Beginner Guitar Lessons

Where do beginner guitar lessons begin?

Beginner guitar lessons consist of you getting to know your first guitar. This guitar will probably be a nylon string acoustic which will enable you to learn what it takes to get music out of an instrument without relying too much on electronic enhancements and without cutting your fingers up on steel strings. What style of guitar do you want to learn?

Do you want to play along to your favorite songs or learn songs from a music book or off the web? Maybe you want to learn to play on an acoustic guitar. You just need to learn the basic chords, how to hold the guitar without straining your arms, back or shoulders, and some idea of how much practice you need to put in each day.

You will also need to know what you are going to be doing with your right hand. Do you want to strum chords using a plectrum, learn clawhammer fingerstyle picking or maybe you'd like to strum with your fingers and thumb, and keep note picking to a minimum.

Do you want to play electric guitar? Once again do you want to learn to play guitar solos or just play rhythm and let somebody else take the glory? If you want to play electric guitar solos, you might want to check out your favorite guitar player to get some idea of what he does. There's a world of difference between the playing styles of Eric Clapton, Mark Knopfler or Ted Nugent! What's all this stuff got to do with beginner guitar lessons? Well, if you want to play guitar, it's best to start out with some knowledge of your instrument.

Many people begin their musical education without much idea of the various styles of playing, and sometimes this can hold back their progress. The direction you're about to take makes a difference to how you begin. If you're going to take up classical guitar you'll begin with beginner's pieces. If you want to play jazz or lead guitar you'll need to learn chords and scales, and how to handle a plectrum for doing solos. To just accompany yourself singing you will need to learn chords only.

A great place to start to explore beginner guitar lessons is JamPlay, an online guitar lessons site which features online video guitar lessons in guitar techniques, chords, scales, reading tabs, and progressions to advanced techniques for blues, rock, and bluegrass genres. The big difference between Jamplay and other guitar lessons on the internet is that you can interact with the Jamplay teachers! You can start with basic beginner lessons or jump right into advanced genre lessons. They will teach you chords, how to read tablature, strumming patterns, fingerpicking, songs, scales, modes, barre chords, theory, song composition and if you get lost you can ask your teacher questions! JamPlay locates professional guitar teachers from across the country, films their lessons, and broadcasts them over the internet. All teachers are available for your questions. Ask them anything, and they will answer them on camera.

A Tour of Jamplay

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You can get access to over 15 hours of video guitar lessons, which makes Jamplay the most cost effective way to learn, period. New lessons are also added on a weekly basis, which means there will always be new content for you to enjoy.

Visualization for beginner guitar players

Different parts of the brain do different jobs. One part of the brain learns the words to a song. A different part of the brain learns and remembers guitar chords and where to put your fingers.

If you don't want to be making the same muffled notes and botched chord changes over and over for the next twenty years or so, you are going to want to learn some visualisation techniques. Visualisation means you break down a small series of muscular actions, like a chord change, into as many small stages as you can. Then try to visualize what you are going to do before you try and do it physically. Watch yourself as you go through the motions in your mind. But watch from inside your body. FEEL the chord change as you do it! Then try in the real world, but as smoothly and unhurriedly as possible. If you are not executing your series of movements smoothly you will find that you're muffing your chord change. Go back and try the chord change again smoothly and slowly until you know what you are doing that's stopping you from executing your chord change efficiently. If you continue to practice smoothly, your muscle memory will help you to get all your movements right when you are practicing your guitar playing.