Guitar Lesson Two - Fretting

Guitar Lesson Two - Fretting

Fretting

When you play the guitar, you use your left hand fingers to press down the strings on the fret board of the guitar and use your right hand to pluck or strum the stings at the bridge end of the guitar. Using your left hand to press the strings on the fret board is called fretting. Here are some tips you will need to know:

1. Short fingernails are essential.
2. Use only the tips of your fingers to press the strings.
3. When making a chord, be sure that each fingertip is placed directly behind the fret.
We will cover chords in lesson one.
4. Check each string that it rings clearly and is not muted or buzzing.

As a beginner guitarist, it may hurt your fingers to play. This is normal. Every guitarist starts this way for the first couple of weeks. With practice, you will develop guitar fingers (hard skin on your fingertips).

Holding the Pick

Position the pick between thumb and index fingers like in the diagram below:

basic free guitar lesson graphic

Time to take a break. Well done, you've just completed the first part of this newsletter. Next you are about to learn about chords and by the end of this lesson you'll have learnt the A Major chord.

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Now you are ready to start your first lesson. Your aim in this lesson is to learn the A and D major chords and to introduce yourself to reading guitar tablature. This lesson is very important, so I want you to really focus.

Remember! It is more beneficial for you to practice multiple times during a week than to practice for one long session. This is because your brain processes information in chunks at a time and it can only hold a certain amount in short term storage.

For example, with phone numbers, it is very difficult to remember any more than 7 digits at a time. Yet if you give yourself time between practicing, even if it is just 10 minutes, you’ll find that your brain is much more efficient at turning your short term practice into long term knowledge. More information on effective learning is contained in our Jamorama product at Jamorama.com.

Ok. That aside, let’s get started on the lesson. To start with, I want you to have a look at the guitar neck diagram below and make note of all the relevant pieces of information.

Frets
The guitar neck is divided into what we call frets, making a fret board. Most guitars have around 20 frets. In this first book, we will focus on the first four, also known as the first position. In book 2, we will move beyond that. Notice that we number each fret starting at 1 at the head of the guitar.

Note: Each string on the guitar is numbered. When you hold your guitar as you would when using the casual playing position, the 1st string is at the bottom and the 6th string is at the top.

Notice also the term, ‘Tuning’ at the bottom of the above diagram. Tuning refers to the notes that the guitar strings are tuned to. In the above diagram, I have given a very common tuning called standard E tuning that consists of the notes E, A, D, G and B. Strings 1 and 6 are both tuned to the note E. The open 6th string is called low E. The open 1st string is called high E as it is two octaves higher than the 6th string open E. I will explain notes and octaves to you in a later newsletter, but for now, you only need to know the names of the notes in standard open E tuning.

Now make sure that your guitar is tuned to open E tuning (the most common tuning).We will stick to standard E tuning throughout this newsletter, but you can find other tunings to play with in our member’s area at www.jamorama.com.

Next Lesson - Learn How To Play Guitar Chords

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