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playing guitar a beginner s guide by darrin koltow www.maximummusician.com copyright © 2002 darrin koltow

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playing guitar a beginner s guide page 2 contents contents 2 acknowledgements 4 also on maximummusician.com 5 also at maximummusician.com 5 introduction 6 about the author 6 practicing 7 how to hold the guitar 8 tablature and chord diagrams 9 tablature 9 resources 10 chord diagrams 11 resources 11 tuning 12 resources 13 the first song 14 the song 14 how the song works basic music theory 14 resources 15 basic chords 16 resources 16 barre chords 17 minor root on string 6 17 minor root on string 5 18 major root on string 6 19 major root on string 5 19 dominant 7 root on string 6 19 dominant 7 root on string 5 19 resources 20 the right hand 21 strumming 21 resources 21 melody alternate picking 22 resources 22 chords bass note picking 23 improvising 24 resources 25 closing note 26 appendix 27 the major scale 27 major scale pattern 1 e major 28 major scale pattern 2 d major 29 major scale pattern 3 c major 30 major scale pattern 4 a major 31 major scale pattern 5 g major 32 resources 32 playing by ear 33

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playing guitar a beginner s guide page 3 the short version 34 the long version 34 resources 35 introduction to reading music 36 common open position chords 37 chords for c major 37 chords for e major 37 chords for a major 37 chords for g major 38 chords for d major 38 chords for f major 38 resources 38 notes on the fretboard 39 index 40 the next step 41

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playing guitar a beginner s guide page 4 acknowledgements this ebook is more than just one person wanting to help others play guitar more effectively the inspiration and knowledge gained from other resources has helped make this ebook helpful for you one of those resources is guitarnoise.com guitarnoise.com has lessons for guitarists of every skill level covering many many aspects of playing guitar this includes advice on careers scary stories detailed lessons on playing popular songs songwriting forums and much more it s hard to imagine a guitarist who would not benefit from guitarnoise.com materials visit them often at www.guitarnoise.com.

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playing guitar a beginner s guide page 5 also on maximummusician.com want to know how to turn your practicing into playing would you like to learn which sites newsgroups discussion lists and other web resources are the best for learning to play guitar the articles on maximummusician.com can help you you can learn to play by ear at www.maximummusician.com/playguitarbyearintro.htm learn all about chords at www.maximummusician.com/chordsintro.htm other articles help you turn scales and chords into music and sort through the glut of guitar info on the web also at maximummusician.com blues grooves for beginners and beyond downloadable eguide © 2003 darrin koltow eguide for windows 95 98 2000 nt macintosh in winzipped pdf format blues grooves for beginners and beyond shows you how to play blues shuffles boogies riffs and progressions playing blues rhythms is one of the easiest quickest ways of getting great sounds from your guitar this guide shows you how to get those sounds blues grooves teaches you · the basic 12-bar blues · turnarounds riffs and shuffles · how to create your own blues grooves · how to enhance basic shuffles with harmony notes · how to jazz up your blues with the dominant 9 sound and appogiatura chords · open position and movable blues · how to create riffs using arpeggios as well as the mixolydian pentatonic and blues scales and much more get the details ­ including a free sample ­ here www.maximummusician.com/bluesgroovesrhythmguitarebook.htm

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playing guitar a beginner s guide page 6 introduction this book is for all beginning guitarists especially those who don t yet believe they can play the guitar it was written because beginning guitarists need guidance they need to know which chords and concepts to begin with and which ones to ignore there s a lot of information available today to the beginning guitarist in fact there s too much information it s easy to become overwhelmed with all the different exercises and songs to play this book cuts through the clutter to get you started playing songs as quickly as possible it also gives you tips on where to go for more information i believe the most important things about playing guitar are to have fun and to grow as a musician when you can do these things i believe you also grow as a person no matter what style of music you want to play about the author hi i m darrin koltow i ve been playing guitar since 1985 i ve studied music theory and history at rutgers college and guitar with a number of teachers including bill hart who has taught at the atlanta institute of music i ve also studied the strategies for success and motivation from other disciplines and adapted them to musicianship i m now applying this training to my mission to be the best player i can be to enjoy the journey to becoming such a player and to help others achieve their musical goals contact me at www.maximummusician.com/feedbackdsk.htm

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playing guitar a beginner s guide page 7 practicing here are a few notes about how to approach practicing with the best frame of mind first don t hurt yourself especially when you re just starting you may be 100 motivated to learn but you won t learn anything if you damage your hand from overplaying it s easy to do that when you start because your hands simply haven t built up the muscles they need to play yet this is more of a problem with acoustic steel string guitarists than electric guitarists because steel string guitars are generally harder to play give it a little time the hand strength will come you ll want to get some essential tools besides the guitar get a metronome and a journal the metronome helps you play in time but does more than just that it forces you to play music and not rambling notes and chords keeping time with the metronome makes you push yourself beyond your comfort zone so you can grow as a player you say you re not a writer that s okay but get a journal anyway and use it to write down how well you think you re doing you don t need to write in it every day but when you ve spent three weeks working on a song or scale or arpeggio exercise write down how it felt to complete it also write down the things you can t yet do a year from now you ll look at what you wrote and feel great pride at how far you ve come good attitude is crucial to your sense of achievement putting yourself down because you can t yet make a particular chord shape is not nearly as helpful to you as moving on to another chord shape or reviewing the chords you do know the technique will come trust me stay motivated by writing your goals down and rewriting them regularly read how others grew from having no skill to being players play for others maybe a little before you believe you re ready smooth your playing on a song or two and play them for someone you ll get a whole new perspective on your playing and what you need to work on besides that any compliments you get will motivate you in a powerful way.

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playing guitar a beginner s guide page 8 how to hold the guitar remember to breathe it s easy for your body to get tense when you do something as awkward as playing guitar for the first time this tenseness builds up without your even realizing it take a break every so often and just breathe even if you do everything right playing might seem uncomfortable at first it should not be painful though if you sense any pain at any time stop immediately before long your desire to play will make not holding the guitar feel uncomfortable choose a chair or seat with the right height you ll know it s the right height because when you sit your thigh will be angled just slightly upward some players pick any chair and raise their guitar knee by putting their guitar foot on a stool or stack of phone books the point is to raise the guitar high enough so your hand can get to the frets it gets real tiring to play by putting your guitar foot on tiptoe all the time it also gets tiring when you hunch your entire upper body over so you can see the frets if you re right-handed put the guitar on your right knee note classical guitarists would use their left knee it s tempting to tilt the guitar so you can see the frets but don t do it keep the guitar straight the neck of the guitar should be angled slightly upward as it extends away from your body now for the fretting hand practice making what i call the claw with your left hand this means putting your left thumb halfway between the bottom of the guitar s neck and the top of the neck it s tempting to grab the guitar like you were grabbing a hammer with the thumb wrapping over the top but you won t be able to hit all the notes that way to make the claw keep the thumb at that halfway point on the neck and crook your wrist as if you were trying to make your finger tips hook over the top of the neck if all of this seems too complicated go for these simplified instructions look at pictures of how other guitarists hold their guitar and do what feels comfortable for you by the way some great guitarists such as jeff healy hold their guitar flat on their lap.

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playing guitar a beginner s guide page 9 tablature and chord diagrams tablature tablature is a way of expressing music on paper a page of tablature tells you what notes to play to make the song happen standard music notation is another way of communicating songs on paper classical musicians usually have to know this kind of notation we ll stick to the basics and just describe tablature in this section you can read an intro to standard notation in the appendix let s look at a piece of tablature play one after the other play at the same time str 1 str 2 str 3 str 4 str 5 str 6 0 1 0 rest 0 1 0 rest tablature one standard notation notice that the standard notation is included here just in case you re interested in how it matches with the tablature look at figure tablature one each of the long lines going from left to right represents a guitar string the top line is the high e string the thinnest string the next line down is the b string and so on the numbers represent frets that you play not the fingers you use the first group of notes is played one at a time the second group of notes shows the notes stacked on top of each other which means you play them at the same time this group of notes played together is called a chord the first group of notes is called an arpeggio think of arpeggios as a busted up chord the numbers tell you which frets to press a 0 means you play the string open or unfretted some tablature or tab for short also tells you which fingers to use keep an eye out for finger indicators in the tabs shown in this book knowing which fingers to use is important to prevent confusion.

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playing guitar a beginner s guide page 10 there s not much else to learning tablature you can learn more about it through these resources resources olga the on-line guitar archive olga www.olga.net is a library of files including those for tab that shows you how to play songs on guitar how to read and write tab www.olga.net/faq/tabbing.php newsgroups rec.music.makers.guitar.tablature and alt.guitar.tab free software tablature 2.1 is a set of tools that allows easy publication and playback of bass and guitar tablature available at download.com.

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playing guitar a beginner s guide page 11 chord diagrams chord diagrams are used to show you where to put your fingers to make chords let s take a look at a chord diagram 1 fr x 3 2 0 1 0 c major the 1 fr means the first fret the numbers at the bottom tell you which fingers to use not which frets to play the vertical lines represent the strings and the horizontal lines separate the frets you can probably guess that the circles tell you where to put your fingers zero 0 means you don t use a finger let the string ring open where would you see a figure like this a lot of sheet music in standard not tablature notation will have chord diagrams like this one above the music so even though you might not be able to read standard notation you can still read the chord diagrams and play along on the song chord diagrams with sheet music resources how to read chord diagrams www.daddydoodle.com/chordex.html this site also covers other topics for beginners such as how to hold a guitar pick how to string a guitar and how to tune a guitar.

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playing guitar a beginner s guide page 12 tuning just like the other aspects of learning the guitar tuning is something you ll get better at the more you do it the first time you tune it may be difficult to separate in-tune pitches from those out of tune electronic tuners are available to help with this but all you need to start is a set of pitch pipes or some other source that can emit the pitch called concert a you can even use your computer to output this pitch if you have the right software let s tune once you have your concert a source turn it on or do what you need to do to make it sound holding your guitar as though you were playing it press your finger onto the fifth fret of the first string the first string is the thinnest one you don t need to press too hard str 1 str 2 str 3 str 4 str 5 str 6 5 tuning the first string with your other hand pluck the first string if the note won t sound move your fretting finger a bit closer to toward the soundhole while still staying on the fifth fret compare the pitch from your tuner with the note you played if they sound different adjust the first string s tuning knob until the notes sound the same it s best to watch carefully as someone else does this for the first couple of times your ear can trick you when you re just starting and make you think a certain pitch sounds like another pitch singing the pitch will help you here let s tune the second string play the note on string 2 fret 5 then play the string 1 open which means without any fretting fingers on it if the two pitches sound different adjust the tuning peg for string 2 until the pitches are equal str 1 str 2 str 3 str 4 str 5 str 6 0 5 tuning the second string let s tune string three by now you might think this step is the same as for tuning string 2 the process is similar but with one important difference instead of playing string 3 fret 5 play string 3 fret 4 while that note is still ringing play string 2 open adjust string 3 s tuning peg until the pitches match.

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playing guitar a beginner s guide page 13 str 1 str 2 str 3 str 4 str 5 str 6 4 0 tuning the third string string 4 returns us to the original procedure play string 4 fret 5 and adjust the tuning peg until the pitch matches string 3 open continue this procedure for strings 5 and 6 to check your work play the open string 6 and the open string 1 although they have different pitches they re both e notes if you play both of these strings at the same time and they re tuned properly they should sound as if you were playing one string more help on tuning is available here resources how to tune the guitar www.daddydoodle.com/chordex.html

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playing guitar a beginner s guide page 14 the first song the song as promised in the introduction we covered just the basics needed to begin playing a song now let s play the song here s some tablature for a common chord progression that many popular songs are based on once you feel a little comfortable with it you may begin to hear some of these songs pop into your head a note on strumming at this point do whatever feels natural however the song will sound best if you just play the first three strings focus on keeping a steady rhythm you don t even have to use a pick your fingers or thumb can strum if you can t get all the notes to sound this time don t worry practice and desire will work that out c maj str 1 str 2 str 3 str 4 str 5 str 6 0 1 0 0 1 0 0 1 2 a min 0 1 2 1 1 0 f maj 1 1 0 1 0 0 g7 1 0 0 this double line means repeat avoid playing these three strings here s the standard notation version of this tune you can skip this next part if you want it tells you a bit more about what you were playing reading this part isn t as much fun as playing but it can help you understand how to have more fun playing how the song works basic music theory what you played is known as a i-vi-iv-v-i progression in the key of c major just what does that mean there is one major scale and twelve keys you can play it in including c major the major scale has seven different notes in it you can make a chord from each one of those notes each chord is given a roman numeral based on where it falls in the scale here are those numerals for the chords in c major i ii iii iv v7 vi viiº cdefgab

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playing guitar a beginner s guide page 15 the chord built on c is the i chord the chord built on d is the ii chord the rest of the chords are named in the same way the song you played used only four of the seven chords in c major and that s all it needed to sound good see the appendix for more about the major scale notice that some of the numerals in the figure are in upper case and some are lower case the quality of the chord determines the case chord quality doesn t mean how good or valuable the chord is but how it feels the major scale has four different qualities major minor dominant and half-diminished the major chords i and iv are indicated with upper case letters the minor chords ii iii and vi with lower case in general major chords sound happy and restful minor chords sound sad or ominous or dark and dominant chords sound bluesy unstable and happy in an anxious way halfdiminished chords sound like an even more anxious version of dominant chords the way you mix these different chords and chord qualities gives a song character and flavor the more you know about how to mix them and the more songs you can play by heart the better you will be as a musician resources www.guitarnoise.com simply one of the best sites for beginners huge volume of articles and catchy beginner s songs with precise instructions for playing them olga song archive www.olga.net

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