EPT
Introduction
*Editor's note* This article is for those with no background in guitar, thanks!
Hello, my name is Teoita and I have been playing guitar for nine years now, ever since I was in junior high school. I learned through a couple of private teachers and eventually on my own. I was part of several small time high school and college bands as well as my high school's guitar ensemble, and currently I am playing lead guitar in two bands with a few friends. I have also a few private lessons for beginners, but nothing too serious. Music's always been a part of my life, as one of the first memories I have is listening to Led Zeppelin with my parents when I was a little kid, so getting to play those songs is a dream come true for me. To me, playing guitar is pure passion. It helps me when I am going trough tough times, and it's also a great way to spend my free time when I need to relax. The relationship many musicians have with their music and instruments is quite hard to describe to anyone that doesn't play, but hopefully these articles will help you start doing what I love doing so much, and maybe share that passion with other people.
When I read about TL KnowHow I immediately thought "playing guitar definitely fits, I can finally do something for the TL community!" So here it is. In these articles I will try to cover as much as I can of learning guitar from the very basics, with a bit of music theory to a few simple exercises; songs and licks you can do on your way to becoming the next Jimmy Page. I will focus mostly on electric guitar because that's what I play, but the basics are the same regardless of style. Eventually, the techniques you use are a bit different; I will go over them in a future article.
Keep in mind: learning any kind of music is very, very much about practice more than anything else. I learned what I know by playing at least one hour almost every day for nine years straight: going through scales, exercises, riffs, and chords. There are lots of fantastic resources out there to learn music, but if you don't have time to practice you will not learn how to play. To use a StarCraft metaphor, you need to get your mechanics in place first, and that can take a lot of time. If you have 30 apm you will never be able to beat anyone on iCCup and to get up to a decent level; all you can do is just play a lot of games.
Buying your first guitar
Before you start playing guitar, you have to buy one of course. The most important question is whether you want an electric, classical, or acoustic guitar. The main difference between acoustic and classical is simply that the former has metal strings like an electric, and the latter has nylon strings. All of them are fine to start with, so it really comes down to what you want to play. I personally first started with a classical guitar, and then moved on to acoustic and electric. In general, nylon strings are a bit softer to play, so they are a bit easier for beginners, but a low end electric or acoustic will also do nicely. [e/n: I started with a Yamaha Pacifica 112V, it's very good]
What I did when I got my first guitars was simply go to a guitar shop and talk to the shop assistants. They will be more than happy to suggest a good beginner instrument. A decent price for a beginner is, I would say, around 150-200 euros for a classical, and around 250 for an electrical. If you pay anything less you are probably buying a really, really bad guitar, so please don't take one of those 100 dollars for everything deals in supermarkets, they are really really terrible in my experience. [e/n: and my experience as well] Even then with that amount of money, you aren't going to get anything absolutely amazing, but for now you don't need it. If you can't hit the notes nicely, the fact that you have amazing sustain because you are playing a super expensive Gibson Custom is really irrelevant. I have seen people spend a couple thousand euros on amazing guitars when they first started, only to lose interest a very short while later, which is just a huge waste.
If you are in the US, I recommend finding the closest Guitar Center to buy a guitar. They usually have a huge selection, and you can try however many guitars you want to before deciding; the prices are also quite a bit lower than in many other places since they have deals with brands such as Gibson and Epiphone; I saved about 300 euros by buying my latest guitar over there. In general though, since you aren't looking for any amazing or specific instrument, most shops will have something nice for you. A good criteria to use when picking your first is simply to go by looks, since the sound will not be that amazing anyway.
[e/n: for electrics you need an amp; $80 for a basic amp is fine]
Music Basics and The Fretboard
A guitar's neck (where you press the strings down with your left hand) is divided in frets, each corresponding to a different note. "Western" music is based on 12 different notes. Each fret going closer to a guitar's bridge (where your right hand is) is one note or semitone higher. After 12 notes, you get the same note again, only at a higher pitch; the technical term is one octave higher. The notes are: A, A#/Bb, B, C, C#/Db, D, D#/Eb , E, F, F#/Gb, G, G#/Ab. Standard musical notation applies: # is sharp and b is flat. [e/n: you may also note there is no E#/Fb, but you can safely ignore that for now]
Each of the six strings of a guitar corresponds to a different note. Starting from the largest to the smallest, these notes are normally E, A, D, G, B, E. A good way to represent notes played on a guitar is through the tablature notation. I personally think tablature notation is better for guitar than standard notation (which is what is used for basically every other instrument) because it's far more intuitive, especially for a beginner. Honestly I can hardly read standard notation, but I have never felt the need to get better at it in nine years of playing guitar. This is what tab notation looks like:
|--------------------------------------------| e
|--------------------------------------------| B
|--------------------------------------------| G
|--------------------------------------------| D
|--------------------------------------------| A
|--------------------------------------------| E
Each of the horizontal lines represents a string; the bottom E is the largest string (and the closest to you when you are holding a guitar), with the lowest sound, while the top e is the smallest string, with the highest sound. A note is represented by the fret you are supposed to put your finger on to play it. For example, if I wanted to just play all the strings together, without any fingers on the fretboard, in tab notation I would write this:
|-----0--------------------------------------|
|-----0--------------------------------------|
|-----0--------------------------------------|
|-----0--------------------------------------|
|-----0--------------------------------------|
|-----0--------------------------------------|
Playing just the low E string on the 5th fret looks like this:
|--------------------------------------------|
|--------------------------------------------|
|--------------------------------------------|
|--------------------------------------------|
|--------------------------------------------|
|---5----------------------------------------|
Note that by low string I mean the string with the lowest sound, which is always the highest (closest to you) on the neck.
Because of how the notes of the open strings are, you can get the same exact note with different strings. The low E on the 5th fret is an A, the A on the 5th fret is a D, which in turn on the 5th fret is a G. Playing the G string on the 4th fret is a B, which on the 5th fret is again an E note. This is how instruments are tuned: you make sure one of your strings (generally the A) sounds exactly like someone else's guitar/violin/piano, or even use a diapason. Once you have done that, you make sure that all the other strings are in tune with each other by following the rules above. At the start it can be really hard to catch the subtle differences by year, but it's worth learning. Nowadays electronic tuners that tell you how much higher or lower from it's supposed sound a string is when you play it, but you won't always have one so developing a good ear is a very useful talent toi have.
|---------------------------0------------------| e
|---------------------0----5-------------------| B
|---------------0----4-------------------------| G
|---------0----5-------------------------------| D
|---0----5-------------------------------------| A
|---5------------------------------------------| E
These notes are all the same.
This is what a guitar riff looks like in a tab:
|---------------------------------------------------------------------------|| e
|---------------------------------------------------------------------------|| B
|---------------------------------------------------------------------------|| G
|---7--5-------5-------------------7--5-----------5-------------------5~~~--|| D
|----------6-7----------5h7p5----------------6-7---------5h7p5--------------|| A
|-0--0--0--------0-6-7--------7-0-0---0--0-------0-6-7--------7-------------|| E
A Simple Exercise: The Chromatic Scale
The very first exercise every guitar player learns, and the first everyone uses to warm up your hands before playing, is the chromatic scale. As the name suggests, it consists of simply playing every single note on the fretboard without any rule, or close to it. Musically it mostly sounds like crap, but it's a very good exercise and it is a good start to get comfortable on the fretboard.
Here is what you do: sit down in a comfortable position, staying straight up. Keep your guitar on your right thigh (assuming you are right handed). Your left hand should go on the fretboard; your index on the first fret, your middle finger on the second fret, and so on. Your thumb should be right in front of your middle finger, behind the second fret. In your right hand, you should have a guitar pick. Try playing this pattern:
|--------------------------------------------|
|--------------------------------------------|
|--------------------------------------------|
|--------------------------------------------|
|--------------------------------------------|
|---1-2-3-4-3-2-1-2-3-4----------------------|
Remember that you should be using your finger on the first fret, your middle finger on the second fret, etc. Ideally your wrist should not be moving much if at all. At first it will feel quite hard as it's tough to reach far away notes, especially with your pinky, but that will come with exercise.
TossGirl once said in an interview that she can easily reach Shift+9 on a keyboard with her left hand without any trouble because she plays the piano, and playing the guitar requires similar dexterity. As I said before, it comes down to exercise. A really, really important thing to note is that your pick should be going downwards on the first note, upwards on the second note you play, and so on. This technique is known as alternate picking, and it's really all about playing as efficiently as possible. If you only move your pick downwards to pick the strings, you will have to move your right hand twice as fast as you would if you were using alternate picking. Once you have done it a few times, play the same thing with a metronome at a slow speed, say 60 beats per minute (or bpm), which means one note per second. Try to stay on time with the metronome, and keep going up and down with the pick. When you can nail the scale at 60 bpm, try to go up to 65 or 70. Gradually, your fingers will get stronger and faster.
When playing notes on a guitar, your fingers should be slightly bent, so that when they touch a string they are almost perpendicular to the neck of the guitar. You want to hit the string with the tip of your finger, a few millimiters below your nail. At first it will hurt as hell, especially if you play a lot, because your skin is really soft and sensitive in that spot, but with practice the skin will harden and eventually you won't feel any pain. [e/n: trim your fingernails on your fretting hand, it will make your life easier]
When you are comfortable playing on the E string add more strings and use the whole fretboard, like this:
|----------------------------------------------------1-2-3-4-|
|-------------------------------------------1-2-3-4----------|
|---------------------------------1-2-3-4--------------------|
|-----------------------1-2-3-4------------------------------|
|-------------1-2-3-4----------------------------------------|
|---1-2-3-4--------------------------------------------------|
|---4-3-2-1--------------------------------------------------|
|------------4-3-2-1-----------------------------------------|
|---------------------4-3-2-1--------------------------------|
|------------------------------4-3-2-1-----------------------|
|---------------------------------------4-3-2-1--------------|
|------------------------------------------------4-3-2-1-----|
You can also do stuff like move up one fret with every finger after you have done that scale, going 2-3-4-5, or change in which order you play the notes, say doing 3-2-4-1 instead. There's a lot of possibilities, and each will help in building strength and agility in your fingers. It's important that you try to play in time with a metronome and that try to be as precise as possible. Don't bother with speed as that will come with time and practice, be patient, and play as precisely as possible. Only set the metronome to a faster speed if you can absolutely nail a scale.
The chromatic scale is boring as hell and it sounds really bad, but it's a very useful and important exercise. Whenever I have to warm up for a concert, I play it along with a couple of other scales for half an hour straight, because it's that good of a tool for a musician at every level.
Chords
When playing guitar (or other instruments like piano), rather than individual notes it's really common to play chords, which is essentially groups of notes that sound good together. Each chord has the name of its main note, plus some additional information that may be insanely complex or extremely simple. Overall, however, there are four kinds of chords: major, minor, augmented, and diminished. Major chords only have the name of their main note (ex, F means F major), minor chords have an m next to the main note (Am for example), augmented and diminished chords are written with aug or dim after the main note (Gaug, Edim). I will explain exactly how chords are created in a future article about music theory, but for now I am going to just list a few easy and common chord shapes. It's really important to know all these shapes, and to be able to switch from one to the other quickl. This also one of the things beginners have the most trouble with because it takes a good amount of dexterity and practice to get it right, and to do it at a good speed.
A Am B Bm C Cm D Dm E Em F Fm G Gm
|--------0----2----2----0----3----2----1----0----0----1----1----3----3---|| e
|---2----1----4----3----1----4----3----3----0----0----1----1----0----3---|| B
|---2----2----4----4----0----5----2----2----1----0----2----1----0----3---|| G
|---2----2----4----4----2----5----0----0----2----2----3----3----0----5---|| D
|---0----0--------------3--------------0----2----2--------------2--------|| A
|-------------------------------------------0----0--------------3--------|| E
Notice how the shape of the A chord is extremely similar to the B chord, only a B has every single note moved two frets higher. That is the beauty of a guitar: there are very few basic shapes that are needed, and then any other scale or chord can be obtained just by moving the notes up or down.
When it comes to chords, this does come at a price. The A and E chords are extremely easy to play as you only need three fingers on the fretboard, but when you move up to play an F or B how do you press all the six strings at the same time? The answer is that you have to press all the six strings, at the same time, with just your index finger.
What you do is place your index finger parallel to the fretboard, so that you can cover all six strings at the same time with the full surface of the finger, while playing the remaining notes with your remaining three fingers. This is very, very hard at the start as your index finger will probably not be strong enough. I remember holding the edge of my desk in high school between my index and thumb to build up as much strength on them as I could. This type of chord is known as a barre chord.
A nice way to avoid having to do barre chords is just playing part of the notes of the chord, skipping a few strings. For example, when I couldn't do a full barre I would play an F chord in these two ways (the second one isn't quite correct of course but whatever it sounds decent):
|-------------0----------------|| e
|-------------1----------------|| B
|----2--------2----------------|| G
|----3--------3----------------|| D
|----3-------------------------|| A
|----1-------------------------|| E
[e/n: but you really should practice whole chords]
A good exercise to start is to have a metronome going at a reasonably slow speed, say 60 bpm, and to try and switch between different chord shapes while trying to stay in time with it. For example, you could strum the G chord twice, switch to a D chord for 2 more strums, going into a C chord for 4 strums. If you can do that, you can play Knocking on Heaven's Door, congratulations!
A very common shape that's used mostly when playing with an electric guitar with some distortion is known as a power chord. Power chords look like these three shapes:
C G F
|------------------------------|| e
|-------------5----------------|| B
|----5--------4----------------|| G
|----5---5----3----------------|| D
|----3---5---------------------|| A
|--------3---------------------|| E
Note that only three notes are played. The reason is, when you play with distortion (especially heavy distortion), if you play all the strings together it will sound bad, like the notes are all over the place, while only playing 2-3 strings each time has a more "compact" sound. Sometimes power chords are played with just two notes (the two lowest strings that make the chord shapes above) and it sounds just as good.
The beauty of power chords is that they are a very, very easy shape to learn, and once you know the shape you can move it all over the neck and produce one chord for each of the twelve notes. Of course since you are only playing 2 or 3 notes, the variety of sounds you can get is quite limited, but often times it's ok. Rock, metal, and to a lesser extent blues, rely heavily on power chords; if you can get those three shapes down well enough, you can play almost any punk rock song ever written.
When you first start playing chords, you should take it really, really slow with your right hand. Don't try to be fancy and do crazy rythms, because as soon as your left hand has to change chord it will be too slow and it won't be able to follow. Instead, just strum downwards a few times, at the exact same slow speed of the metronome, then change chord shape. What is really important is that you learn to switch the shape fast enough that you have more freedom with your right hand; after that you can try going faster, trying to follow a song you are listening, stuff like that.
The Major Scale
The first actual music scale one learns after the chromatic scale is known as the Major scale. It is built this way: take your first note, as a C. The remaining notes in the scale are obtained by moving up a full tone after the C, then another full tone, then moving up half a tone once, then a full tone three more times, then a half step will take you back to a C note. For C this is how it works:
C-D-E-F-G-A-B-C.
Remember that a half step or half tone is a fret on a guitar, so a full tone corresponds to two frets. In short, the major scale consists of root-full-full-half-full-full-full-half. This is what a C scale might look like on a tab:
|--------------------------------------------|
|--------------------------------------------|
|----------------------2--4--5---------------|
|-----------2--3--5--------------------------|
|----3--5------------------------------------|
|--------------------------------------------|
Playing through this simple pattern is another nice starter exercise. As with the chromatic scale, go up and down that pattern until you are comfortable at a certain speed, then set the metronome a bit higher, and start over. You can also play a complete pattern for the scale you are using, going up and down all six strings. The different patterns for the C major scale are as follows:
+ Show Spoiler +
|---------------------------------------------------------10-12-13-------|
|---------------------------------------------10-12-13-------------------|
|---------------------------------9-10-12--------------------------------|
|----------------------9-10-12-------------------------------------------|
|-----------8-10-12------------------------------------------------------|
|-8-10-12----------------------------------------------------------------|
|---------------------------------------------------------8-10-12--------|
|---------------------------------------------8-10-12--------------------|
|---------------------------------7-9-10---------------------------------|
|----------------------7-9-10--------------------------------------------|
|-----------7-8-10-------------------------------------------------------|
|-7-8-10-----------------------------------------------------------------|
|---------------------------------------------------------6-8-10--------|
|---------------------------------------------6-8-10--------------------|
|---------------------------------5-7-9---------------------------------|
|----------------------5-7-9--------------------------------------------|
|-----------5-7-8-------------------------------------------------------|
|-5-7-8-----------------------------------------------------------------|
|---------------------------------------------------------5-7-8---------|
|---------------------------------------------5-6-8---------------------|
|---------------------------------4-5-7---------------------------------|
|----------------------3-5-7--------------------------------------------|
|-----------3-5-7-------------------------------------------------------|
|-3-5-7-----------------------------------------------------------------|
|---------------------------------------------------------3-5-7---------|
|-------------------------------------------3-5-6-----------------------|
|---------------------------------2-4-5---------------------------------|
|----------------------2-3-5--------------------------------------------|
|-----------2-3-5-------------------------------------------------------|
|-1-3-5-----------------------------------------------------------------|
|------------------------------------------------------------------12-13-15--------|
|------------------------------------------------------12-13-15--------------------|
|-----------------------------------------10-12-14---------------------------------|
|----------------------------10-12-14----------------------------------------------|
|---------------10-12-14-----------------------------------------------------------|
|-10-12-13-------------------------------------------------------------------------|
|------------------------------------------------------------------13-15-17--------|
|------------------------------------------------------13-15-17--------------------|
|-----------------------------------------12-14-16---------------------------------|
|----------------------------12-14-15----------------------------------------------|
|---------------12-14-15-----------------------------------------------------------|
|-12-13-15-------------------------------------------------------------------------|
These patterns are harder to do because you have to reach far away with your pinky. What I usually do, if, for example I'm going to go 8-10-12 on a string, is hit 8 with my index and 10 with my middle finger instead of my ring finger. This kind of pushes my pinky forward, so I have an easier time reaching the 12th fret with it.
As with everything on a guitar fret, these patterns can be easily moved up and down the fretboard. If you wanted to play an A scale for example, you would just move every note down three frets. With most intruments, every time you play a different scale you have to remember how every note changes. With guitar you just learn simple patterns and move them up and down the neck as necessary.
Songs to Start With
Scales and random chords are boring as hell after a while, and it's nice to actually be able to play music. When you first start there aren't a whole lot of songs you will be able to play, but here is list of what is a good beginner song with easy chords. No soloing for now of course.
Generally, any punk rock song is extremely easy to play. From the Ramones and Sex Pistols to Green Day to (to a lesser extent) the Offspring, all you have to do be able to do is switch between power chords to play these bands' music. The first songs from these bands I learned when I was a kid are:
Blitzkrieg Bop – The Ramones
Anarchy in the UK – Sex Pistols
London Calling – The Clash
Poprocks and Coke – Green Day
Other songs that are reasonably easy and that I started with are:
Knocking on Heaven's Door – Bob Dylan (or Guns and Roses I guess)
Smells Like Teen Spirit – Nirvana
Pennyroyal Tea – Nirvana
It's a Long Way to the Top – AC/DC
[e/n: I like to use Wonderwall to practice chords]
I will update with more songs if anyone has any suggestions, right now I can't think of many more.
Resources
I have always learned through private lessons so I never used a book, I am afraid I don't have any suggestions on this. If anyone does, I will update the article.
The best website by far for guitar-related resources is Ultimate-Guitar.com. Here you will find anything from guitar tabs to lessons to reviews to interviews of musicians. It's really amazing.
It might be useful to have a program that allows you to view tabs in a nice and organized way; the two most popular are Guitar Pro (http://www.guitar-pro.com) and Power Tab (http://www.power-tab.net/). I have Guitar Pro and it's really really useful, especially because it shows tablatures in a really clear way, and it can play through a tab so you can hear what the song sounds like. I would even buy the full version if you are serious about playing guitar; 50 euros after spending 200 or 300 on a guitar still is reasonable considering.
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