Everything You Need To Know To Start Playing Guitar

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In this 15 part series, Video-tabs.com simplifies the process of learning guitar by providing guitar lessons videos in a logical order for beginner level guitarists can quickly and easily master the skills they need to start playing songs. The videos contained in this beginners course will teach you the parts of the guitar, how to change your strings, how to tune your guitar, how to read tablature, and how to play all the basic chords.

For those who stick with it learning how to play the guitar is an extremely rewarding experience and can provide endless hours of enjoyment for yourself, your friends, and anyone who likes to listen. Let’s start learning. We have tried to arrange the following video lessons in a logical order for beginners, but feel free to use the table of contents to jump to the different sections.

Table of Contents

1. The different parts of the guitar
2. Becoming familiar with the fret board and the strings
3. How to purchase the right type of guitar
4. How to hold your guitar
5. How to string your guitar
6. How to tune your guitar
7. How to read tablature and chord charts
8. Learn major chords in first position - A | C | D | E | F | G
9. Learn minor chords in first position - Am | Bm | Cm | Dm | Em |
10. Learn major 7th chords in open position - A7 | B7 | C7 | D7 | E7 | G7
11. Learn other popular chord embellishments in the open position
12. Learn basic strumming techniques
13. Working on your chord changes and transitions
14. Learn 5th chords, power chords, and barre chords
15. Teach me some songs already!

Part 1 - Learning the parts of the guitar

Part 2 - Becoming familiar with the fret board and the strings

Now that you’ve learned the parts of the guitar it is very important to become familiar with the names and order of the strings in standard tuning as well as learning how to read your finger positioning on the fretboard of the guitar. Additionally it is very important to know how to properly finger a note within a fret.  The next two video segment will explain all of these concepts:
 

Part 3 - Purchasing the right type of guitar

If you currently don’t own a guitar and want to purchase one so that you can begin to learn and teach yourself, you will want to watch this video segment which outlines and explains the different types of guitars and the styles of music that each type is commonly used for playing:

Part 4 - How to hold your guitar and pick
 

How to hold your picks
 

How to get your pick out of the guitar

Part 5 - How to string your guitar

Stringing an acoustic guitar - Part 1

Stringing an acoustic guitar - Part 2

Stringing an electric guitar - Part 1

Stringing an acoustic guitar - Part 2

Part 6 - How to Tune Your Guitar

One of the most important things you will need to do in order to keep your guitar sounding good (and make practicing worthwhile) is to tune it on a regular basis. The process of tuning your guitar involves adjusting the pitch of each of your strings so that they play the correct note. This is done by tightening or loosening each of the tuning pegs (on the headstock). In general, tightening the tuning peg raises the pitch of a string, while loosening the peg lowers the pitch. There are a few different methods that guitar players use in order to tune their guitars.

Standard Tuning:

Drop D Tuning:

Part 7 - Learning to Read Tablature and Chord Charts

In this section you will learn how to read chord charts and tablatures (tabs) which will in turn help you to become familiar with the fingerings required to play chords. Chords are the building blocks of songs and once you have learned the all of the major and minor open chords and can somewhat comfortably transition between them, you’ll be ready to start learning some basic songs. The next two phases are perhaps the toughest phases of teaching yourself how to play guitar, but once you get through them, you’ll be ready to learn and add new songs to your repertoire! Video-tabs.com as you probably gathered from the domain name combines video guitar lessons with guitar tablature. It is very important that you become comfortable reading tabs so that you can use them to start learning songs.

Reading Tablature:
 

Reading Chord Charts:
 

Part 8 - Learning the major chords in open position

Chords are the basic building blocks of most popular songs.

Learning the A Major or "A" chord

Learning the C Major or "C" chord

Learning the D Major or "D" chord

Learning the E Major or "E" chord

Learning the G Major or "G" chord

Learning the F Major or "F" chord

Part 9 - Learning the minor chords in open position

Learning the A Minor or "Am" chord

Learning the B Minor or "Bm" chord

Learning the C Minor or "Cm" chord 

Learning the D Minor or "Dm" chord

Learning the E Minor or "Em" chord

Part 10 - Learn Major 7th chords in open position

Learn the "A7" chord

Learn the "B7" chord

Learn the "C7" chord

Learn the "D7" chord

Learn the "E7" chord

Learn the "G7" chord

Part 11 - Learning other popular chord embellishments in the open position - suspended chords and minor 7th chords

Part 13 - Strumming Techniques
 

Chord Transitions

Part 14 - Learn power chords and 5th chords

Part 15 - Teach me some songs already!

If you’ve worked through the lessons above and you’re feeling comfortable and familiar with most of the concepts, you’re probably ready to dive into playing some songs. Here are some suggested tunes we think you should check out to get started:

• Losing My Religion - R.E.M.
• Free Falling - Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers
• Horse With No Name - America
• Bad Moon Rising - Creedance Clearwater Revival (CCR)
• American Pie - Don McLean
• One - U2