Gary Turner - Guitar Lessons for Beginners: Teach Yourself How to Play Guitar

Progressive Beginner Guitar assumes you have no prior knowledge of music or playing the guitar.

Starting from the types of guitar available and the different styles of playing, you are introduced to:

• Important basic chord shapes and chord progressions.
• Learn to read and play guitar music using standard music notation, easy read tab and easy read strumming patterns and chord diagrams.
• Learn to play the notes on all six strings.
• Learn the melodies and chords of over 20 well known songs and chord progressions including Rock, Blues and Turnaround Progressions.
• Learn basic music theory including time signatures, sharps and flats, major scales, etc.
• Learn the most common open chord shapes in the keys of C major, G major and A minor.

The book also has special sections on tuning and how to read sheet music of your favorite music artists and groups.

All guitarists should know all of the information contained in this book.

The best and fastest way to learn is to use this book in conjunction with:

• Buying sheet music and song books of your favorite recording artists and learning to play their songs.
• Practicing and playing with other musicians. You will be surprised how good a basic drums/bass/guitar combination can sound, even when playing easy music.
• Learning by listening to your favorite recordings.

In the early stages, it is also helpful to have the guidance of an experienced teacher. This will help you keep to a schedule and obtain weekly goals.

Approach to Practice

From the beginning you should set yourself a goal. Many people learn guitar because of a desire to play like their favorite artist (e.g., Eric Clapton), or to play a certain style of music (e.g., Rock, Blues etc). Motivations such as these will help you to persevere through the more difficult sections of work. As you develop, it will be important to adjust and update your goals.

It is important to have a correct approach to practice. You will benefit more from several short practices (e.g., 15-30 minutes per day) than one or two long sessions per week. This is especially so in the early stages, because of the basic nature of the material being studied. In a practice session you should divide your time evenly between the study of new material and the revision of past work. It is a common mistake for semi-advanced students to practice only the pieces they can already play well. Although this is more enjoyable, it is not a very satisfactory method of practice. You should also try to correct mistakes and experiment with new ideas. It is the authors belief that an experienced teacher will be an invaluable aid to your progress.

Acoustic Guitars

Classical Guitar

The classical guitar has nylon strings and a wider neck than the other types of guitar and is played with the fingers of the right hand rather than a pick. It is most commonly used for playing Classical, Flamenco and Fingerstyles. Generally it is much cheaper than other types of guitar and is recommended for beginning guitarists due to the wider fretboard, making it easier to play and the nylon strings being gentler on beginner fingers.

Steel String Acoustic

The steel string acoustic has steel strings and is most commonly played by strumming or fingerpicking groups of notes called chords. This is the type of acoustic guitar you will hear in most modern styles of music, e.g., Top 40 Rock and Pop music.

Acoustic guitars can be amplified for performances at large venues where the acoustic guitar needs amplification to be heard by using a microphone placed near the soundhole or by placing a portable pickup on the body of the guitar.