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8/3/2019 Guitar Lesson One
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Guitar Lesson One - Music
Music
This section of each lesson is entirely devoted to playing. Very little will be
provided as to the "why's and wherefore's" of what you will be doing. This will
be covered in future theory lessons.
At this point, I just want you to learn the material and try to sound "musical"
when playing it.
Anatomy of a chord diagram:
Below are 8 chords for you to learn. These 8 chords are often referred to as "the
cowboy chords". This is because they are easy to play while riding a horse
(hey...just foolin'). These chords are called "cowboy" chords because a billion
songs have been written using these few simple chords. Many of these tunes are
they type of song that you see somebody strumming while sitting around a
camp fire in those old "cowboy" movies. But don't let that fool you. These are
the "bread and butter chords" that EVERYBODY uses. If you don't know these
chords, you can't call yourself a guitar player.
8/3/2019 Guitar Lesson One
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The chords:
Here are MIDI examples of what each chord sounds like:
EMaj
AMaj
DMaj
GMaj
CMaj
Emin
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Amin
Dmin
The hardest part of playing chords is getting all of the notes in the chord to
ring. The culprit is most often the finger that is trying to play a note on an
adjacent string. That other finger will sometimes touch the string that won't ring
and be the cause of your problem. The trick is to use the tips of the fingers and
to make sure that each finger is touching only the string that it is holding a note
on.
Also, check to see that you are not playing any of the strings that do not have acircle.
Practice each chord in the same manner as demonstrated in the MIDI files. Pick
each string individually and then, strum the entire chord.
Once you can play each chord correctly, then it's time to practice changing
from one chord to another. The idea here is to change to another chord without
stopping. Pick any two of the chords and practice changing from one to the
other and then, back to the first. Try to play the chords in time with the
metronome MIDI. Strum once per click, four strums per chord. For now, justuse down strums and concentrate on switching to the next chord and staying in
time with the metronome.
Once you can go from any chord to any other chord and stay in time, try
stringing three or more chords together into CHORD PROGRESSIONS.
Here are just a few possibilities:
DMaj- CMaj- GMaj- DMaj
GMaj- CMaj- DMaj- GMaj
EMaj- DMaj- AMaj- CMaj
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AMaj- EMaj- GMaj- DMaj
Amin - Dmin - Emin - Amin
Amin - Dmin - GMaj - CMaj
Emin - Amin - DMaj - Emin
I'm sure you have noticed the Maj and min attached to each of the chord
names. We will learn what this means in a later lesson. For now, all you need to
keep in mind is that Maj chords sound bright and cheerful, while min chords
sound dark and moody.
These chord progressions may not sound like your rockin' out, but there's a lot
you can do with a few basic chords. If you add some rhythmic variation and a
lead lick or two, you'el be amazed.
You'el probably have the best luck if you practice these chords with a clean
sound on your amp with a bit of reverb. Once you get the chords down you can
experiment with some distortion, but these chords don't always sound so goodwith a lot of distortion until you learn a few right and left hand techniques.
When it comes to playing OPEN POSITION chords, I will usually use the
baseball bat hand position. This is so I can use my thumb over the top of the
neck to keep the E and A-strings from ringing on the chords that don't require
those strings.
Best of luck!
8/3/2019 Guitar Lesson One
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Hello there,
I am Chris Standring and I'd like to welcome you to this free guitar lesson, taken from my
hugely popular "Guitar Made Simple" home study CD ROM program. This specific lesson is acouple of chapters in, but if you are an absolute beginner you can still have some fun with this.
Take it nice and slow and in a short while you can be strumming a fun groovy rhythm! OK offwe go...
To get you strumming we are going to focus on "open" chords. These are all chords thatcontain open strings and are all played in first position (around the first fret). Some players
call these cowboy chords because all the country guitar players use them to write songs. Havea good look at these and see if you can finger them correctly. For now simply brush across the
strings and try to keep your fingers upright so all the sounds are audible. Focus on keeping
only the tips of your left hand fingers on the frets. Any time a finger falls flat, a dead string
sound will result. This of course will take a little practice. Pay special attention also to a stringwith an "X" above it. This means don't play that string. In the C major example, simply brushthe strings across from the 5th string (where your 3rd finger sits). Don't forget a "o" means
open string so be sure to let those ring through where needed..
(Click on images to hear audio examples)
fig 25
fig 26
fig 27
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fig 28
fig 29
fig 30
fig 31
fig 32
fig 33
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fig 34
fig 35
When you have gone through all these chords, go back over them again and again. When you
feel like you are making headway and really getting your fingers sitting upright on thefretboard, learn the names of the chords. Test yourself as it is very important that you
memorize the shapes of the chords when you see the chord names. Well, how about I test youright now:
So, without looking at the chord diagrams, how do you play the following chord shapes?
C major
D minor
E minor
A minor
G major
E major
A major
D major
D7
G7
C7
How did you do? Get them all in your head and we can learn to strum them. OK here we go...
All this and a whole lot more can be found in my ground breaking guitar course "Guitar Made
Simple". Why not check it out right now!
So let's get you strumming! For now we are going to do a simple strum with the right hand
with our fingers only. I.E.: no pick.
Let's take our C major chord that you just learned: (Click on the images to hear sound)
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fig 35a
I want you to extend your right hand and imagine you are going to shake someone's hand.Now close all your right hand fingers a little (not all the way) except your first (index). Keep
that one kind of pointing forward.
Brush your right hand downwards, across the strings using the back of your (closed) 2nd, 3rdand fourth fingers. You should be brushing the strings with your nails. Do this just once. Like
this:
Step 1: Downward strum
fig 36
OK now your right hand should be below the scratch plate of the guitar. Leave it there for a
second. Now brush back upwards using just your index finger. You should be brushing upusing the fleshy part of your index finger. Once you finish this movement, your hand positionshould be closer to your face.
Step 2: Upward strum
fig 37
OK. The next little movement is a "chop". Imagine you are brushing down again but as you go
to do this, make a percussive chop sound, kind of like deadening the strings. Don't alter yourright hand position as you do this. Don't splay your hand out, keep it in that original position,
index finger out and middle fingers closed in a little.
Step 3: Chop
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fig 38
The last movement is exactly the same as your second, simply brush upwards again using thefleshy part of your index finger.
Step 4: Upward strum
fig 39
Now we have to put it all together. Here are the movements to remember:
Down Up
Chop
Up
The trick is to get it to flow. Once you finish one movement you need to go straight into thenext. Here are some audio examples to listen to. The first is the sequence really slowly:
Let's take two chords that we know. G major and C major. Just to refresh your memory theylook like this:
fig 40
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fig 41
The first thing to do is to practice switching from chord to chord without strumming. We can
add the strumming in a short while. So for now, I want you to make a G major chord shapewith your left hand, keeping your fingers very upright so all the open strings sound. Now
change to the next chord C major. Try to form this next chord shape in mid air so to speak.Visualize the shape in your mind and form the chord shape before you place your fingers on
the fretboard. Does this make sense? In essence you are 'preparing' your fingers to play thechord. In other words, have your fingers sit in mid air over where your fingers are supposed to
be and then just drop your fingers onto the frets. Voila! This is the secret to great chordswitching. Finger preparation.
Now switch back to the chord of G major, doing exactly the same thing. Prepare your fingers
over the frets and then drop them down onto the G major chord shape. Practice doing this,switching back and forth until you feel comfortable. This will notcome immediately! If it does
you are an absolute genius! Have a little patience and get used to the movements.
Now we are going to learn to strum these two chords and switch from one to the other without
stopping our strum. But first, we need to understand the 'pulse' of the music we are about toplay.
Most pop music is in the the time of 4/4. This means that there are 4 beats to a bar. If you tap
your foot to a regular rhythm but place an emphasis on beat 1 (of four foot-tapping beats) youwill get a feel for this next exercise. So a bar (often called a measure) might look like this:
fig 42
If we put four bars in a row, it might look like this:
fig 43
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Now, remember our strumming rhythm? The four steps are:
Down
Up
Chop
Up
This strumming movement represents just half a bar. So if you completed this 4 stepmovement twice, you would have 1 bar of music. So you could think of it also like this:
Down.... Beat 1
Up
Chop.... Beat 2
Up
Down.... Beat 3
Up
Chop.... Beat 4
Up
So, for our next exercise we are going to strum a chord for 1 full bar and then change chordand strum that chord for one full bar. Like this:
fig 44
Here's a tip. If you mess up changing your left hand chord shapes, don't stop strumming with
your right hand. Just keep feeling the rhythm whatever happens with your left hand. Whenyou go to 'prepare' your fingers for the next chord, don't worry about strumming between
chord changes, it's all good. This is all part of the sound. Just do your best to get all yourfingers in place for beat one of each bar you play. It should sound like this:
LEAVING ON A JET PLANE
Words and Music by John Denver
G / / / C / / /
All my bags are packed, I'm ready to go
G / / / C / / /
I'm standing here outside your door
G / / / C / / / D ///////
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I hate to wake you up to say goodbye
G / / / C / / /
But the dawn is breakin' it's early morn
G / / / C / / /
The taxi's waitin' he's blowin' his horn
G / / / C / / / D ///////
Already I'm so lonesome I could die
Chorus:
G / / / C / / /
So kiss me and smile for me
G / / / C / / /
Tell me that you'll wait for me
G / / / C / / / D ///////
Hold me like you'll never let me go
G / / / C / / /
'Cause I'm leavin' on a jet plane
G / / / C / / /
Don't know when I'll be back again
G / / / C / / / D ///////Oh, babe, I hate to go....
Verse 2:
There's so many times I've let you down
So many times I've played around
I tell you now, they don't mean a thing
Every place I go, I'll think of you
Every song I sing, I'll sing for you
When I come back I'll bring your wedding ring
CHORUS
Verse 3:
Now the time has come to leave you
One more time, let me kiss you
Then close your eyes, I'll be on my way
Dream about the days to come
When I won't have to leave alone
About the times I won't have to say
CHORUS
end on G chord
Leaving on a Jet Plane- performed by John Denver
NOTES: when playing the G and C chord, strum them 4 times each, but whenplaying the D chord, strum it 8 times
MP3:iTunes download
A New Scale
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Names of Guitar Strings
Learning an E Minor Chord
Learning an A Minor Chord
Learning a D Minor Chord
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Learning to Strum
A guitarist with a good grasp of strumming can bring a two-chord song to life. In this first
lesson on strumming, we'll examine some of the basics of strumming the guitar, and learna widely used strumming pattern.
Grab your guitar, and, using your fretting hand, form a G major chord (review how to
play a Gmajor chord).
The pattern above is one bar long, and contains 8 strums. It might look confusing, so fornow pay attention to the arrows at the bottom. An arrow pointing down indicates a
downward strum. Similarly, an upwards arrow indicates that you should strum upwards.
Notice that the pattern starts with a downstroke, and ends with an upstroke. So, if youwere to play the pattern twice in a row, your hand wouldn't have to vary from it's
continual down-up motion.
Play the pattern, taking special care to keep keep the time between strums the same. After
you play the example, repeat it without any pause. Count out loud: 1 and 2 and 3 and 4and 1 and 2 and (etc.) Notice that on the "and" (referred to as the "offbeat") you are
always strumming upward. If you are having problems keeping a steady rhythm, try
playing along with an mp3 of the strumming pattern.
Make Sure:
if playing an acoustic guitar, you strum over the sound hole
all strings ring clearly Make sure the volume of your downstrums and upstrums are equal
Be careful not to strum too hard, as this produces an undesirable sound
Be careful not to strum too softly, as this will produce a "wimpy" sound. Yourpick should be striking the strings with a relatively firm, even stroke
Think of your elbow as being the top of a pendulum - your arm should swing up
and down from it in a steady motion, never pausing at any time.
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Most of the picking motion should come from a rotation of the wrist, rather than
from the forearm. Be sure not to keep your wrist stiff when playing.
racticing at least 15 minutes per day on the guitar is recommended. Playing every day,even for this small amount of time, will get you comfortable with the instrument, and
you'll be amazed at your progress. Here's a schedule to follow.
Make sure your guitar is in tune (how to tune)
Go over material from lesson one. Concentrate on thechromatic scale and majorchords.
Review the open string names.
Play the E phrygian scale several times. Play the scale forwards and backwards,
slowly, in an even tempo. Concentrate on accuracy! Spend at least five minutes on strumming. Try these patterns with different
chords. Try playing the strumming patterns with one chord, switching chords, and
playing the pattern again.
Play this week's minor chords. Say the name of the chord as you play it, to helpwith memorization. Practice switching from one minor chord to another, or from a
minor to a major chord.
Try playing some, or all of the songs listed. Review songs from lesson one.They
will certainly not sound very good at first. Try only to think of the songs as a way
in which to practice playing chords.
You can see that we are quickly building a large amount of material to practice. If youfind it impossible to practice the above in one sitting, try playing them over several days.
Be sure not to ignore any of the items on the list, even if they're not a ton of fun to
practice.
You will undoubtedly sound pretty rough when you first start playing this new material.Everyone does... that is why we practice. If you can't seem to get something right even
after a lot of practice, shrug your shoulders, and leave it for tomorrow.
We're done lesson two! When you're ready, move on to lesson three, we'll discuss even
more about chords, more strumming patterns, the basics of reading music, plus new songsand more. Hope you're having fun!
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