If you’re a beginner and picking up a guitar for the first time, this guitar starter guide should help you get started for the first time.

Guitar Sitting Positions

There are 2 common sitting positions when playing guitar: regular and classical.

I’ll be discussing the regular position since a lot of country music is played using this position.

Simply rest the guitar on your leg so that your picking hand comfortably rests near the open area on the body.  Your other hand should be able to reach all the way down the neck comfortably.

Sit at an edge of a chair and keep your back straight.  Do not get in the habit of slouching over the guitar.  This is bad posture and is a bad habit that you don’t want to start.

You can always sir on the bed and play when you’ve got a special someone over…

Standing Position

Eventually you’re going to want to get used to standing and playing the guitar.  I always had difficulty doing this when I first started so I’d rarely do it.

Don’t make the same mistake as I did.  I would actually recommend that you always practice playing while standing at least for 5-10 minutes per day.

You will need a guitar strap in order to do this.  If you don’t have one then buy one when you can.  Perhaps a friend has one that you can borrow?

Don’t try to let the guitar hang down to your knees like those rock stars.  It’s hard to do at first unless you’ve got long arms.

Just let the guitar hang comfortably for you.  Eventually you can slowly lower it over time if you want to get that “rock star” look…

Hand Positioning

I’ll refer to the hand that holds the pick as the “picking hand”.

I like to call the other hand the “fretting hand” because this hand plays notes on the frets.

A guitar fret is the space between the metal lines you see on the neck.  Your fretting hand holds down the strings in these spaces to create music.

It’s important to note the rear view.

Notice where the thumb is.  Do try hard to keep your thumb around the middle of the neck.

Don’t press down too hard with the thumb and don’t drop it lower than the midway point.  This creates strain on your hand which is not good.

Improper form on the guitar can lead to hand problems down the road.  I know a guitar player who had to quit playing after 5 years due to improper form with his fretting hand.

Don’t let this bad habit become one of yours.

Keep your fretting hand relaxed as often as possible and stop playing for the day when your hand gets tired and/or feels pain.

You’re working out new muscles.  They need time to rest just the rest of the muscles in your body after a workout.

Fretting on the Guitar

The music the guitar makes is due to your fretting hand holding down strings at proper locations.  Chords are formed by holding down certain strings at certain spots (frets) on the neck.

As a beginner you need to focus on building strength and speed as well as working on chords.

I know you probably want to jump into playing your favorite songs, but like with anything you must walk before you can run.  By spending 10 minutes or so per day doing guitar warm up exercises, you will be better off in the long run.

I’ll be releasing a new volume as part of my free Country Guitar Mastery course that will cover warm up exercises for beginners.

I recommend you enter your email into the form to the right so I can notify you when I’m finished with the short report.

You’ll also get the volume I “3 Awful Guitar Mistakes to Avoid”.  Moving on…

For fretting:

• Keep your finger nails short.
• Use the tips of your fingers – not the “pad”.
• The easiest spot to hold a string is directly behind the metal fret.  Practice your chords holding down the strings in this area.
• Go slow as you practice.  Speed up over time as you improve.  Use a metronome every time you practice.
• Try to not let the string buzz at all.  Spend time making sure all of your fingers are holding down the strings correctly.
• Take a break when your fingers hurt.  You will build calluses over the next couple of weeks.

Strumming

Learning to strum with your picking hand is absolutely essential and a key component to rhythm.  I recommend that you practice your rhythm playing every single day that you can.

I go over rhythm in volume I that I told you about earlier so get it if you haven’t yet.

Spend time every day practicing your strumming.

Here’s a simple but widely used strumming pattern:

Down-Down-Up-Up-Down.  Down-Down-Up-Up-Down.

Over and over again.  Practice this with a metronome and you’ll see how it works soon enough.

Another popular strumming pattern I like to use is:

Down-Down-Up-Up-Down-Up.  Down-Down-Up-Up-Down-Up.

Simple enough right?  Just adding an extra Up at the end which you’ll be able to do when you practice the first pattern a few times.

There’s a lot of beginner strumming patterns and exercises that you can learn at this website.  Take a look around and join that site if you think it’s something you’d like to be a part of.

More lessons on chords will be coming soon.  Continue to leave comments and email me for requests and I’ll write them up for you.

To your success,

Jeff

Welcome to the first course in our guitar chords lessons series where I’m going to teach you how to play the G chord.

As you may know from my previous article about learning guitar chords, I stress the importance of warming up.

I know you’re probably tired of me saying it, but please check out my less on guitar warm-up. In it, you will learn a simple but highly effective warm-up exercise that should be done before every playing session, whether it’s practice or an actual concert.

All big-time guitarists have their favorite warm-up exercises that they do before shows.

Do this exercise before beginning this lesson and all other lessons as it will loosen your hands up and prepare your muscles for playing.

::: Grabs a drink while you warm-up. 5 minutes later… :::

Ok, I hope your hands are all nice and loose and ready to play.  That’s the idea of the warm-up!

In this lesson, I am going to introduce the first chord that I recommend people to learn:

The G Chord

The reason I recommend this chord first is because I love it.  I think that this is a nice and intermediate chord that should be mastered first before moving on to other chords that are easier and more difficult.

So, let’s first take a look at how to play the G chord on the guitar:

What you see here is what I call a chord chart.  This one in particular is for the G Chord.  I will teach you how to read this.

What you see on the chart is 6 lines.  The left line, E, represents the 6th string on your guitar.  The 6th string is the fattest string.  In normal tuning, it is in the key of E.

You will also notice the horizontal lines.  Each one of these lines represents one of the silver bars going across your guitar neck.  I call the area between the metal bars frets.

You can either place your fingers on the metal frets or in-between them.  The closer to the fret, the easier it is to play the note.  Keep in mind that these aren’t tabs.

Head on over to my article about guitar tabs after this exercise if you’re interested in them.

In the picture, you will notice that there is a “1″ on the 6th string inbetween the 2nd and 3rd fret.

This is where you will place your index finger.

On the 5th string, you will notice a “2″ between the 1st and 2nd fret.  This is for you to place your middle finger.

Do the same for your 3rd finger for the 5th string and your pinky finger for on the 6th string.

This guitar chord may be quite difficult for you to play when you are first starting out.  I recommend that you practice getting all 4 fingers on on the strings and holding the chord for as along as you can.

Don’t worry about strumming the chord.  Just get your fingers used to the position.

Doing the warm-up will make your hands stronger for chord playing.  Along with practice, you will get this chord down before you know it.  This is a vital chord to learn if for a country guitar player.

Practice this chord everyday after you warm-up and you’ll have the G Chord down in no time.

How to Instantly Tune Your Guitar to Perfection Every Single Time

Today’s Question:

Hi Jeff,

So a year ago I bought an acoustic guitar with the intentions of learning how to play country music.  Long story short, I haven’t really played much at all until recently when I decided I would get back into it.

When I found your site, I’ve been looking through the lessons you have learning about warm-ups and tabs and chords.  But one of my main problems is knowing whether my guitar is in tune correctly or not.  I have a tuner but I don’t know how to use it correctly.

My question is….. can you teach me how to tune the guitar by ear somehow using a tuner or something else?  Can you give me your method for keeping the guitar in tune?

Thanks again,

Carol M.

My Comments:

First of all, I think it’s great that you’ve purchased a guitar and decided that you want to learn country.

To address your question, I’m going to give you my exact process for tuning the guitar.  This is one of the very first steps that should be learned for anybody interested in playing the guitar.

The process of tuning the guitar is not a difficult one as long as you have access to an accurate tuner and I’ll show you exactly how to do this.

First of all, you need to make sure that your tuning to the CORRECT PITCH.  If all 6 of the strings on your guitar are matched to perfect tuning but your guitar is tuned to the wrong pitch, your still going to SOUND out of tune.

This is the most common problem that guitar players have, even the good ones.  They tune to an INCORRECT pitch and everything sounds way off.

So how do you tune to the RIGHT PITCH?

You need to use a tuner that has the correct pitch.  And these aren’t hard to find at all.  Just a simple search in Google for an ONLINE GUITAR TUNER will bring dozens of websites that offer guitar tuners.  I’d recommend you do that now while leaving this page open so you can follow along as I teach you.

(I’m looking at adding a guitar tuner to this website to make the process easier, but for now you’ll have to depend on other sources).

You can also visit your local guitar store and buy a tuner that has correct pitch.

Once you’ve got your hands on a tuner with CORRECT pitch, you can then begin tuning all of your strings to the correct sound.

It’s important to note that all you need is 1 string to be correct for the tuning process.  I usually start with the 1st string, or the HIGH E string.  The skinny one closest to the floor.

I set the tuner to E and I match the pitch of that string to the pitch of the tuner.

You’ll be able to tell when they’re in tune with each other because your guitar string will sound EXACTLY the same as the pitch coming from the tuner.  It’s important to get the string as close as POSSIBLE to the pitch.

Once you have the string tuned, you can then begin to tune all of the other strings to your high E string.

To do this, you move down each string.

For example, to tune the next string up (the 2nd string) you HOLD DOWN the 2nd string on the 5TH FRET and when you pluck this string, it should sound the same as the 1st string that you just tuned with the tuner.

Keep plucking away at the 2nd string while you hold it down on the 5th fret until it sounds EXACTLY THE SAME as the 1st string.

You are NOT pressing anything on the 1st string.  It remains ‘open’.  This is important.

You’re basically playing an E note on the 2nd string.  It should sound the same as the 1st string because it’s the E string.  I hope this makes sense

Once you have the 2nd string in tune correctly, it’s time to move to the 3rd string.  This string is different in that you need to press it down on the 4TH FRET instead of the 5th fret like before.  So follow the same process: hold the 4th fret, pluck the string and get it to sound the same as the 2nd string.

You do NOT press anything on the 2nd string this time.  Do you see the pattern now?  You press 1 string down while the next remains open.  You do this for each string until they are all in tune.

Repeat this with the 4th string.  Press it down on the 5TH FRET this time and leave the 3rd string open.  Get the 4th string to sound the same as the open 3rd string.

Then move to the 2nd string and press down the 5TH FRET and repeat process.

Move to 1st (fattest) string and press down 5TH FRET.

This is the easiest and fastest way to tune a guitar and this tuning works perfectly for country music.  If you have more questions and problems with your guitar, then let me help you fix your mistakes.  Let me show you how to get the RESULTS that you’re looking for.

You’ll succeed where others fail due to proper training.

Visit Guitar Tricks now for more free lessons like this one.

Jeff

The next chord that we are going to learn today is the guitar A chord.  In the previous lesson, we went over the G chord.  I believe that the G chord is one of the most important guitar chords to learn. I began this series with that chord specifically because it is a moderately difficult chord for beginners to play, and it is also one of the most used chords in country music.  Almost every single song uses the G chord.  Be sure to check out that lesson before moving on to this one.  However, you do not have to master the G chord before going over this lesson.

The A chord is much easier to play than the G chord.  As you can see in the image, your fingers are very close together on the same 2nd fret.  This is a chord that is used very often just like the G chord.  If you haven’t yet read my article on correct guitar practice, I recommend that you do so now.  It is very important that when you are learning these guitar chords that you are practicing correctly as well.  Failure to do so can result in bad habits and a longer time learning how to play them correctly.

Your first step is to place your index finger on the D string on the 2nd fret.  With your first finger firmly holding down the string, place your middle finger on the G string on the 2nd fret as well.  Play the two strings that you are holding down to make sure that notes ring out cleanly.  Once this is done, place your ring finger on the B string on the 2nd fret.

There is also an alternate way of playing the chord.  You switch the 1 and 2 fingers.  So, your index finger and the middle finger swap places.  Some find this the easier way to play.  Try out both and do what works best for you!

Practice strumming all 3 strings while your fingers are holding them down firmly.  As a beginner, your fingers may feel uncomfortable pretty quickly.  This is normal.  Just practice pressing down the strings and playing the notes.  You want the notes to be as clean as possible.  Press down as hard as you need to in order to get the note to be clear.  Take breaks when your fingers start to hurt.  Also, practice keeping your other fingers near the strings as well.  This is very important as noted in the correct practice article.

Practice these methods with the G chord and now the A chord.  For a more advanced lesson, practice transitioning between the two chords as quickly as possible.  See how fast you can transition between the two.  The more you practice this, the faster you will get and the better you will be at playing chords.

Stay tuned for our next lesson, the C chord!

As a country guitar player for quite some time now, I still can’t quite understand why most beginners pass up on essential skills such as guitar strumming.

Now there are several different types of strumming patterns out there.  You’ve got chicken picking, bluegrass style, finger picking, simple rhythm strumming and more.

What it all comes down to is the simple fact that learning to strum basic rhythm patterns are essential if you plan on being a decent guitar player sometime down the road.

Those that avoid learning rhythm and strumming are doomed to all-time failure.  Learning rhythm and strumming as a beginner should be one of the first lessons you focus on for awhile.

Put down all those chords and song tabs that you’ve been reading and downloading off the internet.  They will do you no good if you don’t have a basic understanding of strumming under your belt.

Basic Guitar Strumming Is Essential

Now you may know how I love teaching the fundamentals.  I’m not like most guitar instructors out there.  I’m a big believer in the 80/20 rule in that if you spend 80% of your time learning how and why things work the way they do, you’ll only have to work hard 20% of the time.

Most people have this backwards.  They spend 80% of their time working hard trying to master something and 20% of the time learning how something works and why it’s important.

Learning how to strum the guitar is an essential skill you’ll need to learn if you plan on being a guitar player.  You need to be spending 80% of your time doing these boring strumming patterns and finger warm-ups.

Why?

Because when you spend the time developing and learning the fundamentals, everything else becomes easy.

So what are some basic strumming patterns you can try?

Well the first step is being able to hear and listen to the beats of a song.  You can read more about rhythm on my guitar starter guide along with other beginners information.

Once you’ve learned the tempo to a song, you can start strumming to the beat of that song.  Most songs have 4 beats per measure so you need to practice listening to the song for those 4 beats in each measure.

You probably already know the beats to the measure.  Our brains are pretty good at figuring it out and it’s why music has been so powerful (especially the drum) for thousands of years.

When you’re listening to your favorite tunes and you start nodding your head to the beat of the song, you’re moving to the tempo of the song.

Try to translate that to the guitar.  Strum downwards the same time you nod your head to the beat and you’ll soon be playing to the rhythm.

Strumming is one of those skills where once you figure it out it becomes simple.  Light bulb moment.

Leave your comments and questions below and I’ll address them as best I can.