Learn How To Play A Guitar For Free

Learn How To Play A Guitar For Free

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As a guitar player you have probably trawled the internet looking for guitar lessons. Whether or not you want to learn to play guitar for free, your vision probably involved learning songs form tabs as well as getting as much theory and technique exercises you can handle.

Ten years ago a guy named Jon Broderick went looking for websites featuring high quality guitar lessons and, the legend goes, he had so little success, he went and made his own. The outcome was Guitar Tricks, another site that gives you access to their lessons in return for a monthly subscription. Not unlike Jamplay, but Guitar Tricks has been collecting guitar lessons for ten years, plus they have a collection of twenty-four free guitar lessons that you can try. Your free lessons are of the same quality as the lessons you get with your monthly subscription, taught by the same teachers who conduct the lessons for subscribers to Guitar Tricks.

These days four-hundred thousand guitarists take advantage of Guitar Tricks' lessons each month. And no wonder, because there are lessons in any genre you could name - acoustic, rock, metal, country, classical, jazz . . . and you can take lessons in special areas like chords, sound effects, harmonics, bottleneck, popping and guitar tricks. If you are not clear on whether your favorite guitar style has a name, you can simply request lessons based on the music of particular guitar players like Chet Atkins, Duane Allman, Stanley Jordan, Andres Segovia or Jimmy Page.

Your membership of Guitar Tricks gets you full access to a buttload of tutorials, sheet music, video lessons and backing tracks. Not only do you get the benefit of the Guitar Tricks guys' years of archiving guitar lessons but their content is updated every day.

One resource for beginner guitar players I'm always recommending is the collective expertise that you can find in guitar forums. Guitar Tricks has a forum that holds the records of questions and answers between thousands of guitarists. Would you believe there's over two-hundred thousand posts? And not only that, you can also have feedback from the Guitar Tricks teachers on any nagging question your brain can formulate.

Guitar Chords – How To Play Chords On A Guitar

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Guitar chords are combinations of notes. Every song you learn on the guitar will contain a group of chords. Some songs have only one or two, many songs have three chords, a few songs might make use of half a dozen guitar chords.

There are three ways to learn how to play chords on a guitar. The most time consuming way is to learn to read music. If you can read standard music notation you do not necessarily need to know the names of the chords you are playing. You will have the ability to recognize and play musical notes without hesitation. To learn to play chords this way takes a long time but the ability to sight-read music will make all your work at learning how to play the guitar much easier.

Another way to learn how to play chords on a guitar is to learn to read tablature. Guitar tablature, or “tabs”, is another musical language. Tabs show you where to put your fingers on the guitar fretboard. It only takes half an hour or so to learn the basic idea behind guitar tab, and although it has its limitations, it is a good way to learn how to play chords.

The simplest and most immediate way to learn chords is by chord charts. Chord charts are basically pictures of the guitar strings showing you where to put your fingers to play chords. Chord charts do not take any time to learn to understand and they give you the freedom to get on with the job of learning how much pressure to exert to play your chords and how to place your fingers so that you do not muffle the strings.

Once you have chosen a way of learning to read chords, the next step is the physical work of learning how to play chords on a guitar. The simplest way to begin is to strum the guitar with a pick while you make the chord shapes with the fingers of your left hand. The pick is held firmly between the thumb and first finger of your right hand. You must hold your hand so the pick strikes the strings cleanly without scraping.

When you first begin to play chords it is a good idea to choose a chord that is easy on the left hand like the E minor or C major chord in the first position. When you have your fingers in the correct positions, try strumming the chord. The sound should be clean with each of the strings sounding without the left hand fingers brushing against them causing the notes to stop sounding.

You have now played your first chord. The next step in learning how to play chords on a guitar is changing from one chord to another. Again, you should take care that your fingers only touch the strings they are supposed to touch, so careful practice is called for.

Comments

One Response to “Guitar Chords – How To Play Chords On A Guitar”

  1. Melissa
    January 30th, 2010 @ 6:28 am

    Very very good tutorial on how to play your first chord!!!

    Melissa
    http://www.easysongsforbeginnersguitar.com

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