(Complete learning Procedure | Finger Exercises | Guitar Note Series| Guitar different Notes position | Finger Picking Techniques | Guitar Scales | Guitar Chords)
Well the initial post ‘How to Play Guitar – Lesson 1’ was all about very basics
on Guitar which explains about “Know your guitar, Types of Guitar, Body Parts of Guitar, What is a chord, how tohold a guitar pick & how to hold guitar” which helps you to know
your guitar and just to build your understanding on Guitar.
‘How to Play guitar’ in my term is to understand your guitar by
understanding Guitar music, different terminologies, guitar scales and how to
apply music theory on Guitar to build Melodies and to play Chords to perform
Solo.
I am going to cover all these terms in this post so this
post is going to be very interesting for you guys.
I will try to brief you all you need to learn to start
playing songs or melodies on your guitar with proper explanation.
1.
FINGER EXERCISES:
You have to practice basic Finger exercises
on fretboard or finger board, this is the initial step towards handling your
Guitar and playing something on guitar. You may not recognize but yes it will
help you on below mentioned points in many ways.
a.
You will learn how to play different notes on
fretboard with the help of different fingers and understand the role and
co-ordination of thumb and rest of the fingers on the fretboard or finger board.
Thumb is actually used to support the pressure we are applying to stings
with the help of fingers. Thumb is placed in the back side of fretboard to support
and all fingers are placed in the front of fretboard and are free to play
different notes to play melody.
Initially as a beginner you will see it little
difficult to play but by the time you are habitual.
b.
These exercises help you to stretch your finger.
This point is very relevant as there are many chords or melodies for which we
need to stretch are finger a lot. And that is the reason this is very important
to perform stretch exercises.
c.
You get confidence with time as these exercises
have their own tune and at least you have started with some tune.
d.
This is required as these exercises helps to place
your finger properly on the note. Finger should be placed in a way it should
not interrupt or touch any other string. This talent is required when you are
playing any melody or Chords later.
There are many Exercises which you
can start as a beginner, intermediate or experts. Also, when you start
repeating these exercises 15 – 20 minutes daily then you will see the
difference after couple of days or weeks (depending upon effort invested) that
you are habitual of doing it and these become very easy for all of you to play.
I will try to cover all relevant exercises in
upcoming post.
2.
Understanding of Guitar Note Series:
There are certain rules provided by Guitar
Music theory which we need to follow throughout guitar learning and so on.
As per the Music theory there is a series
of Notes which are obeying for most of the music instrument including Guitar,
Piano, etc.
A A#
B C C#
D D# E F F#
G G# A
Here, # sign denotes ‘Sharp’, so we can say
A# as ‘A Sharp Note’.
Same can be written as below,
A Bb
B C Db
D Eb E F Gb
G Ab A
Here, b sign denotes ‘Flat’, hence Bb is
termed as B Flat and Db Note is termed as D Flat Note and so on.
Remember that both A# (A Sharp Note) and Bb (B
Flat Note) are same. Similarly C# (C Sharp Note) and Db (D Flat Note) are same
and F# (F Sharp Note) and Gb (G Flat Note) are same.
There are 12 Notes available as per Music theory
which is repeated in nature. After completion of 12 notes it starts from first one
again.
You can see A note is coming twice in the
Series, this is just to represent the first place to repeat the series again.
A A# B C C# D D# E F F#
G G# A A# B C C# D D# E F F#
G G
You will notice that there are 12 notes
which are different and coming in a particular sequence and all 12 notes are
repeating their sequence after completion of 12 notes.
Starting Note can be any Note depending on
the Scale.
This series plays a vital role in below
tasks,
o
To identify the position of Notes.
o
To
identify the series or family members of different Guitar Scales.
o
To identify the position of Guitar chords
throughout the Fretboard or Finger board etc.
3.
Understanding on Identification on
different Notes position on Guitar:
I hope you have gone through the section
and post ‘The Guitar String
Names and Position’ so assuming you have a
good understanding of all strings and their positions. The second step is to
understand notes.
Confused humm??
Let me clear this, all strings have
different names E, A, D, G, B and E. Alright?
But there is a meaning behind their
names.
Every string name tells the note played in open position. Let’s
take up an example of B string.
Why B string is known as B string? It’s simple,
since its sound like B note when played in Open position.
Open
Position means we just need to strum B string without pressing and string
from left hand (Position for Right hand guitarist).
So let’s continue on the previously taken
example of B String now.
B String Note Sequence | Different Positions:
We have already discussed that B string is
played as B note when played in Open position.
Check the note sequence shared in the ‘Understanding of Guitar Note series’
section and pick all notes coming after B Note as shown below,
B C C# D D# E F F#
G G# A A# B C C#
D D# E F F#
G G
Now every single step or note from left to
right represent the playing position of B string with a difference of one fret.
So the B string itself holding B note when
played open hence leave the first B note.
Next note to the right side is C note that
means we can play C note on B string at first fret.
Next comes as C# that means we can play C#
(C Sharp Note) on B Sting at second fret.
Next one is D that means we can play D note
on B Sting at second fret.
And so on.
This way you can apply this series to find
different notes available on your Guitar fretboard. You just need to remember
the String name and pull all notes starts from that name.
That’s it!!!
I don’t know exactly how it looks to you
but believe me this concept is very interesting and easy to use.
Why this is very important is that same concept
is used to find Chords as well so basically you would not want to ignore this
one.
4. Understanding of Different finger Picking Technique:
Well there are different picking patterns
which are required to play different Melodies.
However these techniques are required
everywhere in all types of songs and Melodies but are really plays vital role
if you are learning or playing Spanish style or melodies.
Playing melodies is basically a
co-ordination of you left hand and right hand. Considering the Guitarist as
Right handed, Guitarist left hand fingers positioned on the Fretboard side and
right hand is on the Guitar body or sound hole side.
Why I am insisting on the co-ordination is because
the same string picked by the left hand finger on any fret, same string need to
be played by your right hand finger. And these strings and their position
changes very often at the time of playing especially any Melody.
So don’t miss this one.
5. Understanding on different Guitar Scales:
The
third phase in ‘How to Play Guitar’ is to know the different Guitar Scales as
per music theory; Guitar Scales is a very big topic itself to discuss but at
the same time are building block of Guitar and so is very important to know in
the beginning.
You would want to know the basics of Guitar
Scales, what are the different types to Guitar scales, how to identify the
family members of any particular scales, what is the difference between Guitar
major scale and guitar minor scale, what is guitar Chromatic scale. So these
are some basic questions.
Well, I have neatly explained everything
about Guitar Scales in below posts which you should check in sequence to have
complete, required and useful understanding on Guitar Scales.
Once you will go through these posts then
only you will realize the purpose and importance of these topics and why Scales
are known as building in guitar terms.
Let’s quickly move to the next phase.
6. Chords Understanding:
Then after you should have an understanding
on chords and their types, position etc.
In simple term,
Guitar Chord is an arrangement of three or
more different notes played simultaneously on guitar.
To play any chord there is a arrangement of
Fingers by which we need to press different notes on the fretboard. Every chord
has its own scales.
Sequence of different Chords are played to
perform Solo and different songs. As a beginner we can start with some basic
Open chords and then after adequate practice we can also starts with the Barre Guitar
Chords which are little difficult to play.
You can go and check Chords of Guitar Chart: Guitar Chord: Open Chord to have a
better understanding of Guitar Chords. After this lesson you will be able to
play basic Open chords.
I believe this post helps you to understand the complete
procedure and all details about what and how to learn and all their Guitar
basic associated terminologies.
Hope you have enjoyed this post and it will help you to
learn more and more about guitar related specialized topics.
There is lot more to share, Keep in
touch and stay happy.
Happy Learning!!!
