guitar beginners guide
TRANSCRIPT
Guitar Beginners Guide
Ranbir… The Fake
2 | P a g e
In the loving memory of my mother
Guitar Beginners Guide
Ranbir… The Fake
3 | P a g e
Acknowledgment cum Disclaimer
This is my first book “Guitar Beginners Guide”… and I have tried to write it as simple as I could…
I must say when you’ll read it you’d thank me for doing such thing… the content in this book is
the result of my search over the internet and also some additions by me, so I must tell you that
this book is only for information purpose and not for sale…
And if you get caught using this book as selling material… I demand 70% of the sales… ☺…
no kiddings…
And if you really like this book then keep forwarding it for there’ll be more guitar beginners,
who just don’t get what they want…
Don’t you keep sending me messages for I have things to do…
have fun… love your guitar and it’d love you…
Ranbir… The Fake
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BEFORE YOU BEGIN
Please go through these tips before you begin…
1. Improve Finger Dexterity
It is crucial that your left hand remains loose and free instead of hard and stiff whatever the chord
position be. A loose hand will be more adaptable than a stiff one. People who drink tea in those small
cups may have problem of sticky finger, usually pinkie. The loose the hand the better it will move…
2. Correct Hand Position
The left thumb should be supporting the back of the guitar neck instead of rising over the top of the
guitar reaching the strings. This helps in stretching your fingers for the Open G and F chords and the
critical barre chords...
3. Try all Permutations and Combinations
Make sure you are trying all possible combinations of changing the open chords. Start with the easy
ones like D to G chord or Emin to C chord. When you are comfortable with these, move on to tougher
ones like A to G chord or the ultimate one: G to F chord!
4. Right Way to Practice
This is the way you should go about practicing it: Play a chord four times a bar, then change to another
chord and play it four times a bar again, then come back to the previous chord. Do this till you are so
comfortable that you can change the chords without seeing your left hand! Of course, it will take time,
so be patient.
5. Avoid Barre Chords at the Start
When you are starting out, don’t try to change to barre chords or back. That would be a big
demotivator! First get used to the basic open chords, then go ahead with the barre chords.
6. Practice, Practice and More Practice!
All the tips above are useless if you don’t practice enough. By enough, I don’t mean 5 hours non-stop,
hell no! 30-60 minutes a day is more than sufficient. Just keep yourself motivated by whatever inspires
you and keep at it. You will get there in the end.
*Avoid playing movie songs at the beginning…☺ practice your fingers to know all notes first…
From: -www.abhinavsonkar.com
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Pick Your Guitar
First of all let’s see the types of guitars that are available in the market… electronic and
acoustic… it is good to start with the acoustic guitar and I suggest something that look like a
guitar on the bottom left side… if you have already purchased one… throw it out ☺ you know
am kidding right… acoustic guitar has either a O-shape hole or f-shape hole…both are good but
if you just starting the O-shape hole guitar is best idea…
Electronic
Acoustic
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Guitar Tuning
The most difficult task that a beginning guitarist faces is tuning the instrument. As it takes time
to develop a sense of pitch, I recommend that you use an electronic tuner at first. If you don't
have one, go get one. It is impossible to learn to play on an out of tune guitar. You can pick up
an electronic tuner for as little as Rs 250 or less and it will pay for itself before the end of this
first lesson. Make sure that the sales person shows you how to use it, and pay attention to what
they tell you. If the instructions don't make sense to you, DO NOT leave the store until you
understand EXACTLY how to use the tuner. If the sales person acts like they have something
better to do than educate you on how to tune the guitar, leave a complaint with the
management and go buy a tuner somewhere else. Playing in tune is THAT important!
If you don’t find any good tuner I tell you an easy way… To tune an acoustic guitar you will have
to practice Sa Re Ga Ma a little. And if you already know or have played Sa Re Ga Ma on
harmonium or casio then it’s just great… now watch the following figure very carefully, press
and hold the note Sa on the first string (thinnest) and play it with your right hand… ok now
listen carefully and match the tone with the sa playing on harmonium or any other instrument.
Ok it will take a little bit of time; you just have to tune only one (thinnest) string. And with the
help of above picture, rest of the strings you can tune with that one string.
You can also download a guitar tuning software from the internet.
Note: - Also note here that the thinnest and the thickest strings, both are same when played,
and if you play these strings without pressing any specific note, they will still play Sa… okay now
let’s talk western.
*Guitar tuning is mandatory
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Guitar Fretboard Notes
To begin our lessons I am going to use colors to represent notes on the guitar. (Onoz I am
colorblind☺)…Anyway Look below and notice the colors we will use to represent each note. A
note is a tone of a certain pitch which can be created in a number of different ways. For
example, if you were to push down a single key on the piano, you would be playing a note. To
play a note on the guitar, you would fret or push down on a string to create a tone of a certain
pitch. In this lesson, we will learn where each note is located on the guitar fretboard.
The image below illustrates a guitar fretboard and shows all the notes along the Low E string.
The low E string is the largest string and will be in red. The color for the strings will be slightly
different than the color for the notes. The high E string, is the thinnest string, look below.
C D E F G A B C
The notes and each color have been illustrated in the table above. We will use each of
these colors to represent each of these notes in our lessons. There will be twelve
different notes we need to learn on the guitar fretboard.
The 12 notes along the Low E string are: E F F# G G# A A# B C C# D D#
We will illustrate these notes and their placement on the Low E string. Looking at the
fretboard above and notice the 6 notes to the left of the guitar fretboard. These 6 notes
represent the 6 strings used on the guitar. These six strings when tuned, will be the Low E
string, A string, D string, G string, B string and the high E string.
Look at the image of the guitar fretboard above and notice the E note. This E note will
represent the Low E string when played open. If you picked the Low E string with out fretting
any note, you would be playing the E tone. Of course to create this E note, your guitar would
have to have the proper tuning.
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If you were to fret or push down on the Low E string on the first fret, you would be playing
the F note. The next note on the Low E string 2nd fret is the F# note. This is the (sharp symbol
#). To get a sharp note, we would move 1/2 step above the previous note. 1/2 step on the
guitar would be 1 fret. The E note will never be sharp. Look above and notice there is no E#
note.
As we move along the Low E string, we reach the G note. Look above and find theG note at the
3rd fret. As we move up 1/2 step or 1 fret on the low E string we will reach the G# note, 4th
fret.
Moving along the Low E string we reach the A note at the 5th fret. Moving to the next fret we
have the A# note.
At the 7th fret, we run into the B note. Find that B note and notice there is no B sharp note.
You will never have a B# note. We will learn more about this when we construct the major
scales in that chapter.
The next note at the 8th fret will be the C note. Then we would have the C#, D D# and finally
back to the E note again. I say again because on the guitar, every note repeats after 12 frets.
To prove this, look at the G note on the 3rd fret, you will find the G note repeated at the 15th
fret, 12 frets away from the 1st G note.
You can figure out each note on each of the six strings using the same process as we did
above. The image below will now show you how to find the notes on the A string. Look at the
image below. The first note will be the open A string in yellow. The next note on the A string
1st fret will be the A# note. Each note is figured out the same way we did on the Low E string.
Notice there is no B# or E#. There never will be a sharp for these two notes. Notice that the A
note is repeated after 12 frets. All the notes would repeat after 12 frets, this goes for every
string, scale and chord.
The image below shows all of the notes of the fretboard ascending. The first homework
assignment will ask you to fill in all the notes of the guitar fretboard ascending. It has already
been done for you, but it is a good idea to fill in the blank illustrations on lesson 1. This will be
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a great help in learning all the notes of the guitar and their placement. Use the illustration
below to help out. Then try to fill in one of the illustrations from memory.
Look at the image below. This image has all the notes of the guitar, but the A notes are circled.
Notice that some A notes have different colors. Playing each A note and its particular color will
sound the same tone. The yellow and green colored A notes are at a lower octave than the
yellow and blue A's. The yellow and blue A's are at a lower octave than the yellow and orange
A's. Play each A on the fretboard and compare to each other. Remember your guitar needs to
be in tune.
This illustration will eventually become second nature.
• It may help to make a copy of this illustration to complete your first assignment.
• Proceed to lesson 1
Good luck,
From the Fake
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Guitar Lesson 1
Guitar Fretboard and Strings
The image below is a picture of the guitar fretboard. To understand how this diagram works,
you need to hold the guitar out in front of you. The strings on the guitar should be directed
towards your face. This view should be the exact view that the image below depicts. Look at
the image below and visualize that the picture is your guitar facing you.
Each dot on the guitar fretboard represents the different frets on the guitar, look below. The
first dot is on the 3rd fret, the second dot is on the 5th fret, the third dot is on the 7th fret and
so on all the way up the fretboard. Most guitars will have these dots, but some may not.
E A D G B E. These are the 6 strings that make up the guitar. Notice the colors; each string has
its own color. These colors will be illustrated on some images to help learn the strings and with
placement of the notes to the particular string. Each string and color should be memorized.
You may have noticed that there are two E strings? One is the Low E which is the Red E and the
largest string, look above. The other E string is the High E string which is the thinnest string,
check that string out. Each string is at times referenced by number in our lessons. These
numbers are standard throughout the industry and they are as follows:
High E string
1st string
Thinnest
B string
2nd string
G string
3rd string
D string
4th string
A string
5th string
Low E string
6th string
Fattest
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You should now know what 6 strings E A D G B and E make up the guitar.It is vital to know
every note on the fretboard and that will be covered in the next lesson.
Guitar lesson Assignments:
• Fill a blank illustration of guitar fretboard, you can use pen and paper or whiteboard to
do that.
Good luck,
From the Fake
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Guitar Lesson 2
Learning the Guitar Fretboard and Strings
In our first homework assignment you were asked to fill in all the notes of the fretboard. Your
illustration should have looked something like the one below. Our illustration on the
homework did not have this many frets though.
In the next lesson we need to work on the open strings. Your guitar whether it is Spanish, Guild
acoustic, Les Paul, electric, old or new should have six strings. Each string like each key on the
piano has a particular purpose.
The Low E string or Fattest string when picked open (not fretting it) should sound the Low E
note or tone. However, that's only true if your guitar is properly tuned. You will need to read
up on tuning your guitar. Tuning is very important, so in this lesson we will cover the six
strings, their names and placement.
An open A tuning source has been included in the tuning chapter. You would use this source
to tune the A string. Then you would read up on tuning the remaining strings.
I would like for everyone to review the lessons covering the guitar fretboard and strings.
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Guitar lesson Assignments:
• Read on tuning the guitar and attempt to tune your guitar. It does take time to learn
this.
• Memorize each string and placement.
• Look over the illustrations on the guitar fretboard and strings and see how and why they
are illustrated the way they are.
o Use the illustration below to fill in all of the notes on the Low E string.
o Use the illustration below to fill in all of the notes on the High E string.
o Once the notes are filled in, circle all of the A C D E and G notes. These are the
notes that make up the Am pentatonic scale. A few notes have been filled in to
get you started.
• Always use blank guitar fretboard illustrations to fill in the notes of each scale you are
working on.
Good luck,
From the Fake
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Guitar Lesson 3
Guitar Picking Exercises
Now that you're a little more familiar with the fretboard and know the strings, we can move
on to some picking exercises. A good idea is to get both hands working together. The picking
hand has to know what the fretting hand is doing. To get these two in sync, we need to do a
few exercises. When you alternate you’re picking down and up, this will help build up speed
and dexterity. One of the hardest things to learn on the guitar is how to properly pick each
note. The next couple lessons will be some of the most challenging and important to learn
and must be practiced every day.
Your first exercise is for your picking hand only. You will be starting with the Low E
String. Remember to alternate the pick down and then up. I personally use a pick, but some
musicians choose not to. However, there are some songs that I use my fingers to pick. In time
you will find your style. Some guitars may not have a pick guard, maybe a classical guitar, so
be careful with the pick if you use one. Once you become comfortable with these exercises,
start from the High E = thinnest string and work your way back up. Don't worry about fretting
the guitar; this is just for the picking hand. However, if you would like to fret notes, go for it.
In the next lesson we will do the exercises to build up the fretting hand.
The illustration below shows how I hold the pick. It takes time to get use to holding the pick,
but in time it will become more comfortable.
If you need to learn how to read tablature, you can go to that lesson first.
The letters below represent the picking motion, d equals pick down and u equals pick up.
Each letter is placed on the particular string you pick. Start on the Low E string which is the
largest string, on the illustration below, then move to the A string next.
d = down
u = up
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You will be picking each string only once on the first exercise.
E------------------------u---
B--------------------d-------
G----------------u----------
D------------d--------------
A -------u------------------
E --d-----------------------
Now you will be picking each string 2 times, each time you will alternate the picking motion
down then up. Once again you will start with the Low E string or largest string.
E---------------------------------d-u---
B---------------------------d-u---------
G---------------------d-u---------------
D---------------d-u---------------------
A --------d-u---------------------------
E --d-u---------------------------------
Now you will pick each string 3 times.
E---------------------------------------------u-d-u---
B-------------------------------------d-u-d-----------
G----------------------------u-d-u--------------------
D--------------------d-u-d----------------------------
A -----------u-d-u------------------------------------
E --d-u-d---------------------------------------------
Now you will pick each string 4 times.
E---------------------------------------------------------d-u-d-u---
B----------------------------------------------d-u-d-u--------------
G----------------------------------d-u-d-u--------------------------
D------------------------d-u-d-u------------------------------------
A -------------d-u-d-u----------------------------------------------
E --d-u-d-u---------------------------------------------------------
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Guitar lesson Assignments:
• Tune your guitar
• Practice each picking exercise as much as possible. Remember to alternate the pick.
• Review the guitar fretboard chapter each day or until you have it memorized.
In the last lesson you were asked to fill in the notes of the Low and High E Strings. Your
illustration should look something like the one below. Notice that both E strings have the
same notes, located at the same frets. Notice how each note repeats after 12 frets.
In the last lesson you were also asked to tune your guitar. It's a good idea to always tune your
guitar while increasing the tension. Tuning the guitar is not an easy task and it will take some
time to learn. Don't let this discourage you. Every step along the way will need time to learn.
Each day you should practice something new. Always go back to the previous lessons and you
will notice how much you have actually learned. I believe everyone should own a guitar tuner.
They work great for both acoustic and electric.
Good Luck,
From The Fake
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Guitar Lesson 4
Picking exercises
Before we write our first original song, we need for our picking hand to get the fretting hand in
shape. To make things easier to understand each fretting finger will have a number assigned to
it.
1 = Index finger
2 = Middle finger
3 = Ring finger
4 = Pinkie
T = Thumb
Look above and check out each number and the finger that it represents. Hold your hand out
in front of you and count out each finger. This is one of the most important things to learn. You
will use these numbers to play scales, leads and chords.
In the last lesson we worked on some picking exercises with only the picking hand. Now we
need to put the fretting hand to work with the picking hand. These exercises will prepare you
for the scales ahead.
1 = Index finger
2 = Middle finger
3 = Ring finger
4 = Pinkie
T = Thumb
Look at the image above and notice the numbers on the Low E string. Then look at the image
above to the right and see what finger the number represents. In this exercise you will be
picking one note at a time. The first note is picked on the Low E string with your 1 finger at the
5th fret. The next note is played with your 2 finger Low E string 6th fret. Then the 3 finger 7th
fret and finally the 4th finger 8th fret .The Tablature or the example above have been
illustrated below.
----------------------------------------------------------5-6-7-8----
----------------------------------------------5-6-7-8----------------
------------------------------------5-6-7-8--------------------------
------------------------5-6-7-8--------------------------------------
-------------5-6-7-8-------------------------------------------------
-5-6-7-8-------------------------------------------------------------
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In the last lesson we learned how to alternate the picking hand. You will now alternate the
picking down then up while playing each of these 4 notes one at a time.
1 = Index finger
2 = Middle finger
3 = Ring finger
4 = Pinkie
T = Thumb
Look at the next illustration above and now you are picking the notes on the A string.
Remember to alternate your pick. Continue this exercise with all the strings in the same
fashion. When you become comfortable playing this, then start with the High E string and work
your way back up. This is illustrated below. Start with your 4 finger on the 8th fret and work
back up towards the Low E string.
--8-7-6-5-------------------------------------------------------------
-------------8-7-6-5--------------------------------------------------
------------------------8-7-6-5---------------------------------------
------------------------------------8-7-6-5---------------------------
-------------------------------------------------8-7-6-5--------------
-------------------------------------------------------------8-7-6-5--
When you get real comfortable, and then start at different frets all over the fretboard. Have
your illustrations with your notes filled out in front of you and check out the notes your
actually playing.
Guitar lesson Assignments:
• Tune your guitar
• Practice these finger exercises every day. This will build up strength in your hand.
• Review the finger exercise chapter.
• Review the Am pentatonic Chapter for the root note fret position.
Good Luck,
From The Fake
Guitar Beginners Guide
Ranbir… The Fake
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Guitar lesson 5
A minor pentatonic scale and lead guitar
Now that you know how to pick each note and do a few exercises, it's time to learn scales. You
will use scales to play leads and build melodies. Once you get over this small hurdle, things will
really begin to fall into place. In our lessons, we will concentrate on the Am pentatonic scale
and the Key of C major. Once you learn these scales, others will be just a matter of moving to a
different location.
The Am pentatonic scale is a 5 note scale, that's what pentatonic means. The notes are A C D E
and G.
(The Little m after the A note above means the minor chord and we will learn more about that
later)
Look at the illustration Below. This illustration shows the Am pentatonic scale at its root note
5th fret.
1 = Index finger
2 = Middle finger
3 = Ring finger
4 = Pinkie
T = Thumb
Now it's time for you to go review the Am pentatonic scale at the root note fret position and
return here to lesson 5.
Once you review the Am pentatonic section you will need to do the assignments.
1. Use one illustration below to fill in the notes of the Am pentatonic scale root note fret
only.
2. Use one illustration below to fill in the fingers used to play the Am pentatonic scale root
note fret only.
Three notes have been filled in
for you to get started. Fill in the
remainder of the notes of the
Am pentatonic scale root note
fret.
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Two fingerings have been filled
in to get you started. Fill in the
rest of the fingerings used for
the Am pentatonic scale root
note fret.
• Tune your guitar
• Once you finish this assignment you will need to review everything covered up to this
point.
• You should now know the six strings by name and placement on the guitar fretboard.
• You should know or be studying all the notes of the fret board including the Sharps (#).
• You should have each finger number memorized.
• You should be doing the fingering and picking exercises every day.
Good Luck,
From The Fake
From: -www.guitarsecrets.com
Note :- Guitar picking exercise require a lot of practice, instead of picking up fingers just
release them, because it will take a little effort in picking them and getting back down, but if
you just release it you can easily move it to the next note. And also note that you don’t have to
release the fingers that are on the same string… I mean if you have two notes 5, 6 on B String
that you want to play respectively like…5, 6, 5, 6… you just need to release your finger from 6
to play 5…you don’t have to do see saw with your fingers…okay you get my point… not try this
with all four notes…
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Sa Re Ga Ma Complete
From the above illustration you can get the idea of complete SA-RE-GA-Ma over
the fretboard. Keep practicing until you start seeing all ‘swar’ over the
fretboard…and am sure you will… when you are done practicing SA-RE-GA-Ma on
every string; try to pick close combinations like this one…
You can find more of that…
Guitar tuning is suggested again…
Okay so that’s all folks… enough for the first book… I am preparing the second
book till you learn this one…and as soon as it is complete I’ll post it over the
internet… till than keep it up
Best of Luck,
Ranbir… The Fake…
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