Picking up the guitar for the first time as a beginner guitar player is a mix of excitement, confusion, fulfillment, and not to mention some finger pain in the beginning!
However once you have the basics covered, and a few song that you're looking forward to playing, you'll be well on your way to a ton of fun for yourself, and for who you choose to share you playing with.
What do you want to play on the guitar?
The first important question to answer for yourself is what do you want to learn to play on the guitar?
Are there any songs that you heard before that you'd like to learn how to play? Maybe you want to learn how to play some cool guitar solos.
When you have this answered for yourself, this will make the journey of learning a lot smoother and a lot more fun in the beginning!
Beginner guitar finger/hand pain
Unfortunately one unavoidable hurdle for every beginning guitar player is finger and hand pain. A lot of beginning students think that this because they are doing something wrong, or that maybe the guitar isn't the right choice for them because of their hand size, etc.
Let me reassure you that this is 99.9% normal.
Because you're using your hand and fingers in ways that it hasn't been used before, it will take a bit of time to adjust to it.
Usually hand and finger soreness goes away after a few weeks of playing.
Guitar Basics
So now let’s get to the basics of the guitar.
Guitar Strings
The guitar has 6 strings. The strings are counted in a specific order. The thinnest (lowest) string is the first string, and the thickest (highest) string is the six string.
Guitar Frets
Next are the frets on the guitar. The frets are the metal bars that you see on the fretboard. They help to show where you press with your left hand. You keep track of these frets with numbers as well, so for example first fret, second fret, and so on.
When you move higher up the neck, it’s a little difficult to keep track of what fret you’re on. Therefore to help you keep track of where you are on the fretboard, most guitars have dots like these.
On a typical guitar, you have fret markers on the 3rd, 5th, 7th, 9th, and 12th fret. The 12th fret has double dots.
Some guitars, classical guitars usually, unfortunately have no frets.
Guitar Picks
Finally we have your guitar pick. Picks come in all different shapes and sizes, but your most typical guitar pick looks like this. The most common way of holding a guitar pick is to place the fat part of the pick onto your thumb with the pointy part pointing away from the finger towards the left. Next bring the top part of your index finger across the finger, pointing towards your wrist.
Pictures are worth a thousand words, therefore I’m sure these pictures will be much clearer to understand!
Making sound
So now it’s finally time to make some sound on the guitar. I recommend watching my video on making your first guitar sound here:
And there you have it! Now you’re ready to start playing small songs and melodies on the guitar. Check out the article in this link which contains some popular basic melodies you can play.
If you’d like to take a lesson with me for a fully customized approach to learning the guitar, feel free to book a free trial lesson, and let’s get started together!