Acoustic Guitar Lesson - Useful Tips for the Beginner

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Are you just embarking on your journey to learn to play guitar? Congratulations! You are on your way to something fantastic - taking acoustic guitar lessons, and being able to play the guitar is a great thing. In this article I have a few tips, that may help you to make some good decisions.

Chords

In my opinion, to make you feel that your making progress real fast, you should start with learning the basic open chords. Forget about reading notes, playing scales and all that music theory. You are here to play guitar, right? Who cares if you do not know every single note that builds a chord?

Most people tell you to learn A, E and D first of all. It's not a bad advice, you need to know them and they are among the easiest chords to play. But let me say that there are four chords that gives you a head start, when it comes to playing songs. They are G, Em, C and D.

Thousands and thousands of songs use those four chords only. Just by learning those 4 simple open chords, you can live for a hundred years without having to play the same song twice. Here is how to play them:

The numbers indicate on which fret you put your fingers.

The G chord:

E - 3
B - - (3)
G - - -
D - - -
A - 2 -
E - 3

I play the G chord with an additional finger on 3rd fret on the B string. It's optional, normally you do not play it that way. But I personally think it sounds good.

E Minor (Em) chord:

E - - -
B - - -
G - - -
D-2 -
A - 2 -
E - - -

The C chord. The "x" means "do not play that string".

E - - -
B 1 - -
G - - -
D-2 -
A - 3
Ex- (3)

Sometimes, to add some depth to the C chord, I press the low E string on the third fret. Very much optional.

The D chord.

E-2 -
B - - 3
G - 2 -
D - - -
Ax- - -
Ex- - -

You will not need that much practice to play any of these chords as they are fairly easy to play. And the chord progress G-Em-CD is found in so many song you hardly will believe it.

The Use of Plectrums (picks).

I remember when I was a real noob at guitar playing. I was fifteen, and taking an acoustic guitar lesson was totally out of the question. I only had one plectrum, a very thin red, almost transparent, sharkfin pick. And since it was a guitar with steel strings it made a floppy sound. So if you're playing on a steelstring I recommend that you use a pick of medium thickness.

When you get better at guitar playing, this will not be so much of an issue. By then, it will be a personal preference. While you're learning, though, I think it's a good idea.

Strings

I would suggest that, in the beginning, you use lighter strings, especially if you're playing on a steel string guitar. If you use a lighter gauge like 0.10 or maybe 0.11, you'll find that the strings are easier to fret.

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