Choosing a guitar

Choosing a guitar is a very personal thing, however some of the main things to consider when choosing a guitar are.

The type of music you want to play.
The type of guitars you like.
How much money you want to spend

When you have decided on the style and price of guitar you want to buy, the most important question before buying a guitar is 'do you like the way the guitar feels', and this can only be answered by trying a few guitars.

This is an excellent eBook by 'Music Industries Association (MIA)'. Click to read /download

Tuning your guitar

Before you start playing your guitar you will need to check it is in tune. You can download the free tuner from the download page install it and tune your guitar using that.

Download page

This video explains how to use the GCH Guitar Academy guitar tuner and how to tune your guitar.

If you have trouble tuning your guitar find some help, as it is very easy to brake strings.

Reading chord and scale maps

The first thing you must learn to do is read chords, scales and notes so that you can practice the lessons.

Chords and scales
Chords are initially written in chord charts. These are simple pictures of the guitar neck with dots which represent the tips of fingers pressing on the string. You should try to place the fingers on the guitar as shown in the chord map and then strum the strings.

Scales are initially shown in the same way, however with scales you should play the notes one at a time. By downloading the free month one multimedia course from the download page (here) you can here a scale being played which will make this clearer to understand.

Playing your first chords

Once you can read the chord charts you can start learning the chords.

Chords
Your first chords are open chords, which means they usually contain one or more strings that are played without a finger being pressed down on them. It is common when playing your first chords to find one or two strings don't sound quit right. This video helps address this issue and allows you to slowly, progressively start learning to play chords.

The free eBook download on the download page contains a chord chart that can be printed ou and used for referencet.

Playing your first tunes using chords

Once you can read the chords and play a few chords you can try playing a tune.

Your first chord tunes
This tutorial will teach you the absolute basics of measures/bars and then explain how you can use chords to play along with 2 tunes using backing tracks.

The first chord tunes are, She'll be coming 'round the mountaind and Hey Jude. For now you should play one chord per bar on the first beat. You can add a strumming rhythm later when you can play the chords quickly and cleanly enough.

Play Hey Jude with easy chords

A very simple version of Hey Jude on the guitar using simple open chords.
This tutorial includes the use of a backing track to help you understand how the chords fit in with the music, for copyright purposes this is not The Beatles version.

The chords are

verse
D A A D G D A D
chorus
D7 G Em A7 D D7 G Em A7 D D7 A7
coda
D C G D

Playing the G major scale

Once you can read the chord and scale charts you can also learn some scales.

Scales
Scales are an essential part of playing the guitar. When playing a scale you play one note at a time, unlike chords. Not only will practising scales help you play various tunes, but they also will help you when it comes to understanding guitar music theory.

I would recommend you play scales every time you practise the guitar. Scales are ideal for warming up your fingers.

Learn to read tablature (tab) in a minute

Tablature or tab is an easy way of writing and reading guitar music. Like most modern guitar courses the GCH Guitar Academy guitar course uses tablature as the primary way of writing guitar music down.

Tab is one of the most recognized methods of writing guitar music and there are many books available of guitar music in tab form. Your local music or guitar shop will probably have a selection tablature books and your local newsagents will have guitar magazines with tablature.

There are also many Web sites with free tab which is provided by users. This can be good and/or bad. Most of the tab provided on the internet is free, however much of it is inaccurate.

'E' string rooted barre chords

This tutorial is not for an absolute beginner, unless you have extreme confidence in your ability to learn to play the guitar.

'E' string rooted barre chords are more often refurd to as 'first position barre chords'.

These are hard to play but well worth the effort. Even if you cant play a clean barre chord straight away, keep practising them and they will eventually become clean.

The first four weeks of lessons

Month e-books (PC/Mac)
download site

Month one multimedia course

PC - download site 1 - download site 2

Mac - download site 1 - download site 2

The Left handed versions can be downloaded here

To download
Click the right hand mouse button and select 'save target as'. then you can save the download to your computer.

Download the first four weeks of guitar lessons.
There are e two ways of doing this.

Download Just the e-book
An e-book is an Adobe PDF file which can be opened on your computer using the free application 'Adobe Acrobat reader'. When you have acrobat reader on your computer you can open the PDF e-books and either view them on your computer or print them out so you can read them more easily whilst holding your guitar.

Download the multimedia month one
The multimedia course is a computer application with sound and video. The obvious advantage is that you can hear how the guitar should sound when you play any of the chords or exercises. However if you have a basic guitar knowledge this may not be necessary. The multimedia course also contains the e-books so you can view or print them out as you like.

Chord theory one - the triad

If you are looking for guitar lessons
in the Colwyn Bay area
North Wales

GCH Guitar Academy currently have one to one lessons available in Old Colwyn, Colwyn Bay, Conwy.

The lessons are one to one, private lessons in Old Colwyn, however the times available is limited and are filling fast so be sure to ring and book your lessons soon to avoid disappointment.

For more information click here