This course is all about teaching you how to learn properly, lose the bad habits and give you the skills you need to take your guitar playing to the next level. We tackle single note lead lines, chords, rhythm patterns and apply it all to a cool, end-of-unit song. So, get your guitars out and have some fun!
Seven Nation Army is a great song to start off your guitar career as it helps us co-ordinate our left and right hand. With the right hand, we are looking to use down / up strokes all the way through the riff, and the left hand should be stretched out with one finger per fret. Even if this stretch feels a little awkward at this point, this is crucial to improving quickly on the guitar. So get your thumb flat on the back of the neck and stretch those fingers out as you play through the main riff.
Below is a link to your interactive tab for this song. Once you've watched the video, click through to learn the song with the tab. Try to use the looping and slow down function (look to the bottom left of the tab) to put the song at a more manageable pace.
Not sure how to read tab yet? Click here to see our guide.
If you are ready to try it against the full backing track, then please give it a go using the audio files below! Simply select the track below and click the play button.
| | |
| |
Today, we will be learning to play powerchords! These are extremely versatile chords, and also not too hard to play, so they are a great place for beginners to start getting into rock, pop and punk sounds. In the video we go over the A powerchord and G powerchord, both of which are shown below:
Not sure how to read this fretboard? Click here for our guide.
We can immediately apply our powerchord shapes to the bridge section for Seven Nation Army. Below is the link to the updated tab, now including the powerchords in the bridge section.
Once you feel you have the powerchords together and can even play them within the song, use the backing tracks below to memorise the whole piece and perform it to your friends!
| | |
| |
Today, we take a detour from the rock content and start looking at open chords. Wether you have an electric or acoustic, open chords are a must! Don't worry about the names of these particular open chords, you simply need to memorise the shape. Here are the chords:
Once you have learnt the 4 chord shapes above, it's time to start changing between them. Use the following audio drum loops to test yourself. Remember that your aim is to change one chord every 4 beats, as we went through on the video. The drum loops below are set at 60BPM, 70BPM and 80BPM. So start at the lowest speed, (60BPM) and gradually work your way up! Good luck!
| | |
| |
Today, we will take our first major step as a rhythm guitar player and learn how to strum! A cool strumming pattern can be the difference between an average song and a great song, and the best guitarists are those with a deep understanding of rhythm and groove. So, our first task is to learn how to read strumming patterns. Here is the pattern we are aiming to play:
The grey arrows are 'air' strums, where your hand moves up or down, but does not actually make contact with the strings. The red arrows are where you do hit the strings. Two key things to remember here: Firstly Try to count "one and two and three and four and", and secondly keep your right arm moving all the time!
Once you have watched the video, and feel more confident with the pattern, use the following audio files to try and get the pattern to start sinking in! Start nice and slow and work through the speed increases. Remember that in the audio track we are using our Asus2 chord, as shown below. Good luck!
| | |
| |
Over the past 4 lessons, we have looked at melody parts, chords and strumming... which is a lot of different elements to cover! So, in this last video lesson we will try to bring all of these elements together in this awesome acoustic song. We start by adding our strumming pattern to the 4 chords we previously learnt, then move into the chorus which is a melody part using alternate picking.
Below is a link to your interactive tab for this song. Once you've watched the video, click through to learn the song with the tab. Try to use the looping and slow down function (look to the bottom left of the tab) to put the song at a more manageable pace.
Once you have started to get the song together, and want to challenge yourself to a full play-through without the tab, all the audio files are below. The backing track removes the acoustic guitar track all together, the 'Guitar Focus' track removes all the instruments so you can just hear the guitar.
| | |
| |
All done?
Congratulations
You've now completed Free Courses: Free Beginners Course and taken a huge step forwards in your guitar playing journey.
Feel free to bask in glory for a while, or go ahead and try another course if you're hungry for more.