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Hi, I'm Mike Christiansen, and welcome to Guitar Basics Video Number One.
During the video, we're going to be talking about all sorts of guitar playing, from playing
basic chords to playing single note melodies.
And remember, when you're using the video, don't be afraid to rewind the video, to freeze
frame it, to go back and review sections until you can master each section of the video.
To begin with, you're going to need some equipment to play the material we're going to be talking
about.
Of course, you'll need a guitar.
Make sure that it has six strings on it.
Whether it's a folk guitar with steel strings or a classic guitar with nylon strings doesn't
really matter.
You will also need to have a pick.
Now, this size and this shape of pick is the one to use.
Probably a medium thickness would be the best one to start out with.
Make sure that the fingernails on your left hand are very short.
If your fingernails are very long on your left hand, they could hit the guitar before
the skin of your finger hits the string, and it'll cause your strings to buzz.
So you want to make sure that your nails are short.
On your right hand, it's okay to have the fingernails be a little bit longer.
In fact, if they're about a sixteenth of an inch past the tip of your finger, that would
be the best length, because when we talk about finger picking, we're going to talk about
using a combination of the tip of the finger and using the fingernails.
To begin with, let's talk about the parts of the guitar.
You're going to hear me mentioning all of these things as we go along and mentioning
throughout the video.
It's important to know the parts.
This part of the guitar down here is called the head, and on the head you have tuning
gears or machine heads.
This white piece of bone or plastic is called the nut.
The long part of the guitar here is called the neck, and the divisions on the top of
the neck are called frets.
You'll notice that there's a different color wood glued on the top of the neck called the
fingerboard.
The frets are located on the fingerboard.
This is the first fret, second fret, third fret, and this direction is up.
Even if you're holding the guitar like this, this direction is still up because everything
goes according to pitch.
This part of the guitar, the large part, is called the body.
On the body you have a sound hole in the front here.
This is the rosette, the artwork around the sound hole.
This is called a pickguard if you have one.
Some guitars don't have them.
The pickguard protects the top of the guitar so it won't get chipped up or scratched when
you're strumming, especially if you're using a pick.
On the top of the guitar here, this is called the bridge, and if you have a folk guitar,
you might have bridge pins.
On the bridge there's a white piece of plastic or bone, and that is called the bridge saddle.
This part of the guitar that is bent here on the side is called the waist of the guitar.
These are the sides, and this is the back of the guitar.
One important thing to remember when we begin playing is the finger numbers of the right
and of the left hand.
The finger numbers of the left hand, the thumb is a thumb.
This is the first finger, this is the second finger, the third finger, and the fourth finger.
On the right hand, the letter P represents thumb, P for polgar.
I represents the first finger, index, indice.
The second finger, middle finger, is represented with the letter M, and A is used to represent
the third finger.
The little finger is rarely used, and we won't be using it for the material in the book.
Now when you hold the instrument, the most important thing is that it feels comfortable
to you.
And one of the best positions is putting the guitar so that the waist of the guitar is
sitting on your right leg and lean it into you slightly.
You don't want to lean it into you too far, or you won't be able to get your hand around
it to play it.
You don't want to lean it too far forward, or you won't be able to see what you're doing,
and it's okay to look at your hands, the right and the left hand.
So lean it into you slightly so that it feels comfortable.
One other important thing is that make sure that the neck of the guitar is on a slight
angle upward.
If the neck of the guitar points downward, you might get in the habit of resting your
left arm on your leg like so, and you don't want to do that.
Then if you change position or play up the neck, you might have tendency to do it that
way.
So you want this left arm to be free so it's not resting on your leg.
On the right hand position, the important thing here is that the right hand be relaxed
and bring it over so it's just towards the back of the sound hole.
You don't want to put it too far forward, you cover up the hole and all of the sound
will hit your hand and go back in the guitar.
You don't want to pick it back here too far, or you'll get kind of a tinny sound out of
the guitar.
So you want it just towards the back of the sound hole.
Now what I want you to do first is I'd like you to stroke the first string with your thumb
only and just pick the string straight down.
You don't want to pull the string outward and you get kind of a flapping sound, what
we call fretting out.
You don't want to grab the bottom of the guitar like this and yank the string down, but you
just want to rest the thumb on the first string and just let your hand fall like so.
Now pick the first string with me several times, picking motion coming from the wrist.
Now if your first string does not sound like mine, if we're not tuned together, match your
first string so that it sounds like mine and you want to turn the gear down here that has
the first string attached to it and make your first string sound just like mine.
Okay now I'd like you to pick the second string, I'd like you to stroke the second string.
And by the way, when I'm playing these single strings, when you're using the video, you
might want to come to this section of the video each time you use it and match your
strings to mine so that we're in tune through the video.
Now pick the second string, and when you pick the second string, I want you to pick it so
that your thumb goes down and rests on the first string.
Again you don't want to pull it out, just straight down.
Okay good, now pick the third string.
Now the fourth, now the fifth, and now the sixth.
Now once again if your strings don't sound like mine, tune them and match them to mine
so that they sound the same pitch.
Now what I'd like you to do is strum four strings.
Now when I talk about strumming, I mean actually going across more than two strings and I'd
just like you to take four strings for right now, rest your thumb on the fourth string
and just let your hand fall, just play it straight down.
Use your wrist on it, don't be real rigid with that and don't hold your fingers straight
out, but just curl them slightly, let your hand fall, it's called strumming.
Now on your left hand, there are a few things that are very important here with the left
hand position.
It's important that you put your hand so that your thumb is at the back of the neck, about
half way up the back of the neck and in between fingers one and two on the opposite side of
the neck.
Don't bring your thumb over the top, don't let your thumb go parallel because one of
the things you don't want to do is let the palm of your hand touch the guitar, you want
the palm of the hand to be free down here.
Place your hand in a position also so that your knuckles are parallel to the guitar
neck so that the hand is in this sort of a position.
Now I'd like you to take your first finger on the left hand and place it on the first
string in the first fret.
Now when you put your finger down, it's very important to use the tip of the finger.
You don't want to use the flat, the padded part of the finger, but you want to use the
very tip of the finger and when you place the finger down, notice how I've squared
my finger around so that it's right on the tip and you want to place your finger right
next to the fret there.
If you put your finger too low, you'll get this buzzing sound and if you put it on top
of the fret, it'll sound muted, so you want to put it right next to the fret wire.
Now pick that note a few times, first finger on the first string in the first fret.
Good, now put your second finger in the second fret still on the first string, so the second
finger in the second fret, try to keep the knuckles parallel and use the very tip of
the finger.
Now pick that a few times.
Now the third finger in the third fret, still on the first string, now the fourth finger
in the fourth fret, still on the first string, now go back to three, to two, to one, and
then open.
Open means that no fingers are pushing on the strings.
Very good, now what I would like you to play is a little exercise called walking the board.
It means walking the finger board.
What I would like you to do is walk, play the open string first, first string, then
first finger, second finger, third finger, fourth finger, and then backward.
So play it with me one time, slowly, on the first string.
Open, one, two, three, four, three, two, one, open.
Good, let's try it on the second string now, the same exercise on the second string beginning
with the open string, open, one, two, three, four, three, two, one, and open.
Each time when you sit down to practice, run through that little exercise, the walking
the board, and I would try it on at least two strings.
You might want to try the exercise on all six strings and take it all the way down to
the bottom.
Earlier in the video I had you tune your open strings to mine, but if you don't have the
video with you always to tune to, it's possible to tune the guitar to itself.
One way to do this is tune the guitar to a piano.
Now you can tune your E, that's your first string on the guitar.
You can tune that note to E above middle C on the piano.
If you don't have a piano, you can use a guitar pitch pipe to find E. In fact, they have a
guitar pitch pipe which has six pitches on it, one for each string on your guitar.
You could match the pitch of your strings to the pitch pipe, or you could tune the guitar
to a tuning fork.
You can get a tuning fork which is tuned to E, and the way to use the tuning fork is hold
the base of the fork, tap it on your knee, and touch it on the bridge here on your guitar,
and that will give you the E to match your first string to, the pitch to match your first
string.
You tune your guitar so that the first string matches the tuning fork, then to tune the
second string, you put your finger on the second string in the fifth fret, and when
you play that, the second string should match the first string open.
If they don't sound the same in pitch, then adjust the second string so they match.
Now to tune the third string, you put your finger on the third string in the fourth fret,
and that should sound the same as the second string open.
Tune the fourth string, put your finger on the fourth string in the fifth fret, and that
should sound the same as the third string open.
Tuning the fifth string, you put your finger on the fifth string in the fifth fret, and
that should sound the same as the fourth string open.
To tune the sixth string, put your finger on the sixth string in the fifth fret, and
And it should sound the same as the fifth string open.
When you get those pitches to match, your guitar should be in tune with itself.
After you learn a few chords, you could practice strumming some chords once you've tuned.
And if it sounds like this, something went wrong.
So go back and match the pitches again, tune your strings so that they match in those frets.
Also, I'm going to play the open strings here now for you so you can tune your guitar to
mine.
The first string, the second string open, the third string open, the fourth string open,
the fifth string open, and the sixth string open.
Now I might mention here that while you're practicing, you might find your fingers getting
a little bit sore on the tips of the finger.
That's normal.
Your fingers might get a little bit tender until you develop calluses.
You might already have experienced that from the walking the board exercise.
Just want you to be aware that that's normal, and your fingers might just get a little bit
sore until you develop calluses.
The next section we're going to be talking about chords and strumming chords.
Now we're going to talk about strumming chords, and we're going to be talking about strumming
down only to begin with.
Strumming chords are when you play more three or more strings at one time, like we were
talking about before where we strummed four strings.
On page 15, you'll see a chord diagram there.
The top diagram is an illustration of the guitar neck.
You'll notice that the lines going up and down are the strings on the guitar, with the
first string being the line furthest to the right.
The horizontal lines are the frets.
Now the lower diagram has a dot on it.
That dot shows you where to place your finger on the guitar.
The number tells you which finger to place there, and the loop underneath the diagram
tells you how many strings to strum.
So you'll notice that that bottom diagram has the third finger on the first string in
the third fret.
Now let's hold that chord, and the loop underneath means to strum four strings, so let's strum
it four times down.
Ready, go.
Okay, very good.
Now if you look at the top of page 16, there are a lot of chords written on this page,
and you'll notice that the top left-hand side, if you have the book, you'll see a simple
G chord.
Now the simple G chord is the one we just finished playing with one finger on the first
string third fret, and then the one next to that is a simple C chord, and you play the
simple C chord by putting the first finger on the second string, the second finger on
the fourth string in the second fret, and you play four strings.
Now play that chord with me four times.
One, two, three, four.
Good, now go back to the simple G chord and play the simple G chord with the finger on
the first string third fret, and play that four times.
Now one of the challenging things here is going to be to change the chords quickly.
It's very rare that a beginning guitar player picks up the guitar and just plays, it just
doesn't happen at first.
You're going to find yourself doing a lot of this, and that's normal for the first little
while, but be working on getting your chord changes quickly.
One piece of advice I could give you to help with that is keep your right hand going when
you're changing chords.
Even if your left hand isn't on the chord yet, better to hear this than it is to stop
altogether.
So when you're changing, say, from a G chord to the C chord, keep that right hand going
until your fingers get in place.
Now try playing a simple G chord with me eight times, and then change and play a simple C
chord eight times.
Ready on the G?
Go one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight.
Okay, now towards the middle of the page, you'll see a diagram of an E minor chord.
The M by the chord stands for minor.
Now the minor chord, E minor, has the second finger on the fifth string second fret and
the third finger right under it on the fourth string second fret, and you'll notice on that
diagram that you can play all six strings.
Play the E minor chord with me four times.
Ready?
Go.
Good.
Now the next chord we want to try is a three-fingered G chord.
The three-fingered G chord is played with the first finger on the fifth string second fret,
the second finger on the sixth string third fret, and the third finger on the first string
third fret.
Now you play all six strings on this chord.
Let's play it down four times.
Now let's try the three-fingered C chord.
The three-fingered C chord is played with the first finger on the second string first fret,
second finger on the fourth string second fret, and third finger on the fifth string
third fret.
Now try to keep your fingers as close as you can to the fret wire.
Sometimes with some chords, it's going to be difficult to get them right up next to
the fret wire, but try to keep them as close as you can.
Now in this C chord, you play five strings, so let's play it down four times.
So one, two, three, four.
Very good.
Now try a simple G7 chord.
Now with a simple G7, you put one finger on the first string in the first fret, and you
play four strings down on that one.
Try it with me four times.
Now let's try a three-fingered G7.
The three-fingered G7 is played with the first finger on the first string, the second finger
on the fifth string, and the third finger on the sixth string, and you can strum all
six strings on this one.
Let's do it four times.
Ready, go.
Okay, now you'll notice with some of the, with the G chord in particular, there's an
optional fingering given there.
You can finger that chord with fingers two, three, and four, but I would recommend if
you're starting out to do it with fingers one, two, and three.
Also you'll notice if you have the book that there are some simple chords drawn, and then
there are the same chords with a little bit more difficult fingering.
As soon as you can, learn those, the more difficult fingerings of those chords, the ones
that have more fingers on them.
Okay, now let's play a simple C chord, and let's play it eight times, and then a G7 eight
times, and then a C chord eight times.
If you can play the three-fingered chords, versions of those chords, great, do those
with me.
Okay, ready on the C, go.
One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, G7, try to keep that right hand going.
Four, five, six, seven, eight, back to C. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight.
Okay, now a slanted bar is called a strum bar, and this means to strum a chord down
one time.
It gets one beat, and by the way, when you're strumming your chords down, make sure that
you strum the amount of strings that you're supposed to.
If you play too many strings on some chords, it will ruin the chord and make it sound
as though you're not holding the correct one.
Let's try playing exercise one on page 17.
Now in this exercise, this contains the G chord, the E minor, the C, and a chord we
haven't tried yet called a D chord.
Now the D chord is played with the first finger on the third string second fret, the second
finger on the first string second fret, and the third finger on the second string third
fret, and you strum four strings on this chord.
This is the D.
Okay, now let's play page 17, exercise one, and you'll notice that you strum each chord
eight times down on this, starting with the G, and if you can play the three-fingered
chord on the G, do.
Ready?
One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, E minor, one, two, three, four, five, six,
seven, eight, back to G, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, E minor, one, two,
three, four, five, six, seven, C, one, two, three, four, seven, eight, D, one, two, three,
four, five, six, seven, and G, eight times, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight.
Okay, now practice all of the chords on page 16 until you've learned all of them, and you
feel fairly comfortable about changing from one to another.
Next thing we're going to play is called a rhythm sheet, and on page 18 in the book you
have an example of a rhythm sheet.
A rhythm sheet is a piece of music that has the lyrics, it has the chords written above
the lyrics, and then out to the side you'll see a fraction called the time signature.
Now the only number to be concerned with in the time signature is the top number.
The top number will indicate how many times to strum each chord.
Right now let's try the arrangement of Down in the Valley on page 18.
This begins with a C chord, and you'll notice that the fraction out to the side is three
four.
It's in three four times, so you strum each chord three times down.
The chords are C and G seven.
If you want to play the simple ones, that's okay, but the sooner you can get to the three
fingered ones, the better.
Okay, beginning with the C, strumming each chord down three times.
Ready?
Down in the Valley, take one.
Ready?
Down in the Valley, Valley solo, G seven, three more, again, hang your head over, still
G seven, hear the wind blow, one, two, three, and put one C chord on the end to end the
song.
Now there are examples of rhythm sheets in the book, and you might want to try some of
those.
Now the next thing we have to talk about are called strum patterns.
The strum patterns I'm going to be showing you can either be done with thumb, or a combination
of the thumb and the fingers, or they can be done with a pick.
And before we get into the patterns, let me talk for just a second about how to hold a
pick.
The pick should be held between the thumb and the first finger of the right hand.
You want to bend the first finger slightly, place the pick on the tip of the first finger,
and then put the thumb over the top of the pick, and you want to cover about two thirds
to three fourths of the pick, the pointed part of the pick coming straight out.
The other fingers on the right hand, fingers two, three, and four, should be curled slightly.
When you put the pick into position, bring the hand over so that the pick is pointing
straight into the strings, and tilt the pick upward slightly.
You don't want to hit the strings at the right angle, or it might snag the strings.
You want to tilt it up slightly, and maybe just a little bit of a tilt forward.
Now, you'll notice how my fingers two, three, and four are curled and touching the face
of the guitar.
You don't want to grab the bottom of the guitar.
You don't want to leave them straight out and glued down, because when you strum across,
you want the hand to be free, and you want the motion to come from the wrist.
Now, what I would like you to do is play four strings and strum four strings down with me.
So rest the pick on the fourth string, and just let the hand fall.
Four strings open, strum it down a few times, and you don't want to hold the pick too tightly
or it'll snag the strings.
You don't want to get that sound, and you don't want to hold the pick too loose, or
it'll fall in the sound hole, or fall out of your fingers.
So you want to hold the pick between the thumb and the first finger.
Now, with the strum patterns we're going to be doing, like I mentioned, you can use
either the pick or a combination of the thumb and the fingers.
I'm going to be using a pick, though.
Before we get into the patterns, there are a few terms in the reading of music that you'll
want to be sure that you understand before we go on.
On page 19, you'll see an example there of some measures.
Now, music has five lines and four spaces.
This is called a staff.
Now, this staff is divided into sections with bar lines, the straight up and down lines,
and the distance in between those lines is called a measure.
Inside each measure, there are so many beats.
Now, a beat is a measurement of time or the pulse of the music.
At the beginning of the song, you'll see a fraction there, like a 4-4.
Now, the top number will tell you how many beats there are in a measure.
So if you're playing a song and it's in 4-4 time, the top number being down, the simplest
strum pattern you can do for 4-4 is to strum down four times in every measure.
So it'd be...
If a song is in 3-4 time, with the top number being 3, you'd strum down three times in
every measure.
Now, I would recommend that if you have the book that you try some of the exercises on
page 20 that have measures written on them and go to the back of the book and try some
of the songs from the song section, just strumming down four times in a measure if it's 4-4 and
down three times in a measure if it's in 3-4.
Now, just strumming down all of the time will get to be a little bit boring.
Up till now, maybe it's been a challenge, but it might get a little bit boring later
on.
But you can do strum patterns by combining a down strum with an up strum.
Now, it's important when you strum up, when you're holding whatever chord you might be
playing, when you strum up, only play two or three strings when you strum up.
Don't strum up and get all of the strings.
It'll sound bad if you do that.
Just up and get two or three strings when you strum up, no matter what the chord is.
When you strum down, get the number of strings that you're supposed to, but when you strum
up, only two or three.
Now, if you're not using a pick, the down-up strum can be done with the thumb or the thumb
and the fingers.
You could strum down with the thumb and then up with the thumb, the side of the thumb.
Or you could use the first finger to do the down-up strum.
Now, remember the slanted line that was called a strum bar, meant to strum a chord down one
time.
Now, if you have two of these strum bars connected together with a beam, this means to strum
down-up.
The marks on the top of the strum bars are just a reminder of the direction of the strum,
down and up.
Now, there's an exercise at the bottom of page 21 I'd like you to try with me.
Hold a G chord and practice this strum pattern.
You'll notice it's down, down-up, down, down-up.
Okay, holding G. Ready, go.
Now, the exercise at the top of page 22, you hold an E minor chord and strum it down-up
four times, then a D chord, then C, then D, then E minor.
Okay, down-up four times on each one of those chords, beginning on E minor.
Ready, go.
Now, it's going to be a real challenge to change chords right after you finish strumming
the last chord up.
Also notice that the up strums come in between the beat.
The down strums are on the beat of the measure and the up strums are on the and or on the
upbeat.
In the middle of page 22, you can see some strum patterns that are written there.
These can be used to play almost anything, sheet music, songs out of song books, the
songs from the song section of this book.
These strum patterns can be used to play a whole variety of music.
Now, I've divided them into groups, all of the strum patterns that work for four-four
and then the patterns that work for three-four time.
Now, take a look with me at pattern number one.
Again, this can be used to play any song in four-four time.
It's the simplest of the strum patterns.
It's just down four times in a measure.
Down, down, down, down.
Hold the G chord with me and practice it four times down.
Ready, go.
Okay, and the rhythm is very simple.
It's just one, two, three, four.
Now, pattern number two can be used also to play anything that's in four-four time.
This pattern goes down, down, up, down, down.
Now, notice the rhythm on this is one, two, and three, four.
Now, if you're tapping your foot on the beat, the up strum is done when your foot is up.
So, you'd have down, down, up, down, down.
One more time holding a G on pattern number two.
Ready, go.
Down, down, up, down, down.
The rhythm, remember, is one, two, and three, four.
Now, this can be used to play any song that's in four-four time.
So can pattern number three.
Now, pattern number three, hold a G chord with me and try pattern number three.
It's down, down, up, down, down, up.
Ready, go.
Down, down, up, down, down, up.