66 Articles

Guitar is one of the most popular instruments for first-time learners, allowing players the flexibility to play various musical styles. But whether you aspire to play for fun or to live out your ambitions of taking the stage at Wembley, the end goal may seem like a distant dream when you strum your first chord. With what might seem like an endless list of notation marks, scales and chords to grasp, practice and commitment are essential. Luckily, this new edition of Guitar for Beginners is on hand to be your learning companion, guiding you through the basics and helping you lay firm foundations for future development. Our step-by-step tutorials are even accompanied by free online resources such as video tutorials and audio files to point you in the right direction…

19 min.

The ultimate guide to the guitar

So you’ve decided to make the leap and learn the guitar – that’s great news. The benefits of playing really are plentiful, from simply helping you to relax to actually writing your own songs, performing live in front of a crowd and forging a professional career as a guitarist. So whatever your reason for starting to learn the guitar, once you have mastered all of the basics, you will be able to hear the results for yourself and slowly develop your own individual playing style. There is far more to playing than simply picking up the instrument and blindly strumming the strings, though. As this feature will teach you, there are the various types of guitar to consider in determining the sound you want to achieve, eg do you learn…

3 min.

Restring your guitar

Give it a try Video file • Watch the step-by-step guide and follow along on your own guitar Restringing your guitar is an important part of any guitar owner’s relatively small maintenance schedule, and while it might seem a little daunting when you do it for the first time, the whole restringing process is actually a lot easier than you might think. How often you choose to restring your instrument really depends on a number of factors, such as how often you play, your playing style itself and the quality of strings on your instrument. Some guitarists will change their strings every week if they’re gigging regularly, others may leave it far longer if they’re only an occasional player. It’s not an exact science, but there are a few clues…

4 min.

Hold your guitar

Your posture while playing the guitar is vitally important because if you slouch or are generally seated badly, then you could easily pick up bad playing habits that could make it much harder to learn to play. When learning, the best position is to remain seated with a nice straight back, with your strumming hand resting over the sound hole or pickups and the thumb of your fretting hand pressed against the neck of your instrument so that your fingers have more flexibility to reach around and press down on the strings. As your confidence grows, however, you can play your instrument while standing up too. Many guitar players prefer to stand while performing but we recommend working your way up to it. And it’s not just deciding whether to…

4 min.

Hold your pick

Whether you’re a learner or a seasoned pro, you will undoubtedly benefit from using picks. Playing guitar with a pick (or plectrum) produces a brighter, more vibrant sound than using your fingers. A pick also provides a greater contrast in tone across different plucking locations. For example, the difference in sound between playing a string close to the bridge and near the neck is greater. Guitar picks can vary in thickness to accommodate different playing styles and types of strings. Thinner picks tend to offer a wider range of sounds, whereas thicker picks can produce a brighter tone. The thickness of the pick can also directly benefit you in achieving your desired sound – such as thinner picks for rock and metal and thicker picks for jazz and blues. Guitar…

4 min.

Strum your guitar

Give it a try Audio files • Listen to the audio guides and follow along on your guitar Give it a try Video file • Watch the step-by-step video guide and follow along on your guitar Strumming seems so simple, but there is an art to it. It’s not uncommon to sit down with a guitar for the first time and find it difficult to strum up and down the strings comfortably. Most beginners tighten up their wrist, almost raking the strings, making it impossible to get any type of natural flow. First and foremost, you need the right guitar pick. As we’re just starting out, a thin pick – around 0.73mm – is best. It will allow far more freedom when performing downstrokes and upstrokes, giving you much more…

3 min.

Warm up your hands

Warming up your hands before you begin playing your guitar is crucial, which is why you’ll see all the top pros do it. It brings a number of advantages, including helping to prevent RSI (repetitive strain injury), enabling you to move your hands and fingers more quickly and avoiding cramp while you’re playing. Getting your hands used to the feeling of the frets will also give you the advantage of muscle memory when it comes to learning complicated riffs. Basically, a five-minute warm-up before you get into the trickier pieces will help you get the most out of your playing session and make you a better guitar player in the long run. And that’s equally important whether you’re getting on stage to rock out to thousands of people or just…

5 min.

Notes, strings and frets

N otes form the tapestry of guitar playing. All music is made up of notes, and a note is just any pitch made by a musical instrument. Every note is symbolised by a letter, and the musical alphabet is made up of 12 notes: A, A#/B , B, C, C#/D , D, D#/E , E, F, F#/G , G, and G#/A – after which the sequence goes back to the beginning and starts at A again, only an octave higher. The fretboard of a guitar is laid out so that you can find the notes on the neck by fretting the strings, and the same notes can be found at multiple places along the neck. When learning where the notes on a guitar neck are located, it is useful to…

4 min.

Play basic guitar chords

Give it a try Audio files • Listen to the audio guides and follow along on your guitar Video file • Watch the step-by-step video guide and follow along on your guitar Further info Turn to page 152 for a list of the essential basic chords Guitar chords involve a collection of notes sounded together that are played on adjacent or separate strings, or all of the strings together. The guitar is a very versatile instrument for chording purposes, and there are five basic major chord patterns, which are C, A, G, E and D (known as the CAGED system). You may notice that there are some chords that appear to be missing, such as F and B (as well as the sharps and flats). Well, they aren’t here because…

3 min.

Basic chord progression

As you will discover throughout this book, there are loads of guitar chords. Some are complicated and somewhat fiddly to learn, while others are relatively easy. Some chords will force you to contort the fingers of your fretting hand into unnatural positions, while others require just one finger. A lot of chords take a long time to master, and others will take just a few minutes, but the important thing to remember is to take your time learning them and not try to rush yourself to learn them all at once because there are far too many for that. In this tutorial we’re going to teach you three basic chords – G major, C major and D major (commonly known simply as G, C and D). By mastering and using…

4 min.

Play barre chords

Give it a try Audio files • Listen to the audio guides and follow along on your guitar Video file • Watch the step-by-step video guide and follow along on your guitar P ut simply, barre chords hurt – at least they will while you’re learning to play them, because they require you to contort your fretting hand into all kinds of unnatural positions as you press down on multiple strings with one finger. There are two main categories of barre chords: those that use shapes from the family of open E chords (E major, E minor, E7 and so on) and those that use shapes from the family of open A chords. The E-shape barre chords are probably the most popular, mainly because they use all six strings (like…

4 min.

Barre chord tips

Give it a try Audio file • Listen to the audio guide and follow along on your guitar Nobody said that learning barre chords was going to be easy, right? Far from it, but as well as knowing the basic structures and hand positions that make up the chords, there are plenty of tricks you can implement to make playing them slightly less taxing. Most of these boil down to your playing posture and the way in which you are holding the guitar. While learning these complex chords, you needn’t worry about looking cool and adopting a rock ‘n’ roll stance – it’s far more important and practical to get your body trained and getting used to the position it needs to be in so that you can fret the…

3 min.

Finger pick

Give it a try Video file • Watch the step-by-step guide and follow along on your own guitar Finger picking is the alternative to using a plectrum (pick) to pluck the strings of your guitar. It means you can play more than one note at a time and create rhythmic and melodic patterns for chords. It is typical of classical, folk and country guitar playing, usually using an acoustic instrument. While you can learn to finger pick particular melodies and riffs, an ideal place to start is with a chord that you are already familiar with. Basic fingerpicking techniques can take the exact same chord patterns and replace the strumming with picking that draws out individual notes or groups of notes. This can add another dimension to the chord, enabling…

3 min.

Play hammer-ons and pull-offs

Give it a try Video file • Watch the step-by-step guide and follow along on your own guitar For a hammer-on (also known as an upward slur), a note is plucked and then a second note is sounded by slamming (or ‘hammering’) another finger onto the same string at a higher fret. For example, if you place your index finger onto the first string (E) at the fifth fret, pluck the string with your strumming hand and then ‘hammer’ your middle finger down onto the first string on the sixth fret, you will perform a hammer-on and, in the process, create a pleasing sound between the notes. A pull-off is essentially the opposite, so using the previous example, you will start with your index finger on the first string at…

3 min.

Practise string bending

Give it a try Video file • Watch the step-by-step guide and follow along on your own guitar String bending is a very basic blues and country technique that involves ‘bending’ or pushing the string over the fingerboard with your fretting fingers so that the string gets tighter and the pitch goes up. Bending the strings far enough to get the pitch to change can take quite a bit of effort, especially for a novice, so the key is to use three of the fingers on your fretting hand to manipulate the string – one (your ring finger) on the fret you intend to bend and then a further two (your middle and index fingers) on the frets next to it for added leverage. However, if you have a tremolo…

3 min.

Mute strings

Give it a try Video file • Watch the step-by-step guide and follow along on your own guitar String muting is a technique that is used to prevent certain strings from sounding while playing other strings. The reason why guitarists mute strings at times is because otherwise the vibrating strings will interfere with the music they’re making. For example, when playing licks, the bending and release of a higher string will cause the lower bass strings to vibrate, either because they’ve been accidentally hit or because they’ve simply vibrated when other strings have been hit. To effectively mute strings that you don’t want to be heard, there are numerous techniques available. For example, many players use the palm of their picking hand to mute the lower strings, which involves ‘karate…

3 min.

Learn to slide

Give it a try Audio files • Listen to the audio guides and follow along on your guitar Video file • Watch the step-by-step video guide and follow along on your guitar Sliding is a common technique used in many genres, enabling the guitarist to move between notes or power chords without lifting his or her hand from the guitar’s fretboard. All you need to do in order to execute a successful slide on your guitar is to play one note, then, without taking your fretting finger off the fretboard, slide it up to another fret. You won’t have to pick the second note if your slide was good. As its name suggests, the effect it produces is a sliding sound. This technique makes a much smoother sound than what…

3 min.

Use natural harmonics

Give it a try Audio files • Listen to the audio guides and follow along on your guitar Video file • Watch the step-by-step video guide and follow along on your guitar If you want to make your acoustic or electric guitar play a completely different sound, try using natural harmonics. The key to achieving a successful and effective natural harmonic is the positioning of your fretting finger. Rather than pushing your finger down on the string as you would when playing a regular note, you must only rest your finger on the top of the string without applying downward pressure. When played correctly, a natural harmonic, like an open string, can still be heard even when playing another note (as long as it’s on a different string). The great…

3 min.

Use a capo

A capo is the name for a small clamp that sits on the fretboard of your guitar, depressing all of the strings. It acts in the same way as a finger, taking the pitch higher. Each fret represents a semitone, so if you place a capo on the second fret, each string will sound a tone higher. With a capo, you can play songs in a different key without having to relearn them or know anything about the intricacies of key signatures. Simply clamp on your capo and away you go. This can be really useful if you’re adapting your piece to accompany other musicians, or if you want to sing along but the pitch of the music is too low or too high. They are useful for beginners, as…

4 min.

Use an amp

Give it a try Video file • Watch the step-by-step guide and follow along on your own guitar It’s easy to dismiss amplification when first starting to learn the guitar, putting all your faith in the make and type of instrument you buy instead. In reality, the two have to work in perfect harmony to achieve the sound you’re looking for. Beginners are best starting off with a ‘combo’, an amp that combines the head and amplification cabinet into one, making it both easier to setup, understand and carry around. It’s very likely that the first amp you purchase – assuming you don’t spend a tremendous amount of money – won’t achieve the tone you’re looking for, but the key is to experiment with settings such as bass, trebles and…

4 min.

Use effects

Give it a try Video file • Watch the step-by-step guide and follow along on your own guitar It’s widely assumed that an effects pedal can get any tone or sound you need. While they are certainly beneficial and essential if you are looking for something specific, it’s far more likely that any pedal will need to be used in conjunction with numerous other pieces of kit to be a true success. That doesn’t mean they can’t shape your education. Effects pedals are designed to boost certain tones or sound. The most common are distortion pedals, but effects such as chorus, delay and compression are also popular. Many, when they are first starting out, opt for multi-effects pedals that offer a wide range of options both to experiment with sounds…

17 min.

Get the right guitar sound

Guitars and amps have always come in a multitude of combinations and different guises. It’s easy to get a guitar and amplifier, but choosing the right combination for international stardom is not as simple as picking the first thing you see. There are myriad guitar manufacturers and a multitude of amp manufacturers. Rock ’n’ roll brought the guitar and amp to the fore, but amplified guitars had been around long before Elvis hit it big. The blues, jazz and classical guitar were all around before the electric guitar made its debut back in the early Thirties. All used a version of the acoustic guitar to create the distinct and different styles associated with each genre. The introduction of the electric guitar and amplification added a new dimension to the already…

3 min.

Play through a computer

Recording guitar can require a lot of equipment – often more than you think. In a recording or live environment, guitars being played on their own can sound lacklustre and dull, so many guitarists opt to change the overall tone and output sound of their guitars using a combination of pedals, amps and processing. Physically, that’s a lot of cables and hardware getting in the way. Once again, the computer comes to the rescue and presents a portable solution – AmpliTube. AmpliTube combines amps, guitar pedals and effects processing – all in one application available for Windows or Mac. For seasoned guitarists, it’s a welcome relief from lugging heavy equipment from gig to gig or studio to studio, but for newcomers, it’s a great opportunity to realise the potential of…

4 min.

Get to grips with recording

There are many reasons why people want to make recordings of themselves singing or playing a musical instrument. Some people like to use recording as a method of becoming a better musician by playing their recordings back to hear the mistakes they’re making, others to remember the songs that they’ve written. Whatever your recording goals or aspirations, we’re here to show you how to take your first steps (or strums) into the world of recording your own guitar playing. The great thing about technological developments is that there are a number of ways to record music using your Mac or even using your iPhone. Gone are the days of fumbling around in your bag for a notepad and pen to scribble down your musical ideas – just grab your iPhone…

6 min.

Record on a Mac

Want to hear yourself back or record one of your own creations? Look no further than your Mac computer. GarageBand is a music making and editing application that comes pre-installed on your Mac or MacBook. Whether you’re a seasoned musician or someone who just wants to have a go at making some noise, GarageBand is the perfect place to get creative. Technological developments have come a long way since the days of recording music to tape. Thanks to GarageBand, you no longer need a bank loan to be able to record your own song. You don’t even need any fancy external equipment – Macs and GarageBand enable you to plug in your guitar directly into the headphone port and start recording straight away GarageBand has the facilities to record any…

8 min.

Record on a PC

The path from guitar zero to guitar hero can be fraught with obstacles, but thanks to the PC and the right piece of software it can be a far smoother transition than expected. There is no need for the expensive studios or expert producers that come with a recording contract. All that is needed to record multilayered guitar tracks is a computer, a guitar and recording software such as Audacity. There are a host of software recording packages on the market, ranging from beginner to pro, costing nothing to thousands of pounds. A great option for beginners is Audacity, a powerful, free and open-source audio editor and recorder. The fact that Audacity is free makes it a great starting point for anyone who wants to start recording guitar tracks and…

3 min.

Record on a smartphone or tablet

Picture a recording studio. It’s big and expensive, isn’t it? Not any more. Thanks to Apple, you can carry a recording studio in your bag or even your pocket with GarageBand for iOS. Whether you’re an iPad or iPhone user, you can set about recording your very own hit songs with little equipment required. You don’t have to be a guitar maestro to use GarageBand for iOS – it’s designed with professionals and novices in mind, so don’t worry if you’ve not mastered Slash’s finger-licking playing style yet. GarageBand is a fantastic solution for anyone looking to record their music but with a limited budget. The app can yield professional-sounding results with a little bit of practice. For those used to playing in a professional recording studio, it’s a great…

9 min.

Improve your technique with apps

Taking that step and finally setting out to learn to play guitar is an exciting moment, and something that will quickly become more than a hobby. In that sense you feel the need to consume and learn as much as possible in order to speed up your progress. While there are plenty of textbooks and online guides to help you at times when you can’t play the guitar for various reasons, you also have another very powerful tool at your disposal in the form of your smartphone or tablet. Not only can these devices provide you with the necessary reading materials to help you in the early stages of learning to play, but their interactivity means you can physically practise even without an instrument in sight. The apps over the…

8 min.

Read guitar tabs

Give it a try Audio file • Listen to the audio guide and follow along on your guitar Guitar tablature (or ‘tab’ for short) is a system of notation that visually represents the strings and frets of the guitar fretboard. Each note is indicated by a number, which indicates the fret to play, placed on the appropriate string. A basic guitar tab consists of six lines running horizontally and these lines represent the six strings of your guitar, with the thinnest E string at the top and the thickest E string at the bottom. Numbers are then placed on these lines to represent finger positions on the guitar fretboard. So if you see the number ‘2’ positioned on the A string, then you would have to hold down the fifth…

4 min.

What is musical notation?

Musical notation is a way composers express to musicians how to play a piece of music through both pitch and rhythm. Music is written on a stave which consists of five lines. Notes can be placed either in the spaces or on the lines themselves, each representing one of the seven natural notes in music. Musical notes are separated by vertical lines called bar lines. Preceding the musical notes, you will usually find a clef and time signature, and sometimes you may see either a sharp or flat notation, representing a key signature within a particular piece. Above the stave you will almost always find a tempo marking, either through a number or an expressive term, which will indicate the speed of the piece. Underneath, a composer could add dynamic…

3 min.

Read musical notation

A musical note is represented by a type of dot on the musical stave. This dot can either be filled in or left with a gap in the middle. This will change the length of time that you play the note, for example, four crotchets would be played on the four beats of a bar. Most notes also contain a vertical line known as a stem. Again, this will help to determine how long you hold the note on for, however, the direction of the stem (pointing up or pointing down) makes no difference. Here are the different musical notes and how long they should be played for. You may initially have trouble distinguishing the notes from each other but after steady practise you’ll find yourself knowing your crotchets from…

4 min.

Understand time signatures

A time signature will always be found at the beginning of a piece of music, directly after the key signature. It is very important as it tells us exactly how to divide the beats of the bar, in turn making it so much easier to read a piece of music. There are two main types of time signature: simple time and compound time. Here’s a bit more about them… Simple time Simple time is a signature where the main beat is divided into two equal beats. For instance, in 44 time, the main beat is a crotchet/quarter note, and this can be divided in two quavers/eighth notes. The most common forms of simple time signature are 44 , 3 4, and 24 . Compound time Compound time, much like simple…

3 min.

Interpret key signatures

K ey signatures are shown at the beginning of a piece of music and are either a series of sharps or flats. You will see a key signature immediately after the clef in a piece of music, saving the composer from having to add them after each required note. Key signatures explain two things: firstly, the key the piece is in and, secondly, which of the notes you play as either sharps or flats. The order in which sharps and flats are placed in a key signature will always remain the same. There are two mnemonics we can use to help us remember these orders on a treble clef stave. For sharps we can use: So, how do we work out a major key from the key signature? If there…

3 min.

Music glossary

Give it a try Audio files • Listen to the audio guides and follow along on your guitar D uring the course of this rather detailed glossary, we will illustrate and explain a number of symbols and words that help us perform and understand a piece of music. We will also take this opportunity to have a little bit of a recap on just what we have learned in this section so far, as understanding music can be quite daunting. We will also introduce you to some more commonly used symbols that you are quite likely to encounter in a piece of music. You will find a brief description of each symbol and, in most cases, a diagram showing the character in question. As you familiarise yourself with these life…

2 min.

Introducing musical scales

Give it a try Audio files • Listen to the audio guides and follow along on your guitar S cales in music are a series of notes that are arranged into a specific sequence which can be either ascending or descending. They usually start and end on the same musically named note, separated by an octave (the distance between eight musical notes). Scales will follow a set pattern of either semitones (half-steps) or tones (whole steps). The three most common forms of scales are major (a happy sounding scale), minor (a sad sounding scale) and chromatic (a scale whose sound is ambiguous and is made up entirely of semitones). Learning scales on guitar is important for a number of reasons. It will enable you to learn your fretboard quickly, which…

2 min.

The major scale

Give it a try Audio file • Listen to the audio guide and follow along on your guitar The major scale is one of the most popular scale types. You might also see this referred to as the Ionian scale. This scale produces music that has an essentially ‘happy’ sound. It comprises a specific sequence of eight notes using tones (whole notes) and semitones (half notes). The major scale will always follow this sequence; from the example of the C major scale you can see the semitones will always fall between the third and fourth notes, and the seventh and eighth notes. Major scales can be used in a variety of different musical styles, including the ever-popular rock and pop categories. This page will show you exactly how to play…

2 min.

The minor scale

Give it a try Audio files • Listen to the audio guides and play along on your guitar There are three different types of minor scales which include the harmonic and melodic, but here we shall be looking at the natural minor scale, or as it can be referred to as the Aeolian Scale. Similar to the major scale, it is made from a series of semitones and tones, but you will see that the placement of these distances is noticeably different. The natural minor scale will always use the following pattern. This time you will see that the semitone falls between the second and third notes, and the fifth and sixth notes. Minor scales can be used in a variety of different musical styles but will create a completely…

2 min.

The major pentatonic scale

Give it a try Audio file • Listen to the audio guide and play along on your guitar The pentatonic scale, as the title would suggest, is a scale made up of five notes per octave instead of the usual seven as found in heptatonic scales (such as either the major or minor scale). These scales contain no semitones (half steps) and, as such, can be played in any order without clashing. At first look, the major pentatonic scale can look like an incomplete major scale. However, this scale is made up of the first five consecutive pitches from the circle of fifths (a musical idea of showing the relationship between the 12 notes of the chromatic scale and their key signatures). By rearranging the pitches to contain themselves within…

2 min.

The minor pentatonic scale

Give it a try Audio file • Listen to the audio guide and follow along on your guitar As mentioned in a previous section, minor scales can exist in various forms; however, the minor pentatonic scale is loosely based upon the natural minor scale. In the instance below, the root note of the minor pentatonic scale is A (the first note), with the rest of the scale being made up of the third, fourth, fifth and seventh notes of the A natural minor scale (ABCDEFG). Closely compare this minor pentatonic scale to the blues scale across the page and you will notice that they are extremely similar with the exception being the exclusion of the sharpened fourth (or flattened fifth) which in this instance would be an F# (or Gb).…

2 min.

The blues scale

Give it a try Audio file • Listen to the audio guide and follow along on your guitar This scale is a hexatonic scale (six note) made primarily of the minor pentatonic scale. The difference between the two scales is the use of blue notes, which are notes played at a slightly lower pitch, typically a semitone, than its major equivalent. Notice that the blue notes used in this example are the C (flattened third), D# (sharpened fourth/flattened fifth), and the G (flattened seventh). The blues scale is often used with the 12-bar blues chords sequence and blues music in general, although it can also be common in jazz music. It can also be heard in some conventional pop music. We will now show you how you can play the…

3 min.

Rock

Give it a try Audio files • Listen to the audio guides and play along on your guitar Out of every genre, rock may be the most difficult to define. Since its inception in the Forties, it’s a term used to describe anything from Elvis Presley to – in the modern day – the Foo Fighters. It’s a genre that has been heavily influenced by country music and blues. There are, as ever, multiple trends that tie it all together, the electric guitar being one of the many staples. Rock music is often centred around a group consisting of electric guitars, an electric bass guitar and a drum kit. Typically, songs follow a 4/4 time signature structured around the pattern of verse/chorus/repeat, but some sub-genres of rock do diversify the…

2 min.

Metal

Give it a try Audio files • Listen to the audio guides and play along on your guitar Metal has changed over the years. Brought to the forefront by bands like Black Sabbath and then hardened in the Eighties thanks to Metallica, Slayer, Megadeth and Anthrax, the genre is now more fractured than it has ever been. There’s black metal, death metal, doom metal, glam metal and many more metal sub-genres to listen to and be inspired by. A distinct sound has remained true throughout the years, however, namely a distorted quality backed up with long guitar solos and a thick, deep tone. At its core, the development of metal has come in how much bands have tried to push it to its limits. Sludge metal, for example, is almost…

2 min.

Punk

Give it a try Audio files • Listen to the audio guides and play along on your guitar Punk rock music developed during the mid-Seventies as bands like The Ramones (in the US) and the Sex Pistols (in the UK) captivated crowds with their short, energy-filled and often antiestablishment songs. Punk even became a cultural phenomenon in the UK. Many saw the punk movement as a response to the overblown ten-minute progressive-rock epics that were popular during that time. So instead of grandiose solos and multiple time-signature changes found in many prog songs, punk rock featured heavily distorted guitars, relatively low production values and simple power-chord structures. Inevitably, this sound evolved over time, and gave rise to numerous sub-genres such as faster and heavier hardcore punk in the early Eighties,…

3 min.

Indie

Give it a try Audio files • Listen to the audio guides and play along on your guitar Since its inception in the late-Eighties, indie rock has been a constant in our lives, emerging from both sides of the Atlantic and taking on various forms. Indie musics spans from early American alternative bands, such as R.E.M. and Dinosaur Jr to Britpop groups Blur and Oasis. More recently, indie music has spanned from the power chordloving ‘The’ bands of the early Noughties (think, The Kooks, The Fratellis and The Libertines) to more electronic-heavy bands of recent times, such as MGMT and Crystal Castles. Indie has undergone quite an evolution over the past 25 years. As such, the indie sound can be quite hard to pin down and define. One thing for…

2 min.

Folk

Give it a try Audio files • Listen to the audio guides and play along on your guitar Contemporary folk music is quite hard to define, but easy enough to identify by ear Although folk music in its purest form was around long before guitars as we know them even existed, the revival in the mid-20th Century is arguably what is associated with the term ‘folk rock’. In the latter part of this revival in the early Sixties, luminaries like Bob Dylan, Joan Baez and Simon & Garfunkel produced acoustic masterpieces that have transcended time. Although Dylan and Simon & Garfunkel would later incorporate electric elements into their acts (with a degree of controversy in Dylan’s case), they still retained a folk rock sound. A time of great upheaval, many…

2 min.

Country

Give it a try Audio files • Listen to the audio guides and play along on your guitar Country music has been around for almost a century now and it can trace its roots to American folk music and Western music, though there is a degree of influence from blues. During this time, the country genre has undergone many significant changes, but one instrument has always been at the heart of it: the guitar. Whether it’s acoustic like on Johnny Cash’s records, or the electric ‘twang’ that can be heard from Waylon Jennings, the guitar is surely the most important instrument in country music. Indeed, it produces the high-treble twang that many associate with the genre. Musically, it borrows from blues and folk, so time signatures and chord structures are…

3 min.

Blues

Give it a try Audio files • Listen to the audio guides and play along on your guitar As one of the most popular genres of all time, the evolution of blues music is steeped in history. The genre’s origins lie with African- American voices of the Deep South that began to emerge in the late-19th Century. Often reflecting social discord and a deep sadness and sometimes taking the form of a loose narrative, ‘the blues’ has come to connote that general melancholy feeling even outside this musical setting. Over the last century, the world has seen many influential blues guitarists, from the likes of Robert Johnson and BB King to Jimi Hendrix and Eric Clapton. The sound made famous by these artists is often characterised by a slow tempo…

2 min.

Jazz

Give it a try Audio files • Listen to the audio guides and play along on your guitar As it’s one of the most complex musical genres in the world, playing jazz is a real test of a guitarist’s ability. The genre makes use of syncopation, improvisation, polyrhythms and the swung note – all skills that can take years to acquire and perfect. Jazz is a genre that is difficult to play and it’s also difficult to define, too, since the term encompasses a range of music like bebop, ragtime and free jazz. Like the genre in general, jazz guitarists rarely conform to any musical templates or standards – any time signature or chord structure goes! Relatively simple chords like major sevenths (maj7) are very common, but other commonly used…

2 min.

Classical

Give it a try Audio files • Listen to the audio guides and play along on your guitar It may have never cracked the mainstream, but classical guitar music is incredibly popular with certain audiences, and is one of the most difficult genres to master. With its intricate finger-picking patterns and often complex arpeggios, classical guitar players require both hands to be at their best, and it’s certainly a genre that requires more than a fair bit of patience and practice. Classical duets and quartets are fairly common in this musical genre, but often the guitarists are soloists, so they need to be picking bass notes as well as a higher-pitched melody. This results in many interesting chord shapes occurring and finger patterns that are not seen in any other…

2 min.

Pop

Give it a try Audio files • Listen to the audio guides and play along on your guitar The guitar has been a staple part of popular music for many years now, from the rock and roll of Elvis Presley and The Beatles’ early catalogue to more modern acts like Maroon 5 and Pink. Although pop bands and musicians are gradually incorporating more and more synthesised and electronic instruments, the success of acts – like the latter two mentioned above – in this past decade proves that more traditional instruments still have a place in popular music. When it comes to playing pop, there are a couple of chord progressions that you can try out to get started. E, G, D, A is one of the simplest progressions, yet this…

7 min.

Your questions answered

Getting started The learning timetable I have no musical background and have recently considered picking up a guitar for the first time, so I was wondering how long it would take me to be able to play properly? That all depends on how you define ‘properly’. Some things can be learned quickly – such as the ability to strum along to simple songs – but the more complex stuff, such as crowd-pleasing solos, will take much longer. After picking up a guitar for the first time you will be aiming to play basic chords, not necessarily memorised but fretted and strummed, after about a week. The next two weeks will be spent mastering and memorising the basic chords to the point where you can play one or two songs without…

4 min.

Your guitar

Changing the strings How often should I change the strings of my guitar? I have heard conflicting answers but am unsure as the strings on my guitar have been on there for a couple of years at least, so how do I know if they need changing? Ultimately, your ears will tell you when they need replacing. Over time, dirt and oil from your hands will build up on your strings, causing them to become tarnished and start to sound dull and lifeless. Washing your hands prior to playing will help prolong the life of your strings, but other factors, such as the natural stretching of the string over time, will require you to change your strings regularly. You will know if your strings need changing if you have a…

6 min.

Techniques

“Your arm should swing up and down in a steady motion, never pausing” Improving your strumming My sense of rhythm is appalling and, as such, my basic strumming technique is all over the shop. Do you have any good tips or tricks for bringing new vibrancy to my strumming? One of the main ways to bring new life and energy to otherwise routine songs is using an interesting strumming pattern. To practise your strumming, form a G chord on your fretting hand and then strum down and up on the strings while counting out loud, “one and two and three and four” – the numbers being a downward stroke and the “and” being upward. This will help you keep to a steady time. Also it is wise not to strum…

4 min.

Reading music

Learning to read I am a complete musical novice who has just picked up a guitar and I was wondering if I should start learning how to read music to help improve my playing? While learning to read music will undoubtedly stand you in better stead moving forward and developing, it is by no means essential – some of the greatest guitarists of all time can’t read a note. That said, it’s really not hard, and by doing so you will be able to learn new songs and develop much quicker. For example, by reading music you aren’t just limiting yourself to guitar music, you can get some really good ideas and arrangements from being able to read piano music. One of the best things about music is the way…

4 min.

Practising

Practice makes perfect I don’t seem to be getting any better; how much time should I spend practising? The obvious answer is however much time you can spare, but we’d recommend at least half an hour a day to condition your fingers and make sure you don’t forget anything. If you know some chords then you already know enough to strum quite a few simple songs and play some simple riffs. You also know enough to start writing and playing some of your own songs, so there are plenty of avenues open to you. The important thing to remember is not to run before you can walk. Familiarise yourself with a few chord structures at a time and then work on making the transition between them sound as seamless as…

6 min.

Recording

Digital acoustic recording I love playing my classical guitar, and I want to record some tracks with it. However, I want to edit them using a computer and obviously I can’t plug the guitar into my machine directly because there are no pickups. How can I record acoustically on the computer? It really depends on your available budget. The cheapest option would be to buy a USB desktop microphone and plug it into your computer. Make sure you stick the microphone near the soundhole of the guitar (but not so close that your fingers get in the way and pollute your recording) and record what the microphone hears into your favourite audio editor, like Apple’s GarageBand or Audacity. A decent desktop microphone can be picked up for around £25/$39, or…

5 min.

Sharing

Feedback needed I’ve recorded a few basic riffs and played them to my friends. They’re really into them, but I want to get more feedback on them before I develop the pieces into a full song. What’s the best way that I can do this? The internet makes it relatively easy to obtain feedback on your work. You could upload the riff to a forum that specialises in the genre of music you play, but these are often frequented by advanced amateurs and professionals, so their advice may not be too helpful if you’re a beginner. A better bet would be to find beginner-focused websites and forums, as these will contain many like-minded individuals willing to help out and provide feedback. They’ll also be able to offer feedback on your…

5 min.

Glossary

A Acoustic (guitar) An acoustic guitar does not need to be amplified, on account of its hollow body. It produces a fuller sound than an electric and has heavier strings. (See page 15.) Amp An amp does exactly what you'd expect – it amplifies! It contains a preamp at the top with which you can alter the sound of your guitar. Amps are either combos – which is usually one speaker with a built-in preamp, or a stack, which is a cabinet of speakers with a separate preamp (or ‘head’) on top. (See page 60.) B C Capo A capo is a tool that is placed on the neck of the guitar on an individual fret. It changes the pitch and key of the guitar, and is handy for fitting…

1 min.

Major chords

Basic major chords are incredibly popular in Western guitar music, probably because many of them are easy to play and they give your Give it a try songs a happy feel. These chords contain the first, third and fifth notes in the corresponding major scale. It’s worth noting that the ‘major’ isn’t often referred to when you see these chords written down. Give it a try Audio files • Listen to the audio guides and follow along on your guitar Key 1 Index 2 Middle 3 Ring 4 Little X: Don’t strum this string…

1 min.

Minor chords

A basic minor chord will give you a much sadder sound than a major chord. This is because the third note in the major scale is ‘flattened’ in Give it a try pitch by one semitone. For example, ‘E’ is the third note in the C major scale (CDEFGAB), and this is flattened by a semitone to E to give a C minor chord its distinct melancholy sound. Give it a try Audio files • Listen to the audio guides and follow along on your guitar Key 1 Index 2 Middle 3 Ring 4 Little X: Don’t strum this string…

1 min.

Dominant seventh chords

The chords we have seen so far consist of the first, third and fifth notes of a scale, so the next step is the seventh. A dominant seventh Give it a try chord (shown simply as ‘7’) is formed with the first, third, fifth, and flattened seventh notes of a scale. ‘B’ is the seventh note in the C major scale (CDEFGAB), so C7 can contain C, E, G, and B . Give it a try Audio files • Listen to the audio guides and follow along on your guitar Key 1 Index 2 Middle 3 Ring 4 Little X: Don’t strum this string…

1 min.

Major seventh chords

Major seventh chords (maj7), are similar to dominant seventh chords, but they include the natural seventh note in the major scale, rather Give it a try than a flattened one. For example, Cmaj7 would feature C, E, G, and B, rather than the B from the dominant, as B is the seventh note in the C major scale. Using a major seventh chord will give your tunes a warm, happy feel. Give it a try Audio files • Listen to the audio guides and follow along on your guitar Key 1 Index 2 Middle 3 Ring 4 Little X: Don’t strum this string…

1 min.

Minor seventh chords

Minor seventh chords (m7) use the flattened seventh note seen in dominant seventh chords as well as a flattened third note found in Give it a try basic minor chords. So Cm7 would contain C, E , G, and B . E and B are the third and seventh notes respectively of the C major scale, and they are both flattened here to create the m7 chord. Give it a try Audio files • Listen to the audio guides and follow along on your guitar Key 1 Index 2 Middle 3 Ring 4 Little X: Don’t strum this string…

1 min.

Suspended chords

So far, all the chords we’ve looked at have featured the third note of their corresponding major or minor scale. Suspended chords (sus) Give it a try don’t, usually replacing it with either a second (sus2) or a fourth (sus4). So Csus4 would feature an F (the fourth note in the C major scale) instead of the E found in a major chord. Here’s a list of sus4 chords. Give it a try Audio files • Listen to the audio guides and follow along on your guitar Key 1 Index 2 Middle 3 Ring 4 Little X: Don’t strum this string…

2 min.

Main E-shape barre chords

Here are the E-shape family of barre chords. They all come from the open E chords (E major, E minor, E7 etc) and they are probably the Give it a try most popular of the barre chords, mainly because they use all six strings and therefore it’s easier to strum through them, as you don’t have to worry about avoiding any strings. These shapes can be used all the way up the fretboard. Give it a try Audio files • Listen to the audio guides and follow along on your guitar Key 1 Index 2 Middle 3 Ring 4 Little X: Don’t strum this string Major The lowest note names the chord, so it is important that you know the notes on the thick E string (start at the open…

2 min.

Main A-shape barre chords

Here’s the A-shape family of barre chords. They don’t sound quite as full as the E-shape chords as they only use five strings, the fifth string (A) carrying the root note. So don’t strum the sixth (E) string or the chord won’t sound as good. Playing one of these shapes with the seventh fret barred will give you the equivalent of an open E-shape chord, just an octave higher. Give it a try Audio files • Listen to the audio guides and follow along on your guitar Key 1 Index 2 Middle 3 Ring 4 Little X: Don’t strum this string Major This barre chord can be tricky as it is hard to get your three fretting fingers into the same increasingly narrow space in the same fret. However, you…

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