Learn To Play the Guitar Part 1

Learning to play the guitar can be very easy. I will endeavor to explain in the simplist terms so that, with only minimal effort, you can learn to play the guitar in no time.

So, dust off that old six string you have in your closet and let’s get started!

We will learn how to play chords labeling each finger on the left hand from 1 through 4 as seen above. So, the index is “1”, the middle is “2” and so on.

We will start by focusing on chords that can be played on the first three frets on the guitar. As seen above, the 6 strings have been labeled from top to bottom (left to right in the image) from 6 to 1, with “6” being the fattest string and “1” being the thinnest.

First Lesson:

Toughen up your fingers!

If you don’t already play guitar, chances are the tips of your fingers are not used to pressing down on the rough strings of a guitar. For your first lesson, just practice pressing on the strings with each of your fingers on your left hand. Where you press is irrelevant for this exercise. Just press each finger anywhere you like, off and on until you get comfortable with the required amount of pressure needed to play guitar.

While you are building up your left hand, practice plucking the string with your right hand on the same string that you are placing any of your left fingers. Do this slowly, building up speed as you go on. You will develop coordination between your two hands by doing this, which is crucial for playing the guitar.

10 to 20 minutes a day should be enough. More is sometimes better (sometimes not!) but for this simple exercise you can go at your own pace until you feel comfortable and you think you can play a single note with the correct amount of pressure without any buzz or dullness in the ring of the string.

Good Luck!