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Tag: guitar notes for beginners (Page 1 of 2)

The 30-Day Guitar Challenge

30 Day Guitar ChallengeWhich of these describes you?

  • Total beginner. I’ve never touched a guitar before.
  • I play another instrument or sing and I want to pick up guitar.
  • I’ve played on and off over the years, but never could really put the skills together or make a habit of playing regularly.
    I’ve got something cool for you that will help immensely.

The 30-Day Guitar Challenge

Now’s your chance to start playing guitar or shore up the skills you already have in the 30-Day Guitar Challenge starting on January 16th.  It’s totally free to sign up and participate.

You’ll learn 3 full songs in 30 days with just 5 minutes of playing time each day.  It’s such a small amount of time that it’s dumb NOT to do it.  It’s like having a goal of brushing one tooth or walking ten steps.

Which songs will you learn?  Check out the FAQ here to see.  The songs themselves really don’t matter.  What you’ll get is the confidence of being able to learn a whole song and the good habit of playing guitar daily.

 

Who’s it for?

– Total beginners who have never touched an instrument before
– People who play other instruments, but would like to learn guitar and add it to their arsenal.  Especially singers who want to learn to accompany themselves
– People who have attempted to learn guitar in the past but had trouble sticking with it and making progress that seems usable in real playing situations.

If you’re already an intermediate or advanced player you won’t get much out of the 30-Day Challenge.  You might still get something out of Less Is More Guitar when that’s released, but it’s designed for beginners.  It’s also geared for teen and adult students.  Kids need a little more hands on from a live teacher.

All that said, the 30-Day Guitar Challenge starts on January 16th and it’s totally free to participate.  If the thought of picking up a guitar and rocking your cares away excites you, sign up for free right here.

 

 

 

The Magical Mystical Pentatonic Scale For Guitar

If guitarists have a hammer, it’s the Pentatonic Scale.  A go-to tool that works in a variety of situations and can get you out of any musical corners you’ve painted yourself into.  It’s simple to learn and extremely versatile.

Not only that, but knowing your pentatonic scale makes it easier to learn larger, more complex scales later.

The word “pentatonic” simply means “five tone”.  There are only five notes in this scale, as opposed to seven in a normal western scale.  It has its origins in Asian and African musics and you can hear that if it’s played very straight. But with some phrasing and ornamentation tricks it quickly becomes useful in rock music… or jazz… or blues… or pop… or country… See where we’re going here? Continue reading

The Epic Guide To Intervals For Beginning Guitar

When I was studying music as a kid, just the word “intervals” would make me groan.  “Ah, crap… I get it.  It’s the distance between two notes.  Whooooo cares!?”

But the longer I played, the more I realized that my sight reading skills and ability to understand the construction of a song all thoroughly depended on what I’d learned about intervals.  The longer you play, and especially on guitar, the more you’ll think in terms of intervals than note names.

By the way, if you’re not yet familiar with how to read all the notes on your fretboard, that will help to give you an even better understanding of the stuff we’re talking about here.  Check out my easy fretboard reading trick here.

So, what are intervals? Continue reading

Beginning Chord Theory For Guitarists

As a guitarist you’ll spend 85% of your time playing chords.  And you probably have a few chords under your fingers already.  G, C, D anyone?

What you and I will accomplish with this article is helping you understand 3 things about chords.
Step 1 will be learning how they’re constructed.
Step 2, how they’re placed on the fretboard.
Step 3, some basic chord relationships.

To follow this article on beginning chord theory for guitarists, you’ll need to know how to find notes on your guitar fretboard.  If you haven’t yet, be sure to read these two articles first:
Guitar Notes For Beginners – This teaches you all the open position notes.
Easy Guitar Fretboard Reading Tricks – How to read all the rest of the notes on the fretboard.

And be sure to read all the way to the end for a cool bonus item…

And away we go….

Continue reading

How To Use The Guitar Chord Finder

I’ve added a very handy tool to the site, a guitar chord finder.  You’ll find it in the bottom of the right sidebar.

Eventually you’ll want to understand how to find chord voicings by knowing what notes are in the chord and how to find them on the fretboard.

But as a beginner, it’s really handy to have a chord finder to get a quick fingering for that weird chord you’ve run across. Here’s how to use it. Continue reading

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