In this episode Andy and Thomas take you back to the very basics that you need to learn as a beginner acoustic guitar player. They even take things one step further and put themselves in the position of a beginner student by playing left handed!
Andy tends to kick his beginner guitar lessons off with two main chords. The E major and the A major chord. As for Thomas, who uses our beginners syllabus, we start even simpler with the Asus, Csus and Gsus. You can then start including the D, C and full G major chords... But don't rush! It can take a lot of time to get to those final chord shapes, so get the first few together and then start trying to play songs with them.
For rhythm it is important to start with basic strumming patterns. The simple idea of taking a bar (4 beats) and dividing it into 8 notes is the best place to start. For us here at YGA, we teach a very basic strumming pattern that gets you off to the perfect start! Below is that basic pattern we would start with, but if you are looking to really learn it properly, check out this course: Beginners Guitar Course
We would suggest going down the route of playing with a pick and with strumming patterns before considering fingerstyle guitar. Why? Simply because it really helps develop your understanding of rhythm before getting overly complicated with a variety of finger patterns!
To get your left and right hand matched up and in sync, you can try this really cool spider exercise. The tab is below, but I would recommend checking out this video to see how to practice the exercise properly: Spider Exercise Lesson. Click the link below to see and interactive version of this exercise.
You can also have a bit of fun learning the pentatonic scale! The shape is below, but check out this lesson for a full walkthrough and more details: A Minor Pentatonic Scale
Ready to move on? Remember to check out every lesson in this unit first – then try the next unit...
Episode 7 - Beginners Electric Guitar Special
In this episode Andy and Thomas take you back to the very basics that you need to learn as a beginner electric guitar player. They even take things one step further and put themselves in the position of a beginner student by playing left handed!