The best beginner guitars are, in my opinion, is any guitar you can get your hands on when you’re learning. Now there are guitars that are made with the beginner in mind (which I will cover briefly below), but honestly any guitar you can get is great to learn with.

When I first started, I played with my mom’s old nylon string guitar. These guitars are great for finger-pickers,but it wasn’t that great to learn on due to the neck being much larger than your average guitar.

I eventually got a hold of a very cheap electric guitar which worked out well for me because the neck was thing and helped my small hands and fingers.

Later, I picked up a cheap acoustic guitar with a hard back that would allow me to bang it around. And bang it around I did! I didn’t know how to correctly care for a guitar at the time so it was a good guitar for me.

When you eventually get good and serious about guitar, that’s when you begin to save your money so that you can purchase a great guitar that will last you for a life time. I have both an amazing electric and acoustic guitar that I now use.

Let’s talk about some brief basics for beginners and some advice about getting new guitars.

Best Beginner Guitar

Learning the basic lessons on an acoustic guitar is recommended before moving on to an electric guitar.

The reason for this is that an acoustic guitar is actually harder to play, in my opinion of course. It takes more strength and stamina to play a song on an acoustic.

Once you get familiar with the techniques in playing an acoustic guitar, you will find it easier to adapt to an electric guitar.

I would like to add that an electric guitar needs to be played much more smoothly due to the fact that when plugged in to an amp, the strings are much more sensitive to the touch.

So, don’t play the electric with the same verocity and speed that you play with an acoustic guitar – you will not get the results you desire.

If you are a beginner who plans to buy a guitar, start with an inexpensive but a decent quality one. Once you reach the proficiency level, you can upgrade to a better one.

Best Beginner Guitar for Kids

For your child to easily learn to play the guitar, you need to get him a size that’s comfortable for his hands.

As noted earlier, I had this trouble because I simply have small hands and fingers. I’m a small guy, what can I say?

Many guitar brands like Baby Taylor offer junior model guitars that are meant for kids. A junior model at Taylor Guitars is ¾ the size of the normal acoustic guitar. It is meant for kids who are more than seven years old, and is available at around $300.

You can also make a trip to Best Buy or other stores where they sell $99 start up guitars. I think these are great for kids to learn on because they’re cheap and offer a starting foundation.

If your child decides later on that guitar isn’t for him or her, you’re only out $99 which is no big deal at all.

Electric guitars also come in junior sizes for children who have advanced skills in playing the guitar. Generally, a good electric guitar ranges from a hundred dollars to a couple of thousands.

Unless you are a professional guitar player, you should only consider buying a standard guitar and not the ones on the expert category.

Brands like Epiphone, Yamaha, Squier, and ESP have quality and good sounding guitars for beginners and intermediate players.

The GigMaker Electric pack at Yamaha for example, costs around $260 and already contains a guitar case, chromatic tuner, 15-watt guitar amplifier, belt, string set, and plectrums. The ones at ESP Standard Series are also suggested for beginners.

Want To Learn Bass Guitar?

Perhaps you’re interested in only learning bass guitar. This is fine as well because the bass guitar is actually a very fun instrument to play.

I play both guitar and bass and I find both of them equally rewarding as they both play very large roles in the band setting.

Yamaha and Ibanez have made a good name when it comes to bass guitars for beginners. Other brands like Epihpone and Squier also produce good bass guitars for new learners.

If you are looking for an expensive looking bass guitar at a decent price, you can check out the Ibanez GSR200 at $200. It is weighs lightly and has a slim neck, making it easier to handle.

Another good choice is the Squier Jazz bass, which is a cheaper counterpart of the famous Fender Jazz bass. It costs around $300.

Other suitable choices for beginner bass guitars are the Ephiphone Le Paul Special and the Yamaha RBX374.

Starting with the right type of instrument is important for beginners in learning to play the guitar. Choosing the standard type that fits one’s level of skill is recommended.

More importantly, one should go for the type and size of guitar that is most comfortable for him or her.

Today’s article is all about keeping the guitar clean. I’ve found this to be an important task that’s often overlooked by most guitar players.

Cleaning a guitar is essential to keeping it in good condition and looking well for years. A well-maintained guitar produces impeccable sounds.

Ideally, a guitar should be cleaned after each playing session. The reason for this is that your hands are oily which makes it really easy to transfer oils and dirt onto the guitar parts.

Because of this, it’s important that you wash your hands before each playing session to minimize the amount of dirt and oil that you transfer onto the guitar.

Depending on how often you use it, you should clean visible parts like the body, strings, headstock, and frets every playing session.

Famous guitarists have their guitars cleaned and serviced by professionals known as guitar technicians or simply, guitar techs.

The way to clean a guitar depends on whether it is an acoustic or an electric one. There are many cleaning products introduced by different musical instrument brands like Fender, Gibson, Planet Waves, C.F. Martin & Company, and many others.

Cleaning the Guitar Strings

You need to use a clean cloth or paper towel to wipe the strings of your acoustic or electric guitar, and this should be done after each playing session before you play it back onto it’s stand or into the case.

It is also best to match it with a cleaning solution such as “The String Cleaner” or “The Swipe”.

Cleaning the strings of a bass guitar would require you to clean them one by one because of the thickness of the strings.

This is usually a quick job and won’t take much of your time, but they help your strings to last much longer and they keep the tone of your sound better as well.

Cleaning the Guitar Fretboard

In order to properly clean the fretboard of your guitar, it is best to remove all of the strings first. Removing the strings of an electric guitar is different from that of an acoustic guitar.

After you take the strings out, initially clean the fingerboards with a clean, dry cloth.

After that, take another cloth, apply it with a guitar cleaning solution, and rub the fretboard thoroughly. Cleaning the corners of the frets is most important because it’s where dusts and dirt pile up. You can use a toothpick or tootbrush if wiping it off does not simply remove the dirt.

After cleaning the details of the fretboard, polish it with a dry cloth. At this point you can now place the strings back onto the guitar.

I personally don’t take off the strings – I just loosen them up a lot so that they’re easily moved out of the way while I clean the frets and the neck.

Cleaning the Body and Headstock

Cleaning the body and headstock is as easy as wiping it off with a soft, clean cloth. Being the most exposed part of a guitar, it is best to clean the body after every playing session to keep it shiny and looking brand new.

Cleaning a guitar is a pretty simple task that you should get used to doing. Doing it at a regular intervals does not only retain its original tone, it also prevents the need for serious repair and increases its durability.

If you have an electric guitar that you do not use often, it is best to keep the strings detuned and loose as this will help them last longer.

I hope this brief article about cleaning the guitar convinced you to start keeping it clean. I guarantee you that once you invest in a $2,000 dollar guitar, you won’t need me to remind you to keep it clean

Jeff

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

Guitar Tablature, also known as Tab in the guitar world, is how musicians and guitar players alike write out their music to songs, leads, exercises and more.

Unlike traditional music notation, guitar tab is different because it doesn’t use much of any symbols.

This allows anyone without any musical background the ability to read and write guitar tab without knowing music theory and symbols.

It’s easy to learn and is universally recognized around the globe as the standard for reading guitar music.

In the previous lesson on guitar tuning, I talked about the names or each string.  You have two E strings, a D, G, B, and A.

Tab is directly related to these strings so it’s important that you have memorized what each string is.  Spend time learning each string because it’s important.

Let’s begin by taking a look at this image below. You’ll notice that it has the number 1-6 instead of the actual note of the string.

This is how tabs are read. They don’t use the string names.

But it’s still very important to memorize each string for other guitar playing purposes (like down tuning, scales, chords, etc.).

Now this can be quite confusing at first.  But if you look carefully, you’ll notice that the fattest string (E) is number 6.  The lightest and most high pitch string is the high E also referred to as 1 in tablature.  Remember this also as it’s important.

When you take that image of the fret board with the frets and the string numbers to the written form, you’ll get the image below which is a standard tab diagram:

Remember that I told you how it’s important to remember the letters as well?  That’s because some tab is written using the letters instead of the numbers like in this example tab I found:

The same rules apply for the strings as with the other tab example.  The E on the bottom after the A represents the fat string on your guitar.  So by looking at this picture, you would start off playing this tab on the 4th or G string of your guitar.  Now let’s talk about what those numbers mean going across.

As you may have guessed, there are 6 lines and each line represents a guitar string.  The top being the thinnest or high E and the bottom being the thickest or low E.

On the fret board, you’ll notice the metal pieces sticking up at various locations.  These are here for a reason and separated at just the right distance to form the correct notes.

Each section of these frets as they’re called represents the horizontal numbers you saw above on the tab for ‘Silent Night’.

So to play that piece of tab in the example, your first note is shown at 0, also known as open.  This means you hold nothing down when you pluck the string.

Then you press down that same string on the second fret and pluck again.  Then it’s open again and you pluck it and so on and so forth.  The number that you see on the horizontal lines or “strings” is where you hold down that specific string on the fretboard on your guitar.

Pat yourself on the back.  You have just learned how to read guitar tab.  When you see something like the following example, you’ll now have a general idea of how to play it:

This is the most famous song of Christmas, Jingle Bells.  To play this song according to this tab, you start off holding down the 5th or A string on the 5th fret and continue from there.

This Jingle Bells tab is actually a perfect example that you should use to practice.  Start off slow and go through the entire string.  You’ll occasionally get confused as to which fingers to use and for that I have this answer:

Use whichever finger is most comfortable for you to play that note.

But do NOT neglect the pinky.  Yes it might be annoying to use at first.  But when you get used to using it, you’ll be thanking yourself later.  It’s a great finger to use and absolutely necessary for playing anything intermediate or advanced.

I would love to hear your opinion: Did you like this lesson on guitar tabs?  How could it be improved?  What else would you like to know?  What other guitar related questions do you have?  Please leave comments below!

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.