About.com Beginner Guitar Lesson Two

Part 1

In lesson one of this special feature on learning the guitar, we were introduced to the parts of the guitar, learned to tune the instrument, learned a chromatic scale, and learned Gmajor, Cmajor, and Dmajor chords. If you are not familiar with any of these, be sure to read lesson one before proceeding.

What You'll Learn in Lesson Two

This second lesson will continue to focus on exercises to strengthen the fingers in the fretting hand. You'll also learn several new chords, in order to play many more songs. String names will also be discussed in this feature. Lastly, lesson two will also introduce you to the basics of strumming the guitar.

Are you ready? Good, let's start lesson two.

Part 2 - A New Scale

To play this lesson's scale, we need to review which fingers to use to play which notes on the fretboard. In the following scale, we will use our first finger to play the all notes on the first fret of the guitar. Our second finger will play all notes on the second fret. Our third finger will play all notes on the third fret. And, our fourth finger will play all notes on the fourth fret (since there aren't any in this scale, we won't use our fourth finger at all). It is important to stick to these fingerings for this scale, because it is an efficient way of using our fingers, and is a concept we will continue to use in upcoming lessons.

guitar playing hand picture
More of this Feature
• Part 1: overview
• Part 3: string names
• Part 4: chords
• Part 5: strumming
• Part 6: learning songs
• Part 7: practice schedule

E phrygian (fridge-ee-n)

guitar lesson e phrygian scale

Listen to an mp3 of the E phrygian scale shown above.

One of the best ways to start working on the co-ordination in your fingers is to practice playing scales. Although they may seem boring, they will certainly help build the strength and agility your fingers need to play the guitar well. Keep that in mind while practicing this new scale. Start by using your pick to play the open sixth string. Next, take the first finger on your fretting hand, and place it on the first fret of the sixth string. Play that note. Now, take your third finger, place it on the third fret of the sixth string, and play the note. Now, it's time to move on to playing the open fifth string. Keep following the diagram, playing each note indicated until you have reached the third fret on the first string.

Remember:

* To use alternate picking throughout. Try starting the scale with a downstroke, then next time try starting the scale with an upstroke.
* Once you've finished the scale, try playing the scale backwards, by starting at the first string, third fret, and playing all notes in exactly the reverse order.
* The key here is accuracy, not speed! Try playing the scale very slowly, making sure that each note is ringing clearly.

Part 3 - Names of Guitar Strings

Just a little bit more technical talk before we get into playing more chords and songs. Don't worry, this shouldn't take you more than a couple of minutes to memorize!

Every note on the guitar has a name, represented by a letter. The names of each of these notes is important; guitarists need to know where to find these notes on their instrument, in order to read music.

picture of guitar open strings The image to the left illustrates the names of the six open strings on the guitar. The strings, from sixth to first (thickest to thinnest) are named E, A, D, G, B and E again. In order to help you memorize this, try using the accompanying phrase "Every Adult Dog Growls, Barks, Eats" to keep the order straight. Try saying the string names out loud, one by one, as you play that string. Then, test yourself by pointing to a random string on your guitar, then trying to name that string as quickly as possible. In following lessons, we'll be learning the names of the notes on various frets on the guitar, but for now, we'll just stick with the open strings.

Part 4 - Learning More Chords

Last week, we learned three types of chords: Gmajor, Cmajor, and Dmajor. In this second lesson, we'll explore a new type of chord... a "minor" chord. The terms "major" and "minor" are terms used to describe the sound of the chord. In very basic terms, a major chord sounds happy, while a minor chord sounds sad (listen to the difference between major and minor chords). Most songs will contain a combination of both major and minor chords.

Playing an E minor chord

how to play an e minor chord Easiest chord first... playing an Eminor chord only involves using two fingers in your fretting hand. Start by placing your second finger on the second fret of the fifth string. Now, place your third finger on the second fret of the fourth string. Strum all six strings, and, there you have it, an Eminor chord! Now, like last lesson, test yourself to make sure you're playing the chord properly. Starting on the sixth string, strike each string one at a time, making sure each note in the chord is ringing clearly. If not, study your fingers, and identify what the problem is. Then, try to adjust your fingering so the problem goes away.

Playing an A minor chord

how to play an a minor chord Here is another chord that gets used all the time in music, the Aminor chord. Playing this shape shouldn't be too hard: start by placing your second finger on the second fret of the fourth string. Now, place your third finger on the second fret of the third string. Lastly, place your first finger on the first fret of the second string. Strum the bottom five strings (being careful to avoid the sixth), and you'll be playing an Aminor chord. As with all previous chords, be sure to check each string to make sure all the notes in the chord are ringing clearly.

Playing a D minor chord

how to play a d minor chord Last week, we learned how to play a Dmajor chord. In lesson two, we'll examine how to play a Dminor chord. For an inexplicable reason, newer guitarists have a hard time remembering how to play this chord, perhaps because it doesn't get used as often as some others. For this reason, you should make an extra effort to memorize a Dminor chord. Start by placing your first finger on the first fret of the first string. Now, put your second finger on the second fret of the third string. Lastly, add your third finger to the third fret of the second string. Now, strum only the bottom four strings. Check to see if your chord is ringing clearly. Watch the Dminor chord... be sure you are only strumming the bottom four strings... otherwise, the chord might not sound so nice!

Part 5 - Learning to Strum

One of the primary ways a guitarist can make a song sound good is by adding an interesting strum to the music. A guitarist with a good grasp of strumming can bring a two chord song to life. In this first lesson on strumming, we'll examine some of the basics of strumming the guitar, and learn a widely used strumming pattern.

Grab your guitar, and make sure you have your guitar pick in hand. Using your fretting hand, form a G major chord on the neck (review how to play a Gmajor chord). Now, take a look at the following example, which is a very basic strumming pattern.

This pattern is one bar long, and contains 8 strums. It might look confusing, so for now, just pay attention to the arrows at the bottom. An arrow pointing down indicates that you should strum downwards on the guitar. Similarly, an upwards arrow indicates that you should strum upwards. Notice that the pattern starts with a downstroke, and ends with an upstroke. So, if you were to play the pattern twice in a row, your hand wouldn't have to vary from it's continual down-up motion. Now, try playing the pattern, taking special care to "keeping the rhythm". You should be aiming for trying to keep the time between strums exactly the same. When you get done playing the example once, loop it, without any sort of pause. Count out loud: 1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and 1 and 2 and (etc.) Notice that on the "and" (often referred to as the "offbeat") you are always using an upwards strum. This is something to keep in mind as we progress. If you are having problems keeping a steady rhythm, try listening to, and playing along with, an mp3 of the strumming pattern.

Remember:

* If you are playing an acoustic guitar, make sure to strum directly over the sound hole
* On electric guitar, strum over the body (different locations will give you different sounds), not over the neck
* Make sure all strings are ringing clearly
* Make sure the volume of your downstrums and upstrums are equal
* Be careful not to strum too hard, as this often causes strings to rattle, and produces an undesirable sound
* Be careful not to strum too softly, as this will produce a "wimpy" sound. Your pick should be striking the strings with a relatively firm, even stroke
* Think of your elbow as being the top of a pendulum; your arm should swing up and down from it in a steady motion, never pausing at any time.
* Having said that, the bulk of the picking motion should come from a rotation of the wrist, rather than from the forearm. Be sure not to keep your wrist stiff when playing.

Now that we've covered the very basics of strumming, we can move on to something a little bit more challenging. Don't worry; we're not going to be adding anything technically hard to play to the next strumming pattern. In fact, we're going to be taking something away! By removing only one strum from the previous pattern, we will create one of the most widely used and versatile strumming patterns in pop, country, and rock music!

Here is the key: when we remove the strum, the initial tendency for the guitarist will be to stop the strumming motion in the picking hand. This is exactly what we DON'T want to do, because it mixes up the nice pattern we had going of all the downstrums being ON the beat, and all the upstrums being OFF the beat (on the "and" or on the "offbeat".) The trick is to keep the strumming motion going in the picking hand; but ever so slightly lift the hand away from the body of the guitar momentarily, on the downstroke of the 3rd beat, so the pick misses the strings. Then, on the next upstroke (the "and" of the 3rd beat), bring the hand back closer to the body of the guitar, so the pick hits the strings. So, to summarize, the upward/downward motion of the picking hand should not change AT ALL from the first pattern. Deliberately avoiding the strings with the pick on the 3rd beat of the pattern is the only factor that has changed.

Listen to, and play along with, this second strumming pattern, to get a better idea on how this new pattern should sound. Once you are comfortable with this, try it at a somewhat faster speed. It is important to be able to play this accurately; don't be satisfied with getting MOST of the up and down strums in the right order. If it's not perfect, it will make learning any harder strums virtually impossible. Be sure that you can play the pattern many times in a row, without having to stop because of an incorrect strum. This is a tricky concept, and it can be guaranteed that you will have some problems with it at first. The idea is, if you introduce basic strumming patterns early, within a couple of lessons, you'll have gotten the hang of it, and will be sounding great! It is important to try not to get frustrated... soon, this will become second nature.

Now, let's finish up the lesson by learning a few new songs, and setting up this lesson's practice schedule.

Part 6 - Learning Songs

The addition of three new minor chords to this week's lesson gives us a total of six chords to learn songs with. These six chords will provide you with the opportunity to play literally hundreds of country, blues, rock, and pop songs.

If you need to refresh your memory on which chords we've learned so far, you can review the major chords from lesson one, and the minor chords from lesson two. Here are a few of the songs you can play with G major, C major, D major, E minor, and A minor chords: