Holding and Strumming the Guitar
Balance the body of the guitar on top of your dominant thigh to hold it. In a seated position, move your dominant leg slightly forward and bend your knee to place your foot flat on the floor. Place the guitar on your thigh, orienting it so that the strings are facing away from you and the head (the small tip of the guitar) is pointing in the opposite direction from your dominant side. Keep the guitar upright and hold the back of it close enough to you that it touches your stomach and chest while resting on your thigh. Use your non-dominant hand to hold the neck of the guitar. The neck is the long piece of wood that connects the head of the guitar to the body. If you have trouble balancing the guitar, attach a strap to the guitar and place it over your shoulder to make it easier to keep the guitar upright.
Grip the neck using your thumb and forefinger. Form a “V” shape with the thumb and forefinger of your non-dominant hand and place the guitar neck in that “V” to stabilize it. When you want to play the guitar, press your thumb flat against the back of the neck and use your fingertips to press down on the strings. Avoid hooking your thumb over the top of the neck, even if it feels more natural to grip the guitar this way; doing this will cause you to grip the guitar with too much force and will limit the reach of your fretting fingers. The flat side of the neck is called the fretboard because it’s inlaid with metal frets that indicate where to put your fingers to play specific notes.
Memorize the names and numbers for the different strings of the guitar. In order from thickest to thinnest, the strings of the guitar are named E, A, D, G, B, and e. The strings are also numbered from thinnest to thickest so that the e string is also called the 1st string and the E string is called the 6th string. The strings descend in pitch from 1st string to 6th string, so the E string is the lowest in pitch, while the e string is the highest. It’s important to remember the names and numbers of your guitar strings to be able to read tabs and talk about specific notes. Try using a mnemonic device to remember the guitar strings, such as “Eddie And Debbie Got Brown eggs.”
Hold your pick with a firm but comfortable grip. A pick is a small piece of plastic used to strum the guitar or play individual notes. To hold the pick, grip it between the thumb and index finger on your strumming hand and orient it so that it’s perpendicular to your fist. Your grip should be firm enough to hold the pick in place while you’re playing, but not so tight that it’s uncomfortable. Your thumb and finger should cover about ⅔ of the pick, leaving a little more than ⅓ of it sticking out of your hand. You don’t necessarily have to use a pick to play the electric guitar, but you should definitely hold the pick in a comfortable and proper way if you use it.
Play the guitar without fretting any strings to practice your strumming. Use your strumming hand to strum all 6 strings at the same time in a downward stroke and do this until it feels natural. Once you’re comfortable with downstroke strumming, practice strumming all 6 with an upward stroke as well. If you don't want to be too loud while practicing your strumming, you can simply “mute” the strings by lightly touching them with your fretting hand so that no sound is produced when you play. Strum the guitar by moving your wrist up and down rather than by moving your whole arm up and down. This will make your strumming more energy efficient and reduce your risk of injury in the long run. Once you’ve gotten the hang of performing downstrokes and upstrokes individually, try strumming the guitar in a downstroke-upstroke-downstroke-upstroke pattern until you’ve gotten the feel of it.
Practice strumming and fretting the strings at the same time. To play a note on the guitar, press your finger down between the frets on the fretboard; this is called "fretting the strings." While pressing down 1 or more strings with your fretting hand, strum the guitar with your other hand. This will help you get used to doing 2 separate things with your hands at the same time. Don’t press down on the frets themselves, as this will produce a buzzing sound instead of the note you were trying to play. Only press down on the strings as hard as is needed to produce a clean note. If you press down too lightly, the string will buzz. However, pressing down too hard will only put more strain than necessary on your fingers. Don’t worry about playing chords yet; just focus on getting the basic movements down first!
Dip your fingertips in ice water or rubbing alcohol to manage finger pain. Although your fingers will definitely be sore when you’re first starting out, this pain will go away after enough time. Use ice water or rubbing alcohol treatments to minimize finger pain when you experience it. Remind yourself that the pain is only temporary to avoid letting it discourage you from continuing to play guitar. Your fingertips will eventually grow calluses that make playing guitar a lot less painful. Calluses usually take at least a month or 2 to grow, so don’t feel discouraged if they don’t grow immediately! Apply rubbing alcohol to your fingers 3 times a day for a week to encourage calluses to grow faster.
Mastering Guitar Chords
Start out by learning to play a simple first position chord. A chord is a harmonic group made up of 3 or more individual notes. First position chords, such as the C chord, A chord, and G chord, are the easiest to play, so one of these should be the first chord you learn. Note that when you play certain chords, you don’t strum all 6 of the guitar strings. For example, when you play the C chord, you only play the bottom 5 strings and ignore the E string entirely. Practice the correct finger placement on the fretboard for the chord first. Once you’re comfortable pressing down on the right notes, work on strumming and fretting at the same time.
Learn how to play 3 more simple chords after you’ve mastered 1. Almost any song you hope to play on the electric guitar will involve at least 4 different chords, so you’ll need to master more than just 1 to play guitar well. Work on learning the other first position chords before tackling anything more complicated. For example, if the first chord you learned to play was the C chord, the next 2 you learn to play should probably be the D chord and the G chord. Follow the same process of learning the correct finger placement on the fretboard first, then practicing strumming the guitar while pressing down on the right notes.
Practice switching from 1 chord to another. Place your fingers in position for 1 chord, then move them into position for another chord. Repeat this process until you can quickly switch between the 2 chords. Then, add a third chord into the mix and continue switching your finger placement as quickly as you can. You’ll eventually get to a place where you can quickly switch from 1 chord to another without even thinking about it (which is exactly what you need to do to play guitar!).
Add increasingly complex chords to your repertoire. Once you've learned the rest of the simple guitar chords, such as the D and E chords, the next thing to do is learn how to play barre chords. Barre chords are played by using your index finger to press down all the notes on a single fret. Although they’re more challenging, barre chords are very important for playing a wide variety of songs. Some of the most important barre chords to learn how to play are the E major chord, E minor chord, A major chord, and A minor chord. Once you’re comfortable with playing 1 or more barre chords, practice switching between them and moving from a barre chord to a simple chord on the fretboard.
Practicing and Sticking to a Schedule
Create a daily practice schedule and stick to it. Learning to play the guitar well is something that requires dedication. However, you don’t have to devote all of your time to practice. Simply set aside 15-30 minutes every day to practice playing guitar and commit to sticking to this schedule no matter what. Use this practice time to work on the chords you already know and add new chords to the mix. Once you know enough chords, try learning to play a whole song! Some examples of easy guitar songs for beginners include the Beatles’ “Love Me Do,” Creedence Clearwater Revival’s “Proud Mary,” and Neil Diamond’s “Sweet Caroline.”
Use music books to learn new chords and techniques. If you’re just looking for new chords to learn, you can buy books that include the guitar chords for a lot of famous and popular songs at nearly any music store or book retailer. Many music books will also include helpful tips and techniques for playing the guitar that you may not have encountered in practicing on your own. Some books will also include helpful multimedia tools, such as CDs, that make learning new techniques on the guitar even easier.
Visit music websites to find tabs and tutorials for songs. Websites like ultimate-guitar.com and ultimate-tabs.com have a large database of tabs (simplified forms of musical notation) that tell you how to play different songs on the guitar. For extra help, there are also plenty of video tutorials on websites like YouTube where more experienced guitar players offer tips on how to play songs from start to finish. Guitar tabs are an easier way to read chords if you can’t read traditional sheet music. Tabs use 6 horizontal lines to represent the guitar strings and numbers on those lines to indicate which frets you need to press down to play the chord.
Set a realistic goal to achieve with your practicing each week. For instance, aim to learn 2-3 new chords each week or be able to switch between 2 chords flawlessly. Whatever goal you set, make sure it’s specific and achievable. Your goal should also be measurable so that you know when you’ve achieved it. For example, if your goal is to learn 2 new chords, you can easily judge whether or not you’ve learned 2 new chords after 7 days. However, if you set a goal like “practice new chords,” it’s harder to tell whether you’ve actually achieved this goal by the end of the week.
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