Beginner Guitar Lessons Archives

Guitar Basics: How To Get Started Playing Guitar

Guitar basics – a beginner's guide to the guitar and guitar playing.

On this page, you'll find everything you need to know about playing the guitar, including: the differences between electric, acoustic, classical and bass guitars; guitar playing styles; tuning a guitar; playing chords; reading guitar music; and much more...

The main types of guitars are: acoustic guitar, electric guitar, classical guitar, and bass guitar. In addition, there are further varieties of each of these main types of guitar; for example, there are several different types of electric guitar, including “solid-body” and “semi-hollow” electric guitars.

On this page we take a look at the major types of guitars and the difference between these instruments from a beginner’s perspective.

We also compare how suitable each type of guitar is for various styles of music and playing styles...

Guitar Scale Patterns overlaid on guitar fretboard

On this page you’ll find a selection of useful guitar scale patterns, plus information on what guitar scale patterns are and how to use them.

Guitar strings notes chart, tab and notation: everything you need to learn the notes of the guitar fretboard.

Learn how to play chords on guitar with this complete guide for beginners.

In this lesson you'll learn how to strum guitar chords. Audio examples have been provided so that you can hear how the chords sound when being strummed.

Learn how to play every major, minor, seventh and minor seventh chord here: All Guitar Chords
If you come across any terms that you don't know, check out this article: Guitar Basics
You can download a printable guitar chords book here: Guitar Chords Book
Learn how to strum chords here: Guitar Strumming Patterns

How To Hold A Guitar Pick & Basic Picking Technique

This article will show you how to hold a guitar pick and also explains basic picking technique.

Although there is no official 'right way to hold a guitar pick', we'll show you a good basic technique that you can use, and if necessary adapt, to find a style that works for you.

Read on to find out more...

How To Hold A Pick

In the eighth and final part of Guitar Command's 'Learn Guitar In Two Months' series of lessons, we look at two techniques that you can use to create your own easy guitar riffs.

Power chords and arpeggios are both widely-used techniques that can be used to create guitar parts for songs.

In this lesson we've provide a basic introduction to each technique. This will allow you to experiment with power chords and arpeggios in your own music.

Guitar bar chords (also called 'barre chords') allow you to play chords all over the guitar neck. This means that you are not limited to playing solely in open position. Lesson 7 in Guitar Command's 'Learn To Play Guitar In Two Months' series introduces easy barre chords that can be played at different positions on the guitar neck.

This lesson will show you how to play easy guitar solos. So far we've covered the basics of guitar playing, including simple chords and single note melody lines.

We've also covered reading guitar TABs and have briefly touched on learning to read music.

Playing guitar solos requires a new skill: improvisation.

When you're improvising a guitar solo you're not playing music that's been written out by someone else. It may sound easy, but (unless you're playing avant-garde free jazz) there are still rules to follow.

When playing a guitar solo, you have to let your ears and musical knowledge guide you to the right notes.

Lesson five in Guitar Command's 'Learn To Play Guitar In Two Months' series of lessons teaches you how to read music for guitar. It contains everything you need to know to start reading music, and covers the basics of music notation.