The Dilemma
If you are just beginning to learn playing the guitar, you are bombarded with many guitar lessons especially nowadays where so much are available online. This becomes a dilemma for those
starting out to play the guitar. They just do not know where to start!
How to Start?
When I began to play the guitar during my elementary years I did not start to learn forming
chords right away. Not even the easiest ones. The simple reasons of having short fingers those
times had me tinkling only the strings note for note. The melody of “Happy Birthday” song was the
first one I ever played on. I started to learn open chords like D,A,G as soon as I was able to
reach the fretboard with my fingers.
Moving forward
Having a guitar chord chart will fast track the process of learning chords. Just start with the open chords C, A, G, E, D and move on to study barre chords like F, Bb, Eb and more. Barre chords need your index finger to hold the strings down across the fretboard. This is the reason why these chords are a little difficult to learn.
When you buy a song book, choose among the ones with accompanying guitar chord chart. Practice a
lot of songs with open chords then move further to more complex ones. The song entitled “Horse
With No Name” by America is a good start cause it is played with only two chords. Remember, the
ingredients to success in playing guitar are perseverance and patience. Most of the guitar
teachers will tell you this.
Essentially, you should learn how to read guitar tabs. It’s a musical notation meant to help guitar players in transcribing any song. Hence, as a beginner you should also learn how to strum a guitar. Moreover, it pays to watch how other guitar players form chords. Luckily, this is much available online.
Conclusion
The accessibility of lessons through internet makes it easier to aspiring guitar players to learn
fast unlike the older days where you need to watch a gig or hire a guitar teacher just to learn
fundamentals and some techniques. The vast majority of online guitar lessons are confusing to beginners.
Fortunately, I have laid out to you what worked for me and there is no reason why it won’t work
for you as well.
