Getting Started On Guitar

I want to learn guitar. where do i start?

There's a gazillion resources online these days; a tip for everything. It begs the question – where do I start? It can be overwhelming. It's fantastic if you just need to know one specific thing, like an endless encyclopedia you can dip in and out of. Thing is, learning guitar doesn't work like that. It's about good habits, nuances, stepping stones.

If you just jump in at a totally random point, you're going to leave gaps in your knowledge. You could end up with bad habits that may restrict you and cause you to hit walls further down the line. You might know how to play "Voodoo Child" with your teeth, but then you turn up to a jam night and feel like an amateur because you don't know how to play a 12 barre blues in A. Worse yet you probably don't even know how to play an A chord or what and where an A even is. There's a difference between learning a song and learning the guitar. It's like the difference between learning how to ask for the tip on holiday (not knowing what the words actually mean) and actually learning the language.

"There's a difference between learning a song and learning the guitar"

Operating this way also makes you more likely to create shortcuts, as the many hurdles on guitar can be frustrating. The thing is, those challenges are what makes life easier in the long run. You need to have the foresight to make your life harder to begin with, to make it easier in the end. I've seen it a million times, you'll choose the easy option and then kick yourself later when you realise why everyone says you should do it like this.

I may be biased, but clearly this is all good reason to get a teacher.

So yeah, no 1 thing to do to get started is get a teacher 👉https://www.huwedwards.co.uk/😉

However, that's not the purpose of this blog post. Here I want to offer a few pointers on what to do once you've got your guitar locked and loaded.

What are the basics of learning guitar?

Strings, frets, fingers...

Strings 🎸

Learn the notes the strings are tuned to in standard tuning (I'll discuss actual tuning in a separate post).

Top E
B

G

D

A

Bottom E

Bottom E is the one closest to your head when holding the guitar. Top E is the one closest to the floor when holding the guitar. Yes it doesn't make sense in terms of "location" but it's to do with pitch. Top E is higher in pitch. Bottom E is lower in pitch. That can a source of confusion so get it nailed early.

There's a rhyme: Eddie Ate Dynamite Good Bye Eddie

Use the rhyme to get started but use it to lose it i.e. get to the point where you simply recognise the D string as the D string. It looks like a D string like a dog looks like a dog.

Frets 🎸

Learn what the frets are i.e. the metal bars on the neck of the guitar. For instance, fret number 2 is the space between the first and second metal bar on the neck from the direction of the headstock (where the tuning pegs are). Fret number 3 is the space between the second and third metal bar and so on. 

E|---|---|---|---|---|

B|---|---|---|---|---|

G|---|---|---|---|---|

D|---|---|---|---|---|

A|---|---|---|---|---|

E|---|---|---|---|---|

    1  2  3  4  5

Fingers 🖐️

Finally, it may seem obvious but confirm which finger is which. You've got index (1); middle (2); ring (3) and pinky (4) 👍

Trust me, all this will save you a lot of time and confusion when it comes to learning your first chords. Speaking of chords, this brings me to our next step...

What are the first chords guitarists learn?

The answer is open chords (foundational chords with open strings in them). Start with your primary majors (E, A, D, G & C) and minors (Em, Am, Dm) and go from there. This is every guitarist's foundation, whatever genre you may end up specialising in. Get yourself a chord book. I would recommend JustinGuitar Beginner's Songbook:

https://www.justinguitar.com/store/beginner-songbook-1

This book works great because each new stage gives you a set of new chords with ten or so popular songs to learn that use only those chords or chords from previous stages. For example, stage 1 has E, A & D and with that you can already learn "Hound Dog", "Three Little Birds", "I Walk The Line" and more.

At this point it's really about quantity over quality. You just want to hammer through as many songs as you can. There's no point learning one song for months until it's perfect. You won't make it that far because you'll be fed up. Use each new song as an opportunity to exercise strumming patterns and chord changes, cutting down the hesitation as much you think you can at that moment in time before moving onto the next song. It's the process of picking up new chord progressions and strumming patterns that you want to get good at, not the first song in the book. Think of each song as a practice for the next one. Maybe after the entire book, you might finally be landing those chords bang on time, with perfect precision. But you need the book to get there, so don't get too frustrated if it's not perfect.

And there you have it. Learn the ultimate basics (strings, frets and fingers), get a chord book and get playing. I'll be back soon with specifics on the nuances of strumming patterns and open chords.

Until then, many thanks!

Huw 🎸