Playing Guitar: A Beginner’s Guide

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.

 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.

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.