TraCkOuT: Learn to Play the Guitar

You want to learn an instrument, that's a good objective, but ask yourself if you can actually realise music (any kind) with only the use of your ears and detect changes in pattern. To be a musician amateur or professional, its not the notes and practise that's pre-requisite... Its the possession of a musical ear!!! Being one with the instrument you are handling. Take a weapon only if You think you are worthy of handling the pain it gives to master it!!!

Enough with the philosophy... Boring!!!! (",)

You can use a guitar to play anything ranging from country music to heavy metal. Learning the guitar is comparatively much easier to other instruments and once you've learnt the basics it only takes consistent practise to master it. It can between a week of dedicated interest and practise to learn the instruments basics or a whole year if one wants to learn it at leisure. We also recommend a beginner to get a good acoustic guitar and master it. (Electric guitars are recommended for lazy ass's cause its easier to play. Buy it only if you think you've got the moves for it.)

STEPS:

Buy an acoustic guitar whose strings do not have much gap between the fretboard and the strings. Hence you really Do not need to press that hard. You can also procure a digital tuner for tuning the strings and its recommended that with experience one should be able to tune the guitar only by the use of ones musical ear.

Buy a pick/plectrum that's light .50. You can experiment with all sought's of picks but for clear tone and easy sweep picking light pick's are good. Heavy picks are preferred for heavy metal genre.

Learn to read tabs:
The best way to do this is to download a sheet of written tabs of your favourite band's favourite song and listen to the music and match the tab notations with it. This will give you an idea on how to read tabs. The down part of tabs is that there is no time signature per note therefore one has to be completely through with the tune of the music.
To read the tabs as,

E|------------------------------3------------------------||
B|-------3---------3-----------3------------------------||
G|---------2---------0---------0-----------------2p0--||
D|-0-0-------------------------0--0-----0h2p0--------||
A|------------3-3--------------2----0p2-------0-------||
E |-----------------------3-3---3-----------------------||

EADGBE- is the basic tuning of the guitar in which many major, minor, diminished and suspended chord occur within the first 3 frets. The lower E being the SIXTH string and the higher E being the FIRST string.

FRET- Every fret is the horizontal line you find Along the length of the neck/fretboard. These help the player to hold the precise spot for the desired precise note.

All the numbers in the tabs denote the fret where your left fingers (for right handed guitarist) will hold the note.

The straight dotted lines denote strings.

h- is hammer on. (hammered on note is not struck by the pick upon the sound hole but is rather hit by your left hand finger to create the note.)

p- Pull off.(pull off is the resultant of picking and immediately removing the finger playing that note to jump back to the previous note.)

If all the numbers seem to be in a straight line it usually is a chord as in 320033 which is the G chord.

Place Your fingers firmly on the frets. Since the make of each persons hand is different there's no clear cut way to tell upon how to finger a not. Yet you'll have to find it on your own. You'll know its a note when when you can feel your finger bone applying pressure upon the string. Also always keep your thumb in the middle of the back of the fret-board. The frets are the metal strips that run perpendicular to the strings. You actually press your finger down between the metal strips, not on them. For example, if you're playing the third fret, you place your finger on the string between the second and third metal strip. Hold the string down firmly so that it only vibrates between your finger and your strumming hand. Do not forget that you must play on your fingertips and not on the soft part of your finger. This requires cutting your nails to avoid scratching the fret-board. Place your finger as close to the fret as possible to create a good sound.

Keep in mind that every time you move from one fret to another, the resulting pitch will be half a step higher or lower (i.e. "sharp" or "flat"). This is important for if you want to eventually read and play from sheet music. The most important thing is to achieve a clean sound for each open chord when you are practising. After you had placed all your fingers on the fret-board, play through each of the strings of the chords. Make sure that the strings that are supposed to ring are not muffled or muted.

Strumming:
You strum with your other hand. It does both the jobs of picking and strumming. Picking involves playing per note per string, while strumming involves playing more than 2 strings at the same time. Strumming is tricky because it has many patterns and styles plus its made up of, up and down strokes and the combination of both and/or none. Up and down strokes also exist for picking. Its economical.

Each beat and offbeat can be an upstroke, down stroke, or no stroke. No matter which direction you use, make an effort to sweep across all of the strings with even pressure and steady speed. You don't want to strum some strings a little harder than others, or start off fast then slow down as you get to the last few strings. The motion should come mostly from the wrist, not the forearm.

Practise chords:
A chord is a group of notes that sound good together. Practise until you can move comfortably between them without losing your rhythm. The most commonly used chords in Western music are the major chords, which can be remembered with the word "CAGED", each later indicating the root not and the chord name.

Learn to play some songs. Start with the easiest of them, like well known rhymes, hymns or classic songs. Learn the chords, the timings of beats or rhythm. Always start with mastering the chords of the song and its rhythm. Eventually you can get down into the aspect of playing the lead.

Below are the Basic Major chord pattern.

The numbers indicate your left hand finger digits (for right handed guitarists).
X denotes the string not to be strummed.
O denotes an open note.
Vertical lines denote strings.
Horizontal lines denote Frets.