Learn to Play the Guitar

How quickly can your fretting hand switch from one chord to another? The speed and confidence one has in doing chord changes will be the key to further mastering the guitar and successfully playing and creating music for the instrument.

The key to learning any instrument, like most intricate human activity, is to develop brain and muscle coordination, more commonly called, the muscle memory needed to play the instrument. If you picture a basketball player, for instance, the key to a good shooting performance is the proper hand-to-eye coordination in order to bring the ball up, prepare, aim, and throw it towards the hoop. The different muscles of the arms, wrist and hands will learn the right movements and strength needed to score. Constant practice will condition the brain, eyes and entire body to know the routine of shooting the ball.

This is similar to guitar playing. The muscles involved would be the arms, wrists and the fingers, with the eyes, ears and brain working in unison to relate the movements to the music being read and the notes produced by the guitar. This is the mechanism that works when a guitar player starts to change chords.

Luckily, there are simple techniques that can help the beginning guitar player to develop these muscle memories and ear training for proper chord changes. Read on below and you will see that chord changes are not that difficult to do.

When changing chords, first memorize all the chords involved in the song. Then visualize exactly which fingers of the fretting hand are involved in playing the chords. When playing simple barre chords, the most important finger is the index finger, which will squeeze all 6 strings across the fretboard. So as you move towards playing the chord, you have to position the index finger across the proper fret, or place, along the fretboard before positioning the other fingers of the chord. When playing a broken or simple chord, it is usually the index finger that is the most important finger. Primarily, the index finger and the thumb will form a stable anchor on the guitar neck in order for the other fingers to press the other strings of the chord. The index finger is usually played on the lowest fret and the highest string (by pitch, or string 1), where it could more easily find the proper note, and the other fingers can follow to complete the chord.

When playing a particular song, keep time with the music, but anticipate in which bar and on which beat the next chord will continue. For beginners, it would be safe to practice the entire song slowly from beginning to end, taking care to change to each chord on time and on tempo.

When the student can play the entire song like this without chord errors, he can start increasing the speed to the song’s proper tempo. It would also be helpful to identify particularly tricky chord changes.

For instance, 2 consecutive bar graphs would be a relatively simple change, because the guitar player needs only to slide his index finger (which is already in the barre position) to its proper position on the fretboard and quickly press in the other strings of the chord.

Changes from simple chords to barre chords – and vice versa – and chords that are positioned at a far distance from each other along the length of the neck would be more difficult to do. Isolate these difficult changes and practice the chord changes.

If it is still to difficult with the slow tempo, don’t play the last beat of the last chord and use the time to move your fret hand into position for the next fret. Keep practicing these changes until the short passage can be played without error.

Afterwards, go back to playing the entire song as discussed above. When you can play an entire song properly, try different strumming styles to accentuate parts of the song, or a particular beat. Or alternate strumming and light plucking to give volume and variety to the music of the song. First, it is best to complete the song by actually copying how the original artist played it on the guitar. Then, you can add your own twists and extra technique according to your ear and taste. This will help you develop you hands for more difficult chords and finger playing techniques.

Do this for every song, and before you know it, you’d be playing a new song like a seasoned guitarist in no time.

Guitar playing is one of the most popular ways to personally play and enjoy music. The appeal of the guitar is mostly due to its presence in practically all popular and rock music recordings. Furthermore, it is an instrument that is very portable, versatile enough for many kinds of songs and occasions, and is more practical as an accompaniment to vocalists or other instruments.

Playing the guitar requires more than the requisite musical ability, dedication and practice. A guitar player’s fingers must be dexterous and agile to allow quick single string or chord changes in rhythm or solo musical performances. However, those fingers also need to be tough and strong to be able to press the strings enough during those quick changes to produce clean tones.

All beginners will remember the first time they played the guitar for an extended period. Our fingertips are originally soft at the very end, with thin skin protecting them. First, we feel pain after pressing down on the strings too much.

After continuing to play, blisters will develop on the fingertips of the hand playing the fretboard, specifically all fingers except for the thumb. If the aspiring musician hasn’t given up by then and continues to practice playing, the blisters will eventually dry up and leave calluses on the fingertips. These calluses will protect the fingertips from the pain of playing, for a little bit.

Eventually, the pain builds up again, until the calluses keep building up and you end up with the thick rough fingertips of a guitarist’s left (or fret) hand. And graduating to full chords, the entire 1st and 2nd fingers, which form bar chords across the strings, will also go through the process of pain, blisters and calluses. This process toughens up the guitarist’s fingertips, and makes it easy to press on the strings to produce the needed musical tone on the guitar.

The most effective way to strengthen the fingers and improve dexterity is to practice scales and chords on the guitar itself. Chords and scales will help the beginner become familiar with the different chord progressions and musical setup of the fretboard.

In other words, it will help the student master the instrument. Knowing and playing chords and scales will embed the musical secrets of the guitar to the player and make it simpler to read, learn and perform music, and to create or write your own music for the guitar. As an added bonus, all that practice will greatly improve the strength and agility of the fingers. With the dual advantage of musical training and strength and endurance improvement, a guitarist can develop the ability to perform several full pieces or songs in a long performance event.

However, there is a danger of over-training. Tendonitis is a common affliction of over-exercising and is widely prevalent in professional athletes and musicians alike. Tendonitis is caused by repetitive action of a limited set of muscles, causing inflammation and possible damage to tendons and joints. Because certain athletes and musicians tend to use a focused set of muscles in their activities, they share a certain propensity to this injury.

But this can be easily avoided. Many persons over-train when they choose to ignore pain during practice and instead continue to do their activity. This directly leads to tendonitis. For guitarists, once you feel pain on your wrist or the tender par of your hands, stop. You should incorporate 5-15 minutes of rest in between sets of scales or chord practices. Put the guitar down and shake your hand for a few seconds. If you are not tired but still feel pain, change the practice method: if you are doing scales, switch to slow strumming with full chords, instead. Changing the set of muscles you exert can help avoid injury and increase the strength of your fingers.

Finally, like an athlete, a guitarist should take care of his body with exercise. Following are two stretching exercises that will improve the flexibility and strength of your fingers:

1. Stand straight with your arms at your sides and hands facing forward. Stretch your fingers down and outward as far as you can and count to ten. Relax and rest for a few seconds and make three repetitions.

2. With the same posture, hold the four fingers of your left hand 9except the thumb) with your right and push them towards the back of the hand. Hold the stretch for ten seconds then relax, doing three repetitions.

Remember, strength and agility is achieved by practice, proper rest, and stretching exercises. Now play on!

There are few more enjoyable activities for a person than to interpret and create music by playing an instrument. And by far, the most popular instrument that people want to start to learn is the guitar. The guitar can be heard in practically any popular and rock music recordings, which almost all people are aware of. It is also an instrument that can be carried anywhere, and can be played for many kinds of music and songs. Whether you play the guitar with a band, a small instrumental group, or accompany yourself while singing, the instrument always delivers musical enjoyment.

After learning the rudimentary chords on the fretboard, the aspiring guitarist always moves to learning strumming so that he can carry a tune or song. Strumming is one of the most difficult parts of guitar playing for the beginner. Many people would still believe that the key to playing is mainly attributable to learning to keep the strumming hand comfortable, flexible and moving fluidly. However, how the fretboard hand is used is just as important in strumming.

Below is a very short lesson to illustrate and study different 1-bar strumming patterns that can be adapted and applied to songs that the beginning guitarist would like to play.

When playing the guitar in the example, or in any tune, for that matter, it is very important to remember these following reminders:

-Do not tighten the muscles of your strumming hand, keep it very loose;

-When strumming, always use an up and down motion, as one would do when shaking the hands, from the wrist up and down to loosen it up;

-When playing sheet or tablature music, and you encounter a muted chord (shown as notes or tabs with an “x” crossed over them), take the pressure off the strings that you are pressing, and strum the chord. You should hear just a deep scratch of the strings, with no notes ringing;

-If the chord includes open strings, you might have to block them out by very lightly pressing on them with your non-fretting fingers. Also, you can just take the side of your fretting hand and lay it lightly across all 6 strings, and strum the guitar.

-The muted chord is one of the most important aspects of strumming. In addition to stressing the rhythm of the song, the muted chord when strummed can aid a guitar player simulate a percussion instrument together with the regular guitar strumming.

First, let’s pick three simple chords that you can interchange for practice strumming. These three chords have a structural relationship to each other and can be usually found used together in one song. Simple songs, such as pop or folk songs, are examples of songs that use these major chords frequently. The E major chord can be played with the open 1st, 2nd and 6th strings. The 1st fret of the 3rd string and 2nd frets of the 4th and 5th strings are pressed to complete the chord. The A major chord is played with the 1st, 5th and 6th strings open. The 2nd frets of the 2nd, 3rd and 4th strings are pressed to complete the chord. The d major chord is played by the 1st 4 strings and the 4th string open. The 2nd fret of the 1st string, 3rd fret of the 2nd string and 2nd fret of the 3rd string are pressed to play the chord.

Prepare by trying to get familiar with fretting just one particular chord (for instance, the A major chord). Try practicing getting both strumming and resting hands in place for muted chords, and then comfortably switching them back into the next position to play a chord. By practicing a few times, you can do this faster with the fretboard hand. In no time you can alternate muted chords while continuously moving the strumming hand up and down at the same time. This will make your guitar strumming sound a lot better.

In the short sample below, the timing is in 4/4 measure, meaning there are 4 beats to a bar. Down arrows mean a down strumming stroke, up means and upstroke and an “x” denotes a muted chord. Start slowly and complete the bars, then work up to a faster tempo when you are comfortable. Try to change the patterns and chords to develop your own practice. Afterwards, apply this to chords and bars of a song you know, and your on your way to playing songs on the guitar. The pattern is: ? ? X ? ? ? X ?

In the next post, we’ll learn basic 4/4 rhythm strumming.