So I have been posting free guitar lessons here on this blog, and having quite a bit of fun with it, and it occurred to me that, with the popular new games like Guitar Hero and that English band, whatever their name was, there must be quite a lot of people thinking about how they might like to learn to play guitar.
And so I will be putting some new posts about how to learn to play guitar for beginners. I’m sure that, if this is you, some of the questions you have might be;
1. Is it difficult to learn to play guitar?
2. Should I play electric or acoustic guitar?
3. Do I need to learn to read notes?
4. How long will it take, before I can sound like a Guitar Hero?
Stop and consider just where you want to go with the guitar. What are your musical goals, in other words?
The basic difference between electric and acoustic guitar is in the style of playing. Long before the electric guitar was the acoustic guitar, which was used in Spanish Classics and folk music. If you dig the classics and want to be able to play classics, then note reading is a must. Additionally, this is a style that uses a finger pick style where each string of the guitar is picked individually with the right hand fingers.
This is not to say you won’t find classical guitar technique in a rock band, being used on electric guitar! Lots of Led Zepplin tunes need a classical style of guitar execution. Studying the classics is how many pop players get the edge they have.
On the other hand, if you are anxious to start playing your favorite tunes and don’t think you’ll have the patience to learn the notes on all six strings of the guitar, (I’m not trying to discourage you, but this does take a bit of patience), on the other hand there is Tabs;
Tabs for Guitar
Tabs is a really easy alternative notation system for guitar. The very top line, with the two fours is often where your rhythm goes, if they add it to the Tabs. The next six horizontal lines are your guitar strings. The top of the six lines is string number one, which will be the lowest string physically on your guitar when it is held in playing position.
Natural Scale shown in Tabs
Now then, the numbers are the frets on your fingerboard. You can see, in this example, that you would begin on string number six and play the open string (no fingers), then proceed to fret one, three and then go on to string number five.
This is called a scale, which can be compared to going up and down a flight of stairs without skipping any steps; every note is there in order. Memorize the pattern to this one and play it, using a different finger for each fret and picking back and forth. When you get to the top, come back down by simply reversing everything.
It’s easy to find tabs for your favorite songs on the internet. The only problem is that they often let anyone who wants to upload a song tab and it might not be accurate.
My recommendation is to go to your local music store and get a book with the songs you want in tabs. These will be a lot more accurate and easier to read. They will also usually put the traditional notation along with it and, this way you can begin to explore note reading and get the best of both worlds. You will also need the rhythm,which you can get from the traditional notation.
You cannot make music without rhythm and the beat, especially if you want to play in a group. I will be putting up some more posts about how to read rhythm and probably note reading, so check back with this site for updates and more free guitar lessons!
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