Learn To Play The Guitar Like A Pro And Amaze All Of Your

Friends – Click here for details

Guitar Lesson - Getting Started

Sitting Positions

There are two sitting positions for holding the guitar; classical and casual.

1. Pick up the guitar and make sure that the guitar body is supported by your leg.
2. Position yourself at the edge of your chair.
3. Ensure that your back is relaxed but straight.
4. Lean the guitar back towards you slightly.

Standing Position

1. Pick up the guitar and place the strap over your shoulder. Adjust the strap so that the guitar is
positioned mid-body.
2. Use your left hand to support the neck of the guitar.
3. Rest your right hand over the bridge of the guitar.

1
Hand Positions

It is important that you relax your wrists and hands. Straining them can cause injury.

Front View Rear View

Warning! Make sure that you never position your hand like this:

Your thumb should never be placed this low on the neck of the guitar as it puts
unneccessary strain on your wrist and thumb.

Fretting

When you play the guitar, you use your left hand fingers to press down the strings on the fret board

2
of the guitar and use your right hand to pluck or strum the stings at the bridge end of the guitar.
Using your left hand to press the strings on the fret board is called fretting. Here are some tips you
will need to know:

1. Short fingernails are essential.

2. Use only the tips of your fingers to press the strings.
3. When making a chord, be sure that each fingertip is placed directly behind the fret.
We will cover chords in lesson one.
4. Check each string that it rings clearly and is not muted or buzzing.

As a beginner guitarist, it may hurt your fingers to play. This is normal. Every guitarist starts this
way for the first couple of weeks. With practice, you will develop guitar fingers (hard skin on your
fingertips).

Holding the Pick

Position the pick between thumb and index fingers like in the diagram below:

Time to take a break. Well done, you've just completed the first part of this newsletter. Next you
are about to learn about chords and by the end of this lesson you'll have learnt the A Major chord.

Don't forget, for the ultimate guitar learning kit which includes step-by-step written lessons, video
lessons, audio lessons and sophisticated software games, visit Jamorama

Now you are ready to start your first lesson. Your aim in this lesson is to learn the A and D major
chords and to introduce yourself to reading guitar tablature. This lesson is very important, so I want
you to really focus.

3
Remember! It is more beneficial for you to practice multiple times during a week than to practice
for one long session. This is because your brain processes information in chunks at a time and it
can only hold a certain amount in short term storage.

For example, with phone numbers, it is very difficult to remember any more than 7 digits at a time.
Yet if you give yourself time between practicing, even if it is just 10 minutes, you’ll find that your
brain is much more efficient at turning your short term practice into long term knowledge. More
information on effective learning is contained in our Jamorama product at Jamorama – click here
to go there.

Ok. That aside, let’s get started on the lesson. To start with, I want you to have a look at the guitar
neck diagram below and make note of all the relevant pieces of information.

Frets
The guitar neck is divided into what we call frets,
making a fret board. Most guitars have around 20 frets.
In this first book, we will focus on the first four, also
known as the first position. In book 2, we will move
beyond that. Notice that we number each fret starting
at 1 at the head of the guitar.

Note: Each string on the guitar is numbered. When you hold your guitar as you would when using
the casual playing position, the 1st string is at the bottom and the 6th string is at the top.

Notice also the term, ‘Tuning’ at the bottom of the above diagram. Tuning refers to the notes that
the guitar strings are tuned to. In the above diagram, I have given a very common tuning called
standard E tuning that consists of the notes E, A, D, G and B. Strings 1 and 6 are both tuned to the
note E. The open 6th string is called low E. The open 1st string is called high E as it is two octaves
higher than the 6th string open E. I will explain notes and octaves to you in a later newsletter, but
for now, you only need to know the names of the notes in standard open E tuning.

4
 Now make sure that your guitar is tuned to open E tuning (the most common tuning). If you
don't know how to tune your guitar, then download my free guide to tuning your guitar from:
http://www.jamorama.com/tuning/howtotune.pdf . Or if you are already a member of
Jamorama, you can use our guitar tuning software to help you tune your guitar.

**Note: To open the above tuning.pdf file you'll need a copy of Adobe Acrobat Reader. You can
download a free copy of this from: http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readstep2.html

We will stick to standard E tuning throughout this newsletter, but you can find other tunings to
play with in our member’s area at Jamorama.

Introduction to Chords

Now we are going to look at guitar chords. Guitarists use many different chords to make
progressions or riffs that can then be used to create songs. If you are not familiar with some of
these terms, it’s ok. We will cover everything that I am talking about in good time.

A chord is defined as a combination of 3 or more notes played together. To examine this, I want to
take a look at chord diagrams. Chord diagrams are used to illustrate how a chord is played. They
are very easy to use because they look very much like the neck of the guitar, in fact, the Jamorama
chord diagram is a guitar neck.

5
Click Here for Details

12