Learn Guitar: The Complete Beginners Guide

A nice easy start that will cover all the essential parts of the instrument and some accompanying tools that will expand our playing ability.

Links to the equipment mentioned in this lecture have been provided in the resources section.

Here we will learn how to effectively tune our guitar, while developing a few tips and tricks to make this process a bit easier.

Links to the equipment mentioned in this lecture have been provided in the resources section.

These can look confusing at first! But this short section and accompanying visuals will make everything a lot easier to understand.

The proper playing starts! We will learn a great exercise that will develop stretching and independence in your fingers and also complete our first full guitar riff and melody.

Two more riffs that will really start to expand your playing. We will complete:

The White Stripes - Seven Nation Army

Nirvana - Come As You Are

These are iconic guitar parts that are perfect for beginners, fun to play and sound great!

You can hear how the tracks are played by visiting the links in the resources section.

A brief introduction on how the following 4 chords we are about to learn, will provide you with the ability to play along to a wide range of music, across many decades. And will also give you the freedom to start considering creating your own chord progressions.

A very beginner friendly chord that will prepare you for the songs we will be learning.

A commonly used and essential chord to prepare you for the songs we will be learning.

Two very common chords that are great to learn during the early stages of playing.

These are all very important things that will develop your overall playing ability and provide you with the basic understanding of how music is constructed. We will learn about and practice along to a metronome, discuss tempo and time changes, create strumming patterns and apply them to chord changes, and develop techniques that will improve our standard of playing and knowledge of our instrument.

Links to the equipment mentioned in this lecture have been provided in the resources section.

The first of two songs we are going to learn that use exactly the same chords, but are from very different eras. A great demonstration of how just 4 chords can open you up to a vast amount of playing options.

We will be learning:

Ben E. King - Stand By Me

Links to the equipment mentioned in this lecture have been provided in the resources section. There is also a link to the original track, so that you have another reference of how it is played.

The second of two songs we are learning that use exactly the same chords, but are from very different eras. A great demonstration of how just 4 chords can open you up to a vast amount of playing options.

We will be learning:

Ed Sheeran - Perfect

Links to the equipment mentioned in this lecture have been provided in the resources section. There is also a link to the original track, so that you have another reference of how it is played.

We will cover more major chords that exist in the first position. The previous lectures will have put you in a strong position to be able to achieve each of these.

Links to some other song examples that use a combination of the major chords we have learnt can be found in the resources section:

We will cover more minor chords that exist in the first position. The previous lectures will have put you in a strong position to be able to achieve each of these.

These are highly valuable! We will scratch the surface of what can be a very in-depth area and then utilise this initial knowledge to compose a piece of music.

You will learn how to discover every note that exists on the fretboard and how to identify what notes you are playing.

Now that you know every note that exists on the fretboard, we will learn that by taking certain combinations of these, we can start to construct keys of music. We will then utilise these to begin creating our own, unique, lead guitar ideas.

A section I love! You will combine all of the above and use this to create your own chord progression, and lead guitar parts. I firmly believe that everyone has the ability to do this. Once you have learnt a collection of guitar chords, you can begin to transform these into your own unique compositions, just by making very simple changes.

We will reference a chord progression we covered earlier on and I will then demonstrate how by making a simple change to their order and by applying my own strumming pattern, we are firmly on the road to writing a song.

Links to the recording software mentioned in this lecture can be found in the resources section.

I will demonstrate some simple lead guitar ideas along to a backing track. I will then briefly discuss these and encourage you to go ahead and create your own.

The aim of this section is to inspire the belief in yourself that you are fully equipped to start creating music in this way. There is no pressure applied! The focus is to have fun and enjoy the creative process.

A brief recap of the chord progression we have created and a final few positive words to set you up for the next lecture.

This is where you can be free, have fun and get creative. Don't feel any pressure and just try to enjoy the process.

By this point, you will have a strong understanding of what scale shapes and notes work with the chord progression we have developed. And you can utilise this knowledge to see what you can create.

Another riff that covers a different style of music, which will expand your skillset even further!

We will be learning:

Metallica - Enter Sandman

You can hear how the track is played by visiting the link that is included in the resources section.

Another riff that covers a different style of music, which will expand your skillset even further!

We will be learning:

Roy Orbison - Oh, Pretty Woman

You can hear how the track is played by visiting the link that is included in the resources section.

Some handy knowledge to have, that I don’t think gets covered enough when first learning guitar. I will guide you through the whole process, step by step, so that you are fully prepared for when a string on your guitar snaps.