Beginner Guitar Lesson 1 – Guitar Basics

There is no better place to start with a beginner guitar lesson than with a quick rundown of the very basics. One of the first things that you will want to do is begin by memorizing the names of the strings. There are several ways to memorize the names of the strings but Tom shows a really good way here by using a mnemonic device. Basically, this is just taking the note for each open string and using the letters as the first letter of each word in a sentence.

Using a Mnemonic Device

While this may actually sound complicated, it really isn’t. You can really use whatever sentence that you want to use to memorize the name of each string so long as it fits with the letters E-A-D-G-B-E. In the video Tom uses the sentence “Eat All Day Get Big Easy”. It is kind of a humorous sentence so it makes it that much simpler to remember. So now that you are well on your way to memorizing the names of the open strings, what other guitar basics do you need to know to get started?

Familiarize Yourself With the Fretboard

Now, is the perfect time to get familiar with the fretboard and how to easily identify exactly where you are within the frets. As you can see there are dots at frets 3, 5, 7, 9, 12, and so on. These are there only to serve as a point of reference while you are playing. As you can see in the image on this page, the strings can also be recognized by numbers rather than their open notes. This is important to remember when you are reading charts or tablature since the two concepts are interchangeable.

Learning Scales

The next step that Tom takes us through in this guitar basics lesson is the C major scale. This is a good scale to start with and begin playing mainly just to get your fingers moving and help you to learn some of the notes on the fretboard. It is a good idea to take the time to really play through this scale and the other one he teaches several times a day. This will seal them into your memory and help your fingers learn some muscle memory as well.

The best way to practice is not in one long session but rather in several shorter sessions. This is scientifically proven to help you improve faster but you have to remember to keep coming back to practice throughout the day or evening!

If you are interested in learning more about guitar basics and playing guitar you should check out the low cost lessons you will find over at TheGuitarLesson.com.