Where do I begin?

I just wanted to do a quick post about where you should start when you have never ever played guitar.

Reading music and tab are useful though I feel the most fun way to get up and get going is to start with a chordex – I’d recommend a flip-over chordex that you can find in most music stores and on amazon which looks like this….

And start bashing away on your guitar!

This chordex above is called chord deck chordex – I believe it makes reading chordex boxes very simple as you can see the neck on these and it gives you a visual of a guitar. The circles with numbers in are where you place your finger (the circle) and which finger to use (the number in the circle)

You should learn all your basic open chords (E Em A Am D Dm C G for a start) but you can start with ones that go together – one good song to learn (though you need a capo at the first fret) is boulevard of broken dreams – it uses Em G D A.

However – here is how I personally would start you, or anyone – get the student to fret a D chord and then lets try some strumming patterns out…….. Start with Something simple show all the downs in a row

D D D D – Easy peasy, anyone can do this

Then how about the downs and ups? D U D U D U D U – Yeah most people find that easy too

D  D U D U D U

1   2 + 3  + 4  +

Still pretty easy….. most people can do that one.

Here is the real trick to strumming though, if you can always keep your hand moving and master that there won’t be a basic (and even more advanced) strumming pattern you can’t master and here is the first strumming pattern that tends to present a challenge to people.

D    D  U   (D)  U   D   U

1     2  +     3   +    4   +

So on the third beat we will be missing the down – but we must move our hand here to keep the momentum and rhythm strong – doing one up and then another up tends to cause problems for people and to do it you have to move down in between but not hit the strings (logical yes?) which is not always easy. So that’s a place to start, you will already feel like you are playing guitar if you master that, then the next step is changing some chords. You can use this strumming pattern to do Jesus Dont want me for a sunbeam by the vaselines though I am working from the Nirvana cover on Unplugged in NY, although it is down tuned it works like this.

E                                             D         A          A

D    D  U   (D)  U   D   U     Repeat pattern on each chord

1     2  +      3    +   4    +

So there you have it – one strumming pattern and three chords and you can play guitar!