Collegiate Times

So you want to know how to play guitar? But you don?t want to be one of those wannabes who only knows three chords and sits around campus trying to pick up chicks. Well then you are in luck because I have a beginner?s lesson that you can develop to take your playing to the next level. I have played guitar since 7th grade, so I hope I?m not too much of a slouch, and I think I will be able to help you out. The theme of this entire lesson is practice, practice, practice, and when your hands are aching and your fingers are bleeding, practice some more. The main concepts to remember are chords, scales, ?feel,? your ?musical ear,? and rhythm.

Ok let?s begin. So you?ve got your guitar, your strings, etc., but you know little or nothing about them. Well I could write an entire article on how to change your strings properly, so we?re going to skip that part and just go right to playing. The only two things you need to start out are a scale book and a quality chord dictionary. These cheap little booklets have almost everything you need to know. However, you should understand that guitar skill does not come solely from knowing a hundred scales or a thousand chords, it comes from imagination and ?feel;? you have to have a certain amount of ?feel? in your playing. Do not get sucked too deep into chord dictionaries and scales. Instead try learning guitar the way I started out.

When I started out I only had those two little helpful books, I would spend hours just getting the fingering down for a couple chords, the bread and butter, A, D and G. Then I would practice strumming the chords to make sure I was getting a clear sound. Then I would practice transitioning between chords. I also started to learn the scale that every guitar player starts out learning, the minor pentatonic. Scales have five positions that connect them up the entire fret board; learn all of them. This whole process takes about 3 to 6 months to learn depending on how much time you have to devote to your playing.

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