electric and bass guitars. A typical acoustic guitar consists of the following parts:

• Sound Box: It is that part of the guitar in which the sound waves vibrate to produce the actual sound. It is said that bigger the sound box, better is the quality of sound produced.
• Neck: It is the long, narrow part of the guitar at the end of which there are six tuners i.e., screws for loosening and tightening the guitar strings. The neck houses the fret board, frets being the horizontal metal strips which run along the length of the neck at regular intervals.
• Strings: A regular acoustic guitar has six strings, and each one of them is different in its thickness. Starting from the thickest string and moving towards the thinnest one, the six strings are named E, B, G, D, A, and E respectively.

Guitar Lessons for Beginners
Here are a few basic steps for beginners:

Holding the Guitar
Let us begin with how to hold the guitar. Assuming you are a right handed player, you should hold the guitar horizontally with the strings facing outwards in such a way that your left hand is over the guitar neck and your right hand is over the sound box. As a beginner, you will also need to have a pick or a plectrum which you can get from any musical instrument store.

Tuning the Guitar
A guitar needs to be properly tuned before you attempt to play it. If you are familiar with a piano keyboard, you can play the E note on the keyboard, and by adjusting the tuner screw, tune the E string to match the note being played on the keyboard. An easier way of tuning is to purchase an electronic guitar tuner. It is extremely cheap and easily available. By following the instructions mentioned in its operation manual, you will be able to tune your guitar accurately in no time at all.

Playing the Guitar
According to popular western music notation, the syllables Do, Re, Mi, Fa, Sol, La, Ti, and Do are used to denote the musical notes that form an octave. For simplicity, we will refrain from 'sharp' and 'flat' notes for the time being. For now, we will focus only on the E string (any one of the two). Using the plectrum play the E string and listen to the note produced. Now, using the index finger of your left hand, press the same string in the first fret and play it using the plectrum. Listen to the difference in the sound of the note produced. While moving down one fret at a time, keep on playing the string and observing each musical note produced. You will begin to understand that they are in the same progression as Do, Re, Mi, Fa, Sol, La, Ti, and Do. Repeat this for all the other strings to get an idea of the various octaves that can be played on a guitar. Once you get a good idea about this, you can try and play the melody of a song by following its musical notation.

Guitar lessons for beginners are incomplete without the mention of chords. Regarding learning the different guitar chords, you can google on the Internet to find out about the different finger positions for all the different major and minor chords. If you are a self-starter and a fast learner, you should be able to learn them on your own using the resources available on the Internet. Alternatively, you can always opt for learning them personally from a good guitar teacher. See what suits you and choose accordingly.