The Basics of Playing Guitar

Here are some tips to keep in mind as you learn to play guitar. Follow these carefully, and you'll make great progress in no time!

1) Keep your fingers curled (the joints): Make sure your finger joints stay curled whenever possible, as it makes it easier to produce clear sounding notes. If you flatten your fingers too much, you can accidentally block a string below your fingers. (On rare occasions you will want to flatten your fingers, but most of the time you won't.)

2) Use the tips of your fingers and press straight into the string: If you bend the string while playing, it will affect the pitch, and your notes and chords won't sound as good (except in songs where you're supposed to bend the strings). If you have smaller hands you may find some stretches difficult, but most hands can grow into the stretches necessary to play chords properly (just do your best in the meantime).

3) Play within the midrange of motion to prevent injury: I'll have a link about this soon, but the basic idea is to try to keep in the "midrange" of finger, hand, and wrist motions. In other words, don't flex or straighten your wrist or fingers any more than you have to. Overflexing while playing can lead to serious injury!

4) Keep your nails short: If your nails get too long, you can't press into the strings properly. Keep your fretting-hand nails short (if you really like having long nails, grow them twice as long on the other hand to compensate).

5) Hold your pick properly or Use your fingers properly (finger-picking): Make sure the "pointy" side of the pick is facing the guitar strings, and be sure to hold the pick close to the point for greater control (it requires more practice to pick accurately this way, but you will play much better.

For fingerpicking, you'll want your hand in a "relaxed" thumbs up position, with the fingers closer to the bridge of the guitar (the side that doesn't have the metal tuners). Try to have a good "follow through" with the fingers, so the fingers come almost right into (or almost right into) the palm.

6) Learn to tune your guitar: I've written a series of blog posts about tuning that you can check out here. Your instrument needs to be in tune for the songs you play to sound like they're supposed to.

7) Learn the basics of reading guitar tablature and/or sheet music: [link coming soon]

8) Learn the basics of reading rhythm: You need good rhythm as a guitarist. Learn about the basics in my post on rhythm by clicking here.

9) Make sure you practice: There really is no excuse for not practicing. Be sure to do it! 5-15 minutes a day is a good minimum to start, and time will tell whether your goals as a guitarist require more practice time.