How To Play Guitar – Free Guitar Lessons

Did you know about the history of the acoustic guitar? This video demonstrates how it all began with the acoustic guitar. You might find it surprising, but it also contains a number of good resources and tips to find more information, including building your own acoustic guitar, if you choose.

Guitar Chords for Beginners – 3 String D, C and D7

Today’s beginner lesson is going to teach you three different chords. These chords are going to be played on the bottom three strings of your guitar, the G, B and high E strings, and two of them will only require you to use one finger on one fret.

These chords are the perfect beginner primer to full six string chords and will give you something to practice with besides single notes on a particular string. A note about the guitar TAB I’ve used below to explain the chords. The 0’s represent strings that are played open, numbers represent the fret number you play on that string and an X means you don’t play that string at all.

C Chord

E — 0 —
B — 1 —
G — 0 —
D — X —
A — X —
E — X —

To play the beginner three string C chord you use your first finger on the 1st fret of the B string and strum the bottom three strings, G, B & E.

G Chord

E — 3 —
B — 0 —
G — 0 —
D — X —
A — X —
E — X —

To play the G chord, like the C chord, you only require one finger. Use your third finger on the 3rd fret of the high E string and strum the bottom three strings.

D7 Chord

E — 1 —
B — 2 —
G — 1 —
D — X —
A — X —
E — X —

To play the D7 chord place your second finger on the 1st fret of the E string, your third finger on the 2nd fret of the B string and your first finger on the 1st fret of the G string.

So that’s it, your first three string chords. Try practicing these each day you pick up your gutiar and also try integrating switching between them while strumming. They sound nice together in any order and will help you get ready for more difficult chord switches and strumming patterns.

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Understanding how to tune and play your guitar by ear is a good skill for a beginner to have. You don’t always have access to an electric tuner and it can be time consuming. By understanding a couple of tricks on the guitar neck you can quickly learn to get all the strings on your guitar in tune in just a couple of minutes without the need of any electric tuner.

There are only two things you need to remember when learning to tune your guitar by ear.

The first is that any string on the guitar neck can be tuned to the string above it on the 5th fret with one exception.

The second thing to remember is that the exception occurs when trying to tune the B string, you must play the 4th fret on the G string above it rather then the 5th fret.

Example: Let’s say that your G string is sounding a bit out of tune. By playing the D string at the 5th fret you can compare that sound to the open G string. If the G string doesn’t sound the same you can adjust it higher or lower by turning the tuning peg until the notes match.

I’d suggest practicing this each time you sit down with your guitar. After a week or two you’ll find you can check all your strings very quickly and make any minor adjustments that are needed.

Below is a short guitar video that explains why the 5th fret on each string matches the note below it, and also walks you through an example tuning of all 5 strings on the guitar.

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Building a Solid Foundation

Knowing the notes on each guitar string is a foundational skill that all beginner guitar players should know. Since all chords and scales are made up of notes, understanding your way around the guitar neck is like the first building block you must learn. Learning how to play acoustic guitar will be so much simpler, along with how to play bass guitar, if you like that instrument as well. It really doesn’t matter.

In this post you’re going to learn how to find notes on each string. First we’ll talk about the spacing between notes, how to find the notes on the neck and then I’ll give you an example that ties it all together. If you want to learn how to play blues guitar, and how to play electric guitar - these tips will serve you well. In fact, they form the basis for learning how to play the guitar for you and your listeners.

Steps – Whole and Half

Thankfully there are only so many notes we have to be concerned with. For this exercise we’re only worried about those notes A through G not sharps or flats. The term step is used to describe the spacing between one note and the next. Steps can be a half or whole step and the space between different notes can vary.

On the guitar neck one half step is the equivalent of one fret. So a full step would be two frets. Knowing how frets relate to steps and then knowing how many steps are between each note makes it very easy to find notes on the guitar neck and not just memorize them.

Between most notes there is usually one whole step, or two frets. There are two exceptions, between the B and C notes there is one half step and between the E and F notes there is one half step. This means we only move up one fret to go from a B note to a C note or an E note to an F note.

Below is the explanation of the spacing between each of the 7 musical notes A through G in terms of steps and frets.

• A to B = Full Step or Two Frets
• B to C = Half step or One Fret
• C to D = Full Step or Two Frets
• D to E = Full Step or Two Frets
• E to F = Half Step or One Fret
• F to G = Full Step or Two Frets

Alright so all this is fine and dandy but how do we take this concept and move it to the actual guitar neck? Thankfully we can start with the name of each string, E, A, D, G, B and E. Each string denotes the note that is played when you strike it open, that is with no frets pressed down. So Let’s look at a simple example using the Low E string.

What comes after E? It’s F, this is one of the exceptions where only a half step exists. So moving up on fret or a half step gives us an F note on the 1st fret of the low E string..

After F comes G, that’s one full step so we move up two frets to the 3rd and that’s the G note.

One more, after the G we go back to the start for the A note and there is one full step here as well. So we slide up two more frets to the 5th fret where we play the A note.

You can use these same rules and system to start with any open string and move up the neck to determine what notes are where. It can seem tough at first but you’ll start to see the patterns and will slowly memorize certain note locations.

Take a few minutes to watch this training video below where the same concept is explained and an example given for the top 3 strings. After watching the video grab your guitar and give this exercise a try. It takes a little time to memorize the notes on each string but remember practice makes perfect!

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(Guitar Teacher Guest Post by Ian Frazer)

Trying to memorize where all the different major chords are on the neck can be quite a challenge. Think back to when you first learned all your open chords. There were a lot of em, plus all the minors, sustained and diminished chords. It’s a lot to keep in your head. Anything that can make it easier is worth while learning I figure, and that’s why I’m a fan of the CAGED guitar system.

The CAGED system basically gives you a short cut way to remember the different locations and forms of all the major chords at different locations on the neck.

The name CAGED is based on the chord shapes that are used to form the other major chords on the neck. So think about the shapes you make for a C major, A major, G major, E major and D major chord. Using these same shapes in barre chords reveals an easy to memorize pattern for locating 5 versions of all major chords A through G.

The video below is a quick walk through with an example showing you how you can make an E major chord using not just the E open shape but also on the 2nd fret with a D shape, 4th Fret with a C shape, 7th fret with an A shape and 9th fret with a G shape.

A great exercise after watching this video is for you to go grab your guitar and practice finding the variations of other chords on the neck using the CAGED system.

Eventually you’re going to want to try and memorize the locations and shapes for each of these chords but for now this is a just a great exercise to learn where else on the neck you can find for example an F major chord besides a Barre chord using an E shape at the first fret.

So watch the below video and take some time over the next week to play around with the CAGED system. It’s a fun and fast way to learn major chords in different positions on your guitar.

Here’s the video by Ian (thank you!):

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