How to become a better guitar player.
Starting from square one.
I have written several articles on this subject in various forms. I wanted to briefly go over a few things again with you, in case we simply need to do a review.
Why the guitar?
Chances are, the answer to this question is pretty simple. Everyone loves the guitar. The guitar is easy enough to play, that just about everyone tries to play one at least once in their life. What is it about the guitar that draws people to it? Again, this has to do with ease-of-play. In all honesty, you do not even need to know the names of the chords in order to play the guitar. However, it helps to build your vocabulary with chord names that you can identify quickly. This is most useful when you are learning how to play songs.
Reading music.
Ideally, the best way to learn how to play songs on the guitar is to know your chords. How many chords do you need to know?
“Gees, if I had a nickel for every time someone has asked me that question…”
As a beginner guitarist, your immediate goal should be - being able to identify and play at least two, three or maybe even four dozen chords on the guitar. Major chords, minor chords and 7th chords. You should learn all three of the major and minor chords in the following keys: F, C, G, D, A, E and B.
List of chords you need to know cold.
NOTE: “7” means Dominant 7th, “Δ” means Major 7th, and “m7” means minor 7th.
Major chords: F, C, G, D, A, E, B, Bb, Eb and F#.
Minor chords: Am, Em, Dm, Bm, Bbm, Gm, Fm, Cm and F#m.
7th Chords: C7, CΔ, Cm7, G7, GΔ, Gm7, D7, DΔ, Dm7, A7, AΔ, Am7, E7, EΔ, Em7, B7, BΔ, Bm7, F7, FΔ, Fm7, F#7, F#Δ and F#m7.
How many is that? 43 chords? Believe it or not, that’s just the “open-string” chords in the first position. The first position is everything that exists from the open strings to about the 4th or 5th fret, including a few “Barre” chords.
How to strum your guitar.
Just about everything we hear in modern music from pop to rock to the blues and country music, is played in 4/4 time. What does that mean? The first or “top” number (4) means “how many beats are counted” in one measure. Think of the measure as a one-dollar bill. The second number or “bottom” number (4) is the “type of note” that gets one beat. So if we think about one measure equaling the value of one dollar, how many quarters equal one dollar? “Four quarters”. That’s what 4/4 means.
This is called a “time signature” in music. Don’t get confused with a time signature equaling pr being the same as the tempo or speed of the music. Tempo does not equal the time signature structure.
When you strum a chord, you strum down from the 6th string to the 1st string. However, some chords do not require all six strings being played. The G major chord requires all six strings, the C major chord only requires five strings, and the D major chord only requires four strings.
Hold your guitar pick with your thumb and index (1st) finger. Think of the pick as a sort of paint brush that you use to paint across the strings. Strumming comes from your elbow more than it does your wrist. You can use your wrist to sweep across the strings when you strum up and down. You can use a sort of circular motion for this technique.
Strumming up and down means playing eighth notes. Count “1 + 2 + 3 + 4 +”. All of the numbers are strummed down. All of the “+” are strummed up.
Changing chords clearly in Rhythm.
Find the two easiest chords you know how to play. I suggest “E major” and “A minor”. Both chords are literally the same shape, but on different strings. You can start off with either chord first. Let’s do E to A minor.
Strum the E chord four times: 1 2 3 4 . This will equal one measure because we played all quarter note strums. The second measure will be the A minor chord four times: 1 2 3 4. Now, repeat this pattern over and over.
One thing I should mention is that you should always practice everything you do on your guitar, with a metronome. You can download free metronome apps onto your smartphone.
Set the metronome at around 50-60 bpm (beats per minute). Strum with the click. Every click will be one strum. 1 2 3 4 is now “click click click click”.
Once you have this down pretty well, move on to other chord pairings.
Build a list of songs you want to learn.
The best way to do this is to go online and search with any of the following keywords:
“top 100”, “top 50”, “beginner”, “guitar”, “easy”, “chords”, “song list”, “songs for guitar”.
You will find an endless list of websites that all pretty much have the same list of songs. It’s best to start off with songs that only use a few chords. There are hundreds of them. Keep an open mind to the songs you may not like. Just consider each song on the list.
There are many websites where you can find complete songs with chords and words. The most popular is Ultimate Guitar. Most of the content is free. I suggest that you pick the versions that have the highest ratings.
Remember…
Starting to learn how to play the guitar should be fun. This is the most important thing to remember. Become a good guitar player takes many hours of practice and years of unconditional commitment and dedication.
“Don’t practice until you get it right. Practice until you can’t get it wrong.”
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