Acoustic Guitar Basics

1. Introduction: This is a complete and structured acoustic guitar basics course where we're going to lay a solid foundation and then keep building on it as the class progresses so that there's an organized and progressive flow to this course. Hello, thank you so much for joining me. I'm Jason Rivera and I'll be taking you through this acoustic guitar basics class. In this class, I'll be covering acoustic guitar anatomy. How to hold your acoustic guitar and pick how to tune your acoustic guitar. How to fret notes. How to read tablature, warm up exercises. How to play five acoustic guitar riffs. How pitch works on the guitar. To read chord diagrams. Seven open chords, four power chords, strumming beats, and rhythm. How to play six songs. What 44 time means, your first scale and tips, tricks and resources. The class will give you plenty of opportunity to play along with me. You'll have the visual of me playing the various techniques, rifts, and songs in this class and I encourage you to play along with me in the video lessons. I'm also going to provide you with chord diagrams and sheep music. I've been playing and writing music since I was a small kid, and I've been teaching music to students ages five and up, including private guitar lessons since 2012. I'm a full time musician and composer. I've written music for films, trailers, and E learning courses, and I've played in bands and toured the US since I was a teenager. My goal with this course is to teach you the beginner acoustic guitar player, the basics of the instrument, including how to play several essential guitar chords. So that you can move forward and learn your favorite songs and rips. My hope is to make this process fun and easy for you. I want you to start playing your acoustic guitar as soon as possible. Thank you for watching this intro. Now grab your acoustic guitar and I'll see you on our first lesson. 2. Class Project: Hi. I'm so thrilled that you join me for this class. I want to quickly explain the project for this course. Throughout this class, we're going to be learning some of the most essential acoustic guitar chords and techniques. Once you've started to watch the video lessons in this course, I'd like you to record yourself playing any riff song exercise or technique that's covered in this class. To record yourself playing, you can use an app on your phone, such as voice memos or something similar to that. Or you can try recording yourself with music software such as Garage Band, Logic Pro, or Cue Base. It really just depends on how comfortable you are with computers and whether or not you want to learn how to use music software if you don't know how to already. One of the nice things about dedicated music software is that you can record multiple layers on top of one another. But even if you just use a simple app like voice memos, please record yourself playing. Recording yourself playing is a great tool, not only to capture your creative ideas, but also to hear yourself playing objectively. So that you can listen back to your recording and make mental notes. Which things you need to focus on during your guitar practice. Please don't be intimidated by this project. This is meant to be a fun project where you get to explore the acoustic guitar while you're developing your skills with it. I can't stress enough just how helpful recording yourself playing the guitar is for your own development as a guitarist. Hopefully after watching several lessons in this class, you'll feel confident enough in the skills that you're developing to take part in this class project. That's the intro to our class project. I hope that you're excited about it. In the next lesson, we're going to talk about acoustic guitar anatomy. 3. Acoustic Guitar Anatomy: This lesson is about the different parts of your acoustic guitar. The acoustic guitar has three main parts, the body, the neck, and the head stock. I like to think of it as a person with a body, a neck and a head. The body can be broken up into three areas. Upper bout, the waist, and the lower bout. Usually the lower bout is wider than the upper bout. The combination of these curves contributes to the overall sound of the, your guitar. The lighter wood here is the top or the sound board. The top, along with the back of the guitar and the sides, contributes to the tone of your guitar. When you pluck a string, the top actually vibrates this way. The air moving both inside and outside of the guitar is what hits our ears and what we interpret as the sound of an acoustic guitar. Here we have the sound hole. The sound hole allows the air from inside the body to escape while the top is vibrating. Inside of the sound hole is where there's usually information on the make and the model of your guitar. You can see inside of my sound hole here, there's a label with info on this guitar. This is also where you can see the inside construction of the guitar. Around the sound hole is this design element called a rosette. Down here on the body, we have the bridge. Sometimes you rest your hand there for more stability, especially when working with certain picking techniques. And sometimes you want to rest your hand there to change the tone of what you're playing. On the bridge, we have the saddle and we have the bridge pins. Many acoustic guitars also have a pick card like this one here. It's fixed to the top of the body and it protects the wood from pick scrapes. While you're playing here, where the top meets the sides is what's known as binding. Binding usually has some decorative element to it. At the end of the guitar is the end pin. If you want to stand up while you're playing, you hook one end of your guitar strap onto the end pin. And then the other end of the strap loops around the heads stock right here. On some modern acoustic guitars, there's also a strap button back here at the heel and you can hook your strap onto it. Next, let's talk about the neck. We have the fret board or the finger board, which is the top surface of the neck and it's where we press down on the strings. These pieces of wire here that are embedded into the wood or the fretboard are the fret wires, the spaces in between the fret wires. These here are the frets, this is fret one, this is fret two, fret three, fret four, fret five, and so on. Guitars usually have dots or some shape or design on the fretboard. These are called position markers, fret markers, or inlays. These shapes help us to find our place on the neck quicker. I think of them as landmarks on the fretboard. You'll see these markers on frets 3,579.12 When you hit fret 12, there's usually two dots and then that pattern repeats up the neck. At the end of the neck, on the back is the heel or the neck joint. This is where the neck meets the body. Over here we have the nut. The nut is the start of the fretboard. You can think of it as fret zero. Strings pass through the nut to attach to this piece of the guitar. Here the heads stock, there are six notches in the nut, one for each string to pass through. Last but not least, we have the headstock. Heads stocks come in a variety of different shapes and sizes. These are the tuners, Each tuner has a post, These guys up here. The strings go through the post and then wind around the post. Then we use these tuning keys to change the pitch of the string up or down. Those are the parts of the acoustic guitar. Our next lesson, we're going to look at how to hold your guitar and your pick. 4. Hold Your Guitar and Pick: This lesson is about how to hold a guitar while sitting down, and how to hold a guitar pick. First, let's talk a little bit about posture. The most important thing is that you stay relaxed. You want to sit up nice and straight at the edge of your chair. Your feet firmly on the ground. We want to be relaxed, but also sitting up straight. You want to keep your shoulders nice and loose. You want to make sure that your seat doesn't have arm rests, so that you're free to move your arms and your guitar around. There are some designs of guitars that can be a little bit awkward to hold. Hopefully your guitar has a nice curve right here. This way it'll rest nicely on your leg. Rest your guitar on your right leg, and then hug your guitar close to your torso. Then you want to drape your right arm over the guitar and that will give you some extra support. When I'm teaching private lessons, I often see students doing this with their guitars. They're holding it away from their torso so they could see the fret board and what they're playing easier. While it can be tempting to do that, it's not a great habit when your guitar is flat like this, your tone is just not as good. You can't project as well because your sound is actually pointing towards the ceiling instead of pointing at the audience. It puts your left hand in a really awkward position. Over time, it actually could injure your left hand. Always try to remember to keep your guitar hugged into your torso, just like this. Then you want to aim the guitar neck out on an angle just a little bit. You want to make sure your head stock is just a tiny bit higher than parallel to the ground like this. Your left elbow should be below your left wrist. Next we're going to look at how to hold a guitar pick. Sometimes you'll hear these referred to as a plectrum. To hold a pick properly, we're going to use our thumb in our index finger of our right hand. We take our index finger and we bend the knuckle like that. Then we take the pointed side of the pick and you want to have it pointing away from your right hand. You place your pick on the side of your index finger and then grip it with your thumb. You want to have some flexibility in the pick, but also some control. Don't put too much pressure on the pick, just the medium amount of pressure so that you don't drop it. Then you want to keep your wrists nice and loose. There are other ways to hold a pick to achieve certain techniques, but this is the main way that I want you to learn how to hold a pick. One of the main reasons being that this will help you to avoid dropping the pick. There are different thicknesses of picks. Thicker picks allow you to dig into the strings and are great for lead guitar. Really. Picks are more flimsy but they're great for playing chords. I like to use a 60 millimeter pick. This is a medium thickness pick, It's a great pick to start out with, it's really versatile. When you're strumming, aim to strum down the middle of the guitar. On my guitar here, that's about right here. You can experiment with different tones by playing closer to the bridge or closer to the fretboard. Hopefully you can hear that there's quite a difference between playing in those two areas. In this lesson, we covered how to hold a guitar while sitting down, how to hold the pick, and where to strum. In our next lesson, we're going to learn how to tune your guitar. 5. How to Tune Your Guitar: In this lesson, I'm going to show you how to tune your guitar using an app. Tuning, especially for beginners can be a little bit confusing, but it's really easy once you get the hang of it and it's really essential to sounding good. Let's get into it. Make sure to always tune your guitar before playing. The first step is to get a tuner. There are many types of tuners and tuning apps out there. I recommend the Fender Tune app, which is free and available for IOS and Android for your phone or tablet. I like Fender tune because I find that it's really straightforward to use. And it also has a nice design to it. Also, most digital audio workstations such as Base or Logic Pro have built in tuners that you can use. I also recommend that you get yourself a headstock tuner. It clips right onto the headstock of your guitar. When you turn the tuner on, you can see which notes you're playing. One nice thing about a headstock tuner is that it operates by picking up the vibrations of the string that you're plucking. Even if you're in a really noisy room or at a gig, you can still tune accurately. A standard guitar has six strings and each one is tuned to their own pitch. There are many different tunings that we can tune our guitar to, but in this class we're going to be looking at standard tuning. If we start with the thickest string closest to the ceiling, which is the sixth string, that's the next one. The fifth string is A. The fourth string is D. The third string is A. The second string is the first string is. We can use a really simple phrase to help us remember what note each string is supposed to be tuned to. If we start from the thinnest string, you can use the phrase, Easter bunnies get dizzy at Easter. You can also come up with your own phrase to help you remember the string names. The more ridiculous the phrase is, the more likely you are to remember it. Something worth mentioning at this point because it's relevant to tuning are the term sharp and flat when it comes to tuning. If something is too sharp, it means you've gone too high and pitch and pass the note that we're trying to tune to. If a note is flat, we haven't tuned high or tight enough, or we've tuned the string too far down, or you could also say that the string is too slack. Before we start tuning, let me give you a really quick tour of the Fender tuna. I want to do this to make sure you have the right settings to tune with. I've opened up the app and I click on Auto Tuner at the top. Then in the top right corner, there's a little icon with three sliders. I click on that and it opens up the tune settings. Then down below I select acoustic. You can also use the chromatic mode setting up here if you'd like, But to avoid confusion for beginners, I recommend just selecting the acoustic setting down below. If I scroll down a little bit, you'll notice that the tuning is set to standard. That's what you'll want to set it to. I had done in the top right corner, and I'm all set as a heads up. I've purposely detuned a few strings here so that you can watch me dial the tuning in. We're going to use the fender tune app, and we're going to start with the lowest string. We can see that this string is too loose or flat. What you want to do here is follow that low string up the neck so that we can see which tuning peg the string is connected to. Just follow it all the way up. This way you can make sure that you're turning the correct tuning peg. It's this one right here for the low E, so I'm going to tighten it up since the note is flat. And I'm going to turn the tuning peg towards, this way towards the head stock. And eventually we'll get to, I'll just pluck the string, let it ring out. While I'm gently turning the tuning peg. There we go. If you're using fender tune, it will tell you when you're in tune by flashing green. When you're tightening a string, be sure not to tighten too much or you could snap the string. The next string is A. This one's also flat. So we're going to do the same thing. We're just going to follow the fifth string all the way up past the nut. And then that's the tuning peg right there. We're going to turn that one. So again to sharpen it, I'm turning the tuning peg this way towards the head doc. I'm making very slight turns. There we go. The next string is D. Let's check it out that one's actually in tune so we don't have to do anything to it. The next string is, again, just as a reminder, follow that third string all the way past the nut. This way you can figure out which tuning key you need to turn for the G. It's this one up here. Now I need to mention that on acoustic guitars, you usually have three tuning pegs on this side of the headstock and three tuning pegs on this side of the headstock. If the strings on your guitar were put on properly, that means that for the three strings, 45.6 you turn the tuning peg to the headstock to tighten them. For strings 12.3 on this side of the headstock, you turn the tuning pegs towards the bridge, this way to tighten them, since this string is flat, I'm going to turn the tuning peg towards the bridge of the guitar to tighten it and to bring it into tune. When you get really close to being in tune, then your turns on the tuning keys need to be really subtle. There we go. The next string is now, with this one, it's too sharp, so that means that it's tuned too tight. So we want to flatten the note by turning the second string tuning peg towards the head stock of the guitar this way. Oh, there we go again. If your notes are close to being in tuned, then your turns on the tuning pegs need to be really small and subtle. The last string is the high, this one's also too sharp. There we go. I use the fender tune app here, but you can also use a headstock tuner. Now our guitar sounds beautiful and in tune over time. The more that you tune, the more sensitive your ears will become and you'll be able to hear when your guitar is even slightly out of tune. In this lesson, we covered how to tune our acoustic guitar using a tuning app. And we learned a simple phrase to remember our string names. At this point in the class, I want you to make sure that you get yourself a tuner. And then use this lesson to tune your guitar. And the next lesson, we're going to learn how to fret notes properly. 6. How to Fret Notes: This lesson is about how to fret notes properly on your acoustic guitar. This is an important topic because it affects your tone so much. In this lesson, we're going to be focusing on our fretting hand. We need to know where to press down on the fret board when playing, whether you're playing a chord or single notes. You want to press your fingers down right behind the fret wire. That'll give you a nice clean sound. And it actually makes it easier to play the guitar. Let's try it on a chord. If you're pressing down too far, back away from the fret wire, the string starts to buzz. If you're pressing down on top of the fret, you're going to actually be muting the string. You just want to slide your finger back a bit until you're right behind the fret wire. You can hear how the tone cleared up as I moved my hand towards the headstock. Give this a try. Place your index finger on the first fret of the thinnest string closest to the ground string. Number one, the high E string, just strum down and make sure that you have a nice clear tone. Here are some tips. In order to get a nice clear tone, you want to squeeze your index finger and your thumb together. Your thumb should be pointed up behind the neck, like this, like you're giving someone a thumbs up. Then you want to fret the note right behind the fret wire. Also, when you fret notes, you want to try to use your fingertips to press down on the strings. This brings me to another tip. If you have long fingernails in your left hand, you're going to want to cut them back as short as possible. If you have long nails, they're going to get in the way of fretting notes. For those of you that like to have long nails, I'm, there's no way around it really long nails on your left hand. They'll just get in the way whenever I have a private guitar student and they're having trouble either holding down chords or playing melodies or riffs. I go through those four tips because it's usually any one or a combination of those tips that will get them playing clearer notes with less effort. In this lesson, we covered how to fret notes properly on your acoustic guitar, and we went over specific tips to help us with this. The next lesson we're going to learn how to read tablature. 7. How to Read Tablature: This lesson is an introduction to tablature, or tabs. You can think of tab as a shorthand form of reading music. Once we learn how to read tabs, we can unlock how to play different rifts, melodies, and chords on the guitar. Tab is a number system and it tells us where to place our hands on the fret board. When you look at Tab on paper, the first line represents the first, the high string. Second line down represents the second string, the B string. Then we have the third string, the string. Then we have the fourth string, the string. Then we have the fifth string, the string, and then finally the sixth string, the low E string is down at the bottom. It's as if you laid your guitar in your lap and you're looking down at it. Each line on the tab represents a string on the guitar. The numbers you see going across the tab represent a fret. We read these numbers from left to right. For example, zero means to play a string open. If you saw a zero on the fifth line down, you'd play the A string open. If you saw a three on the fourth line down, you'd play the third fret of the D string. If you then saw 22 on the second line down, then you'd play the string twice on the second fret, you'll notice that there's also a line going down the middle here, that's called a bar line. The music between the bar lines is called either a bar or a measure. Now let's read and play a couple of tab examples. This is example one. Let's play bar one. So we're going to play a string six, then a zero string five, then a zero string four, and then a zero on string three, okay? Pretty simple. Now, on to bar two. We're going to play the second string, first fret, and then the second string, second fret. Then we play the first string first fret, and the first string third fret. Now let's look at an example where we play more than one node at a time. When you're playing two or more strings at the same time, the fret numbers are stacked on top of each other. This is how you'll see chords written tablture. Let's check out our second example here, and bar one, we're playing the fifth and sixth string together open. Then in the next measure, we have the third and the fourth strings played together open. Then in the last measure, we have strings one and strings two together open. In this lesson, we covered how to read tabs. I hope that this intro to tabs is making sense for you. The more that you read tabs, the easier it'll be to read them. And we'll use tabs throughout this course. It'll get easier and easier for you to read them as we progress through the material in this class. The next lesson, we're going to play a couple of warm up exercises. 8. Warm Up Exercises 1 & 2: Okay, in this lesson, we're going to get into a couple of really nice warm up exercises to get us loose and more comfortable with the fret board and with picking notes. So I'm going to remind you here about what I mentioned in an earlier lesson about finger placement. You want to place your fingers down on the fret, right behind the fret wire. Also, I recommend tapping your foot while you play these exercises. And this will help you to keep a nice and even rhythm. Just like this, I'm just tapping my right foot. With this first exercise, we'll be playing on the first string, the high string. We're going to play the first string open four times, then press on the first fret with finger one or index finger, and you want to play that four times. Then we're going to use our second finger, our middle finger, and we're going to press down on the second fret. So far we've got open first fret and then second fret. Then we're going to add our third, our ring finger onto the third fret. Finally, we'll put our fourth, our pinky onto the fourth threat. Now I should mention here that it's quite a stretch to put your pinky onto the fourth threat while keeping the first three fingers on the first three threats. Like I am here, I have pretty big hands and it's easy for me to stretch my pinky to reach the fourth threat. If you have to lift three fingers off the fretboard to reach your onto that four, that, that is totally okay. I want you to make sure that you use your pinky for this exercise. Because the pink tends to be the weakest finger for most people. You need to develop strength and flexibility in it, and the only way to do that is by working it. So this is the whole warm up exercise put together. If you notice, there's a repeat sign surrounding measures 1.5 So you want to play the entire exercise at least four times. Why don't you try playing this along with me. I'll count us in 1234. With your strumming hand, you can keep it simple and use all down, just like this. Also you want to make sure that your thumb is pointing up towards the ceiling, just like you're giving a thumbs up to somebody. Placing your thumb on the neck like this makes it easier to stretch your fingers across the board. So with this exercise, you want to take it really slow, as slow, and even as possible. If you're using a metronome, you can try setting it to around 60 beats per minute If this exercise is feeling good, you can also try extending it by ascending up the fretboard from the open string up to fret four, like we did in our first exercise. And then descending down the fretboard starting from the fourth fret, we go. So this second exercise in its entirety sounds like this. Now I want you to try this with me. I'll count us in 1234. There are two great warm up exercises to stretch your fingers and to build flexibility and strength in your fretting hand. I recommend playing these exercises at the start of your practice session for a couple of minutes each. In this lesson, we learn two great warm up exercises to help our hand. The next lesson, we're going to learn our 9. Riff 1: Okay, in this lesson, we're going to learn how to play our first riff. Here's what it sounds like. This riff is played entirely on the low E string and we're going to use all down strums in our right hand. We're going to start by pressing on the sixth string on the fifth fret with our first the index finger. We're going to play that four times. Then we move up to the seventh fret with our third finger, our ring finger. We play that four times. Then we move to the third fret and press down with finger one, our index. We play that four times. Then in the last measure, we stay on the third fret for two beats, and then release our first finger to play the opening for two beats. If we put that together, it sounds like this. Once you've got that down, then you want to play it four times. Let's try that together. I'm goning to speed it up a bit, 1234. So there's your first riff. Congratulations. In this lesson we learned our very first F. And the next lesson we're going to learn about how pitch works on the guitar. 10. How Pitch Works: In this lesson, we're going to learn how pitch works on the guitar. A pitch is the sound of a note. On the guitar, we have a range of high pitches and low pitches in Music Pitch can move down, or it can move up. Let's start to look at how this works on the guitar by exploring one string, the A string. When we're playing notes that are moving towards the headstock, they're going lower in pitch. They're descending. Let's take a listen to that. Notes moving towards the bridge of the guitar are ascending. They're moving up and pitch and getting higher. Let's listen to that. As you move on the fretboard towards the bridge, notes are going higher. As you move on the fretboard towards the heads, notes are descending and getting lower. Now we also have to look at the other way that pitches move up on the fretboard. Now we're looking at playing across the strings in this direction. The notes on the low string, the sixth string, moving towards the high string, are moving up and pitch. I'm here on the six fret and I'm just going to walk across from the sixth string to the first string, one string at a time. Hopefully you can hear that the notes are going up and pitch and getting higher as I change strings towards the high. If we play notes from the first string, the high string, towards the sixth string, the low string, we're moving down and pitch we're descending. Now let's explore one note A in different places on the fretboard. First we'll find an A on the string seventh fret. Now we're going to move and we're going to find a higher up in pitch. We're going to move to the 14th fret. This second A is higher in pitch. We've moved towards the bridge, but we've also moved higher towards the first string. Let's play the A on the string Seventh Threat again. From there, let's find a lower pitched a note on the six string. Fifth threat, right here. I've moved down towards the head stock in this direction, but I've also moved down towards the sixth string. A is lower pitched on the six string. In this lesson, we learned a broad overview of how pitch works on the guitar. If you're a beginner player, please spend some time with this lesson. It will help you to better understand the fret board and it will free up your playing. Our next lesson, we're going to learn another riff. 11. Riff 2: In this lesson, we're going to learn how to play another rif on the low string. Here's what it sounds like for this riff, we're only playing on the low string. We play the open A string three times. Then on beat four of measure one, we play the third fret of the low string with our first finger, our index finger. Then in the next measure, we play the open low E string again and let that bring out for four beats. Then in measure three, we play the third fret of the low string again and let that ring out for three beats. Then on beat four of measure three, we play the sixth string third fret again and let that ring out for an additional four beats. If we put those four measures together, it sounds like this. With your strumming, you should be using all downs strums in the rhythm. We have whole dotted, half, and quarter notes. We'll get into more detail later on in the class in terms of rhythm and counting, but let's go measure by measure and just quickly talk about the rhythm of this Th. Measure one we have four quarter notes. And measure two, we have one whole note. Measure three, we have a dotted half note, which is equal to three beats, followed by a quarter note on beat four. Measure four, we just hold the quarter note from beat four of measure three and let it continue to ring out for all four beats of measure four. This rhythm is a whole note tied to beat four of measure three. Let me play measure three into measure four. Use your ears and read the tab that I've created as a reference for the rhythm. Okay, so now that we've gone through this F measure by measure, let's play through it four times together. Here we go. 1234, Nice job. You can probably hear me tapping my foot to help keep a nice, steady pace. I'm just with my right foot. As I play, I encourage you to tap your foot while playing this riff as well. I think you'll find that it helps you to keep a nice, steady rhythm. Okay, I hope that this is all starting to click for you. You can always go back and rewatch any parts of this lesson that you need to. In this lesson, we learned another riff, and we started to learn about different types of rhythms. Our next lesson, we're going to learn how to read or diagrams. 12. Reading Chord Diagrams: In this lesson, I'm going to show you how to read chord diagrams. When we're learning chords and songs, we're going to be using chord diagrams, sometimes these are referred to as chord boxes. A chord diagram is a representation of the fret board, and they're drawn as if the guitar is held up like this. The vertical line on the left hand side of the core diagram is the thickest string. The six string. The vertical line on the right side is the thinnest string, the first string. There are six vertical lines on the diagram, and each of those lines represents a guitar string. The thick line at the top of the diagram represents the nut of the guitar. The horizontal lines beneath the nut represent each of the frets. We have fret one, fret two, fret three, fret four, fret five, and so on. The notes that are fretted are represented by circles with numbers in them. These circles are placed on a specific fret and a specific string. The numbers inside of the circles represent the suggested finger that you should use to fret the note. The fingers are numbered one through four. Your index finger is one, the middle finger is two, the ring finger is three, and your pinky is four. The finger numbers on the diagrams are recommendations. Sometimes I'll use different fingers for a chord if it's more efficient or it's more comfortable for me. Also, sometimes you want to adjust the fingers that you're using because it just makes more sense moving from one particular cord to another. But the red diagrams that I'll be showing you in this course will have the recommended fingerings on them. And it's best to try and stick with those at first. With many chords, you'll see these Xs and Os above the nut. X means don't play that string, and O means to play that string open without fretting it. Here's an example, the A minor chord. The X above the six string means don't play that string, the O above the fifth string. And the first string means to play those strings open and let them ring out. In other words, play that string, but don't fret that string, just let it ring out and resonate open. You'll see these Xs and Os, almost every chord diagram. When it comes to the Xs, that symbol is telling us not to play that string. And you can do that in a couple of ways. You can avoid playing that string altogether. Or you could use your thumb or one of your fingers to mute that string. Muting with your thumb or fingers gives you a bit more freedom with your strumming. For example, with an A minor chord, I use my left hand thumb to mute the six string, that six string with the X above, it won't ring out when I'm playing that a minor chord. It just gives me more freedom with my strumming. In this lesson, we covered how to read core diagrams and we learned the finger numbers of your fretting hand. Make sure that you download the supplemental materials for this class where I've included core diagrams for you to review. Have a little patience with yourself through this process. Once you get the hang of reading core diagrams, it will become second nature for you. Our next on, we're going to start learning about. 13. Introduction to Chords: In the next several lessons, we're going to focus on learning our first chords. These chords are going to be played in the first position covering the first three frets, and these will be open chords. In this class, the goal of learning these chords is to be able to play songs with them. We'll learn these chords and then apply them to learning several new songs. These are some of the most essential chords that we need to know to be able to play lots of songs moving forward as well. The upcoming lessons will focus on these chords. I highly encourage you to Google search these chords and you'll be able to find more songs that use them, including ones by your favorite artists. This way, you'll be applying the chords to learn songs that you know and that you love. Our next lesson, we're going to start learning your first chord, E minor. 14. E Minor Chord: In the next handful of lessons, we're going to start learning our first chords. A chord is a combination of different notes played at the same time. In order to do this on the guitar, you strum more than one string at a time while forming various shapes in your fretting hand. You might be asking yourself, why is it useful to learn these open chords? The chords that I'm going to teach you in this class will help you to start to build your vocabulary of chords. Learning chords will open up hundreds, if not thousands, of songs for you to learn. In this lesson, we're going to learn our first chord, E minor. Here's what it sounds like. To make the minor cord, we only need two fingers, which is why this is a great first cord. To learn, we put finger number one, our index finger, on the second fret of the A string. Our second our middle finger on the second fret of the D string, we strum all six strings. Make sure your fingers are arched off of the open strings, and that your thumb is pointed up behind the neck. You want to bend your knuckles and press down with the tips of your fingers right behind the fret wire as best as you can. Just apply enough pressure with your fingers to have the sound ring out. This chord uses a lot of open strings. That also is why it's a good first chord to learn. Let's practice this chord by taking our left hand off of the guitar, and then try building the E minor again. Your first finger goes to the second fret of the A string, then your second finger goes to the second fret of the D string. That's how you play the minor. As I mentioned, you want to press down on the strings with the tips of your fingers. This can be painful at first. Just make sure to take breaks from playing. Eventually, you'll build up calluses like I have right here on my fingertips. Once you have calluses, it'll be easier to hold down your cord shapes. Also, you don't want to accidentally mute strings that you're not pressing down. This usually happens when your fingers are flattened, which I'm doing on purpose here. If you try to just focus on pressing on your fingertips, this will help if you're having this issue. You can hear how that very small change makes a big difference in the sound. Also, you want to make sure that you have some space between the palm of your hand and the fret board right here. If you're playing on your fingertips, that'll happen automatically. You also need to build up strength in your fretting hand, and it will probably be uncomfortable to hold down chords in the beginning. Like I mentioned, just take breaks from playing and you can even try shaking your hand out and just rest, take breaks if your chord is not ringing out clearly. You can also cross check that each string is sounding properly one by one. In this case, you want to start with the sixth string and work your way to the first string one at a time. After practicing for a while, each string should ring out nice and clear if your chord is not sounding clear. Also double check that you're fretting the notes right behind the frat wire as best as you can. In this lesson, we learned our first chord minor. I want you to practice this chord by taking your left hand off of the guitar. And then try building the E minor again, exactly how we did in this lesson. What we're doing with this little exercise is building up our muscle memory to be able to eventually form the chord shape really quick. As a reminder, don't forget to download the core diagrams that I've included with this class for your reference. The next lesson we're going to learn the decord. 15. D Chord: In this lesson, we're going to learn how to play the D major chord. This is another open chord and it's a really important one to learn, since it's used in so many songs. Here's what it sounds like. The D chord uses three fingers. It's a chord where your fretting fingers are bunched up a little bit. You'll have to get used to playing it to play this chord. You put finger one on the second fret of the G string. Finger two is going to go on the second fret of the high string. Then finger three is going to go onto the third fret of the B string. And then you strum down from your open D string. The forward string, your cord. Probably won't sound clear when you're first trying it, but there are some things to look out for to help you with this. Remember to place your fingers right behind the fret wire as best as you can. Also be sure to arch your fingers and play with your fingertips so that you're not accidentally muting strings. When you arch your fingers like this, it would also help you to apply just enough pressure with your fretting hand so that the strings ring out nice and clear without straining your left hand. As a reminder, just like with the first core that we learned, you can always self diagnose any problems by picking each string individually. And then you can look at your fretting hand and see where any problems might be. Maybe you're pressing down on the fret wire and that'll of course cause muting. You want to press the string down right behind the fret wire. So I'm just going to slide all three of my fingers, just the hair towards the headstock there it is, nice and clear, just like we did with our first chord. Let's practice this cord by taking our left hand away from the guitar, and then try building the D again. Practice this cord to get comfortable with it. We're going to be linking it with other chords in the upcoming video lessons. In this lesson, we learned the cord, and now we've learned two chords. And we're building up our chord vocabulary. The next lesson we're going to learn our third chord, C. Let's jump right into that now. 16. C Chord: In this lesson, we're going to learn how to play another open cord, the C major cord. Here's how it sounds. We'll use three fingers to play this cord. And you have to stretch your fretting hand quite a bit across three frets in this direction. To build a C cord, add finger one to the first fret of the B string, then add your second finger to the second fret of the D string. Then we add our third finger to the third fret of the A string. Then from the string towards the first string, the high. Make sure all of your strings are ringing out nice and clear. If not, remember to arch your fingers and play in your fingertips and make sure your thumb is straight up behind the neck. Let's drum it again. Now let's take our left hand away from the guitar and build the C again. Finger one goes onto the first fret of the B string, F two goes onto the second fret of the D string. Then finger three goes onto the third fret of the A string. And we're going to strum from the A string towards the first string, the high. Make sure you're patient with yourself when you're learning these chords. This C chord in particular takes some time to get used to playing. You're stretching your fretting hand across three frets. Just build the chord one finger at a time and be patient as you build up your fretting hand strength and flexibility. Once you've been playing guitar for a while, you'll start to discover that you don't actually need to apply too much pressure with your left hand to get nice, clear notes out of the guitar. But again, that comes with time and with practice. In this lesson, we learned another new chord, C. Remember to download the core diagrams that I've attached to this class for your reference. The next lesson we're going to learn our fourth chord. Let's jump right in. 17. G Chord: In this lesson, we're going to learn how to play another open chord, the chord. There are some variations as to how you can play the chord, but in this lesson, we're going to focus on learning the most standard version. Here's how it sounds. To make the chord shape, we place finger one on the second fret of the A string. Then we take finger two and place it on the third fret of the low string. Then you place finger three on the third fret of the high string. Then you want to strum all six strings. That's the most common way to fret the cord. I'm going to give you an alternative way of creating the cord. You place finger one on the second fret of the A string. Finger two goes onto the third fret of the low E string. Then you place finger four, you're pinky on the third fret of the high string, then you still all six strings. This alternative way of creating the cord is a version that I often use switch back and forth between these two different versions. Feel free to learn both versions if you'd like, but first I want you to learn the first version that I just taught you, the version that uses finger three. The reason for that is that using finger three for this cord is helpful for stretching your fretting hand, especially when you're just getting started. This cord is also a little tricky because it requires you to stretch your hand across the fretboard in this direction. If you stick with it over time, your left hand will become more flexible and stronger. Remember to play on your fingertips so you don't unintentionally mute strings and apply just enough pressure with your left hand to have the strings ring out nice and clear. Let's practice this by taking our left hand off of the guitar and then try building the again finger one goes onto the second fret of the A string. Your second finger goes to the third fret of the low string. Your third finger goes on the third fret of the high string. Then you want to all six strings, practice taking your hand away from the fret board and then forming the G as quickly as you can. Just like with our other chords that we've learned, we're building muscle memory in our fretting hand and getting comfortable with this G chord will also allow you to play many of your favorite songs. As a reminder, if you're having problems with the G chord, you can always self diagnose the chord by picking each string one at a time when first learning the cord. Because your hand is stretching across the neck, you'll probably be muting strings unintentionally. As a reminder to help with this, just try to play on your fingertips. Be sure to practice this cord to get comfortable with it. In this lesson, we learned another essential open cord, the D. In the next lesson, we're going to learn about strumming beats and rhythm. 18. Strumming and Rhythm: We're almost ready to play our first song, but first we're going to cover strumming. To do this, I'm going to introduce just a tiny bit of music theory. But don't worry, I'm only going to touch on enough music theory to enable us to play popular songs. At the foundation of strumming is posture. Earlier in this class, I talked about posture when playing the guitar. Please refer back to that lesson if you need to, And make sure that you're using good posture when you're holding the guitar and strumming. And also in that same video lesson, I demonstrated how to hold a guitar pick. Definitely, go back and rewatch that lesson. If you need a refresher, once you're in a good posture, you're relaxed and you've got a good grip on your pick. Let's try strumming with all down strums in the right hand. We'll just let the fretting hand relax, or we can use it to mute the strings by gently touching all six strings. We're just moving our strumming hand down towards the floor. Most of this movement is actually coming from your elbow, and your wrist is just nice and relaxed. This is called a downstrmow. Let's try strumming in the opposite direction. That is called an upstrow. Let's try combining the downstrm and the upstrm together. We're just alternating up, up. While strumming this pattern, you can count 1.2 and 3.4 and 1.2 and 3.4 And this down up pattern is one of the most useful strumming patterns to learn when you're starting out. Now let's talk a bit about beats. You might have heard musicians count each other in with 1234. These counts or beats are references that allow us to play with other musicians. These beats are grouped together and what are called bars or measures. Usually these beats are in groups of four. In most songs, you count 12341234. Another way of saying that is that in most popular music there are four beats per bar. We make note of that with something called the time signature. The most common time signature is 44. There are many other time signatures out there, such as 142-434-5468, et cetera. For now, we're going to focus on 44 times because it's so common in popular music. Let's count some beats together in 44 time. Here we go. 1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4. Now let's dive a little bit deeper into rhythm. Let's talk about different types of rhythms that we might play. Let's start with whole notes. A whole note is equal to four beats in 44 time. That takes up all the beats in 1 bar. To play a whole note, we strum on beat one, and then let the note ring out, while we count 1234. Let's try this out. Let's form the minor chord that we've already learned in this class. Remember to play minor. Our first finger goes to the second fret of the A string. Then finger two goes to the second fret of the D string. And then you want to strum all six strings to play a whole note. You want to strum down on beat one of the bar and then let it ring out while you're counting the rest of the beats of the measure, like this, 1234. Now let's try this together. I strongly suggest counting out loud while you do this exercise. Okay, here we go. Grab your E minor chord, and I'll count us in. 12341234. Great job on whole notes. Now let's play some half notes. Half notes are equal to two beats, or two counts. To complete a measure, you need two half notes. You need to strum down two times per measure. For example, 1234. Okay, let's play half notes together. We'll play the minor chord count out loud, and play a downstrm on beat one and beat three of the measure. Here we go, 1234234. Okay, Now let's play some quarter notes. Quarter notes are equal to one beat. 1 bar has four quarter notes to it, It sounds like this. 1234. Okay, try this with me. Grab the minor chord, and we're going to strum down 44 notes per bar. Don't forget to count out that with me. 1234234. Okay, now let's play some eighth notes. If we break a four note in half, we get an eighth note. Eighth notes are equal to half of a beat, so there are two eighth notes in one beat. So 1 bar has eight eighth notes to it, It sounds like this. 1.2 3.4 Okay, try this with me. Find your minor chord, and then we're going to strum eight eighth notes per bar. Don't forget to count out loud, when you strum eighth notes, you're going to want to use the 1.2 and 3.4 And counting that I mentioned earlier, even though here we're going to be strumming all downs strums. Here we go. 1.2 and 3.4 and 123.4 Great job. What we're doing in this lesson is we're practicing finding and feeling the beat. And we're becoming aware of how the beats are organized into bars. This skill is essential when learning songs and when playing with other musicians. It tells you how long you should stay on a chord and how many times to strum each of those chords. You'll be really glad that you're taking the time to learn about these rhythms and to practice them. These rhythms are at the heart of playing so many songs. In this lesson, we learned about strumming beats and rhythm. In the next lesson, we're going to learn our first song. 19. Song 1: In this lesson, we're going to learn how to play our first song. It's a song that I've written specifically for us in this. And we're going to use four chords that we've already learned in our previous video lessons. Here's what the song sounds like, make sure you're tuned up and let's get started. First, we're going to play E minor for this song. We're going to keep it very simple and just use all downstrums. We're going to play eight eighth notes per, except for the last measure where we're going to play a whole note. So we start on a minor chord, then the next chord is C, and the same rhythm we're going to play eighth notes on using all downstrms. The third chord is, again, we're going to play eight eighth notes on. Then we play eight eighth notes on D. Let's hear that entire pattern played together. Then we start that entire pattern starting on E minor all over again. And then we end on the whole note on E minor. Remember, you want to stay nice and relaxed in your shoulders and also in both of your wrists. I suggest that you tap quarter notes with your foot while playing, like I've been doing here. Again, this will help you to keep a steady rhythm. 1234, Okay. Now we're going to play through the whole song together without stopping. We'll go nice and slow, and I want you to try and play along with me. Here we go. 1.2, 3.4, Congratulations on learning your first song on the acoustic guitar. And the next lesson we're going to learn about 44 times. 20. 4/4 Time: In this video lesson, we're going to cover 44 times 44 is a time signature. You'll find a time signature at the beginning of any written sheet music or tab. A time signature is two numbers stacked on top of each other. Like this, it looks like a fraction. A time signature helps us to organize beats into bars. The bar lines here help us to know where 1 bar ends and the next bar starts. 44 is extremely common in popular music. The top number tells us how many beats are in a bar. The bottom number tells us what type of note is equal to one beat in 44. The top number tells us we have four beats in the bar, and the bottom number stands for a quarter note. In other words, the quarter note is equal to one beat in 44. We can have different note types, such as eighth notes, quarter notes, half notes, and whole notes for example. But they'll always add up to four beats per measure. In this lesson, we learned about 44 times. I'll see you in the next lesson, where we're going to learn how to read tablature with rhythm. 21. Reading Tab with Rhythm: In this lesson, we're going to learn how to read a form of tablature that includes rhythm. Tabwith rhythm is really helpful because it's a more specific form of tab and it includes more detailed information on how to play the song or riff you're trying to learn. Tabwith rhythm is a combination of tab with different types of rhythmic notation. We're going to take what we learned in a previous lesson about whole notes, half notes, quarter notes, and eighth notes. And we're going to put that information into the context of tabs. Let's check out how to read each of these rhythms. In tab, a, whole note is a note with a circle around it, and it lasts for a count of four. A half note is a circle note with a stem, and each note lasts for two beats. Quarter notes have a stem without a circle, and each quarter note lasts for one beat. And eighth notes have stems with either a flag attached or a beam that connects two or more eighth notes. Each eighth note lasts for half of a beat, and you count multiple eighth notes as 1.2 and 3.4 And we learned all about how to count eighth notes in our previous video lessons. These four types of rhythms can be written on any string and on any fret. Let's take a look at this rhythmic, tab and action. Here we have a four bar example, we're only playing on one string. For this entire example, the open third string. Each measure has four beats. Let's play this exercise together. It's all on the third string, the string. Please notice that this sheet has repeat symbols in it. This tells us to repeat these four measures. We'll play through these four measures, two times total. Try to count out loud while playing this and use all down strums in your strumming head. I'll count us in 1234. Nice job. Please make sure you try to play through this exercise with me at least one time through a lot of sheep music publishers use this rhythmic tab notation style. When you see this style of tab, you'll know how to count and how to play what's on the sheet. In this lesson, we learn how to read tablature with rhythm. In the next lesson, we're going to learn another riff. 22. Riff 3: In this lesson, we're going to learn how to play another riff. This riff is on the string and the low E string. Here's what it sounds like. So for this, we start on the string. On this string we're going to play free fret four, then we jump down to the low string and we play frets 2.4 If you don't have a lot of experience playing guitar, you can play this riff with your first finger to get your bearings. That looks and it sounds like this. You start on the first fret of the A string, you jump up to the fourth fret, you go back down to the first fret, then you jump to the low string on the fourth fret. Then you stay in the low E and move down to the second fret. Then you jump up to the fourth fret, then the riff starts over. You can see how using finger one really requires you to jump around A. It's not really the most efficient way of playing this riff. If you're a bit more of an experienced player, I would recommend using three different fingers to play this. You assign one finger to each fret. This just makes it easier or more efficient to play, but whatever fingers you use to fret the notes you're going to be using all downs strums in your right hand. Every time you play the first threat, you use your first finger. Whenever you play the fourth fret, you use your fourth finger. Whenever you play the second fret, use your second finger. Let's play this rift four times together. I'm going to pick up the tempo and I'm going to count us in 1234. In this lesson, we learned our third riff. Have fun playing this one. And our next lesson, we're going to learn another song. 23. Song 2: In this lesson, we're going to learn how to play another song. It's another song that I've written specifically for us in this class. And again, we're going to use the four chords that we've already learned in our previous video lessons. Here's what it sounds like, make sure you're tuned up and let's get started. The main point of this song is to give us more practice with playing the four chords that we've learned so far. The timing of the song is different than the previous song that we learned. The first song we played was in 44 time. Now we're counting beats in groups of three, but don't get too hung up on that. I mostly want you to listen to and feel the rhythm instead of trying to get deep into the math of it for right now. Let's check this rhythm out. The first chord is, it sounds like this. Now let's play it in the rhythm. Hopefully you can hear the groups of 3123123. Make note that there's a very slight accent on the first beat of each set of three strums. Our second chord is minor, then we play to minor again, Then we play our C chord, and then we go back to the E minor chord again, then back to our chord, and then we play a chord, and we play that for two measures, then we go back to the beginning and start the whole pattern over on the G chord. We end the song with one downst on G. Okay, Now let's try this together. I want you to play along with me. So go ahead and find the G chord, and then we're going to get started, and I'll count us in. 123123. Like I mentioned, after we play the whole progression two times, we end on one down of G. So there's a second song that uses the four chords that we've learned. Have fun playing this song. And I'll see you in our next lesson, where we're going to learn our first scale. 24. G Major Scale: In this lesson, we're going to learn how to play our first scale. A scale is an order of notes that come one after another. Either ascending from low to high, or descending from high to low. What notes are used to determine the key that we're playing in? At this point in the class, we're not going to get too bogged down with the theory side of scales. Instead we're going to focus on the many benefits of scales. Scales are great for warming up your fingers, and they formed the foundation of many popular songs, rifts, phrases, and solos. In this lesson, I'm going to show you how to play the major scale. We can play this scale, A sending, or we can play this scale sending. Let's start by learning this scale, A sending. So we're going to play from the lowest node of the scale to the highest node of the scale. Here's what it looks like for this scale. We're going to be playing on three strings. The string, the string and the high string. We start on this note on the string, we end up on the high string, also on a G. But one octave on the G string will be playing open. Then fret two with finger two. Then we move to the string and play it open. Then the string first fret with your first finger, and then the third fret with finger three. Then we move to the high string and play it open. And then the second fret with F, then the third fret with finger three, that's the pattern. Let's try this major scale, ascending together. Here we go. 1234. Nice work. Now let's learn this scale, descending. We start on the high string, third fret with finger three, then we move to the second fret with finger two to the open string. Then we move to the string. Third fret with finger three to the first fret with finger one to the open string. Then we switch to the string and play the second fret with finger two. Then we play the open string. Let's play this scale, descending together. Here we go, 1234. Now let's play this scale, ascending and descending together. If you'll notice on the sheet that I've provided for this scale, there's a repeat symbol surrounding bars 1.4 So that means we'll play this whole pattern two times. Here we go, 1234. Hopefully you notice there that I was using all down strums in my right hand. As you progress as a guitarist, when you play scales, eventually you'll want to start playing them with alternate picking, which is down, up, down, up, down, up. But for right now, you could just use downs strums, and that'll be totally fine. Congratulations on learning your first scale. In this lesson, we learned the major scale. In our next lesson, we're going to learn another riff. 25. Riff 4: Hello. In this lesson, I'm going to show you how to play another riff that I created for you. This riff comes out of the E minor pentatonic scale. We haven't covered that scale in this class, but I thought it would be interesting for you to know that you can build a riff using notes from a specific scale. Okay, let's jump in. Here's what the riff sounds like. For this riff, we'll be only playing on two strings. We'll be playing on the string and on the low string. We start the riff on the open A string, playing it one time. The second note is on the string, second fret, and you want to press down on that fret with your first finger. Then you want to play the open A string again. Then the next two notes are on the low string. Here we play the third fret to the open string like this. I'm just using my second finger to press down on the third fret. Let's put those first five notes together. We start with the open A, to the second fret of the A string, to the open A. Then to the sixth string. Third fret, then the open E. Let's play it again. That's the first measure of the rif. For measure two, we'll go back to the open A string and play that twice. Then back to the third fret of the low string and play that two times. Let's put measures 1.2 together. Now for the third measure, it's an exact repeat of measure one. Measure four, we play the third fret of the six string two times, and then let it ring out. Then play the third fret and another two times. Then we play the open six string and the second fret of the A string together one time. Again, I'm using my first finger to play the second fret of the A string. If we put it all together, that fourth measure sounds like this. Let's put measures 3.4 together. After measure four, we go back and repeat the entire riff. So let's try and play the entire four measure riff one time through at a slow tempo, right? Now try it with me, 1234, So that's the riff. Now we're gonna pick up the tempo and play through the entire rift two times 1234. Congratulations on learning another riff. In this lesson, we learned our fourth riff. In our next lesson, we're going to learn another new chord. 26. A Minor Chord: In this lesson, we're going to learn how to play the A minor cord. This is another open cord in first position. Here's what it sounds like for this cord, we'll be using three fingers. We'll put our first finger on the first fret of the B string. Our second finger goes on the second fret of the D string, and then our third finger goes on the second fret of the G string. And then we'll five strings down from the open A string. Don't forget to arch your fingers and make sure your thumb is pointed up behind the neck. Let's practice this chord by taking our left hand off of the guitar, and then try building the A minor again. The first finger goes to the first fret of the B string, the second finger goes to the second fret of the D string. Then the third finger goes to the second fret of the G string. Remember to place your fingers right behind the fret wire as best as you can and do from the open A string. If your chord isn't sounding clear, you can check for a few possible problems that could come up. Remember to place your fingers right behind the fret wire when you're fretting notes. Try to use the tips of your fingers to press down on the strings. You can always self diagnose any problems with your cord by picking each string individually. If the notes aren't all ringing out clearly you can easily figure out which fingers in your left hand need some adjustments. In this lesson, we learned the A minor cord. In our next lesson, we're going to learn another song. 27. Song 3: In this video lesson, we're going to learn our third song for this class. So let's jump right into it. Let's listen to a shortened version of what this sounds like. This song uses an all downs pattern throughout the entire song. And it features five chords that we've already learned in this class. Also, I want you to pay attention to how long I'm staying each chord before I change to the next one, since that's such a big part of how this song works. For the first section, which is the verse, I'm playing each chord for four beats and I'm using an eighth note strumming pattern. Remember to count eighth notes as 1.2 and 3.4 And we start with an E minor, we go to A, then we go to an A minor, then we switch to a C. Then we repeat that entire section, then we move into the chorus section. Here I'm playing each chord for two beats and then switching to the next chord. Keep playing the eighth node pattern and continue to use all downs strums in the chorus. We start with D, then we switched to G, then we switched to A minor, and then we switch to C. Then we played that entire section three more times. Then from there we play C for 1 bar, and then we play D for 1 bar. So those are the two main sections of this song, the verse and the chorus to complete the song. After we play the chorus that I just played, we play the verse section again, then the chorus section again. Then we play the verse section for a third time, and then the chorus section for a third time. Then we end the whole song on one downstrm of E minor. Let's try to play this song together. We'll play the verse a total of three times, and the chorus a total of three times. We'll keep a nice, steady rhythm at an easy going tempo. I'll count us in 1234. Great job on that. I want to mention one last thing before we wrap this lesson up. I'm not sure if you could hear it, but when I played the verses, I played them a little bit softer in volume. I played the choruses a little bit louder. Even though this is a little bit of an advanced technique and you're at the beginning of your acoustic guitar journey, I just wanted to point that out to you just so that you have an awareness of it. Changing how soft and how loud you play from section to section within a song is something that gives your playing more character and dimension. In this lesson, we learned our third song. In our next lesson, we're going to learn another riff. I'll see you there. 28. Riff 5: All right, in this lesson I'm going to show you how to play another riff that I wrote for you. This will be the last rif for this course. I think it's a really fun one, so let's get started. Here's how this rif sounds. Okay, let's cover how to play this riff. With this riff, we'll always be playing two strings at a time. And bar one, we're playing the D string and A strings together. We play the second fret of the D string and the open A string. We'll use finger one to play the D string. Second fret, we play the open A string at the same time. We play those two notes together two times. Then we keep our first finger down on the second fret of the D string, and bring our second finger down onto the string, third fret. And then we play those two notes together two times. That entire first bar sounds like this. You'll notice that I'm using all down strums in my right hand. Now onto bar two, right here we go back to playing the exact same strings and frets from the first two strums of bar one. Then we quickly move our first finger onto the second fret of the A string, and bring our second finger down onto the string. Third fret. Then we strum those two notes together at the same time. For two strums, the second measure sounds like this, okay? So this is a two bar riff, and those are all the notes. So let's play through this riff two times, slowly, 1234, okay, hopefully you have that down. And now let's play through this two bar riff four times and at a faster tempo. Here we go, 1234. In this lesson, we learned our fifth riff. And our next lesson we're going to learn a new warm up exercise. 29. Warm Up on 2 Strings: In this lesson, I'm going to teach you a new warm up exercise that uses two strings. What we're doing with this exercise is we're practicing switching from different strings, which gets us more familiar with the fret board and with the strings also, we're stretching the left hand and we're learning to keep our fingers close to the fret board as we play. All of these aspects are helping us to play with more efficiency, accuracy, and speed. In this exercise, we're going to use the string and the high string. We start on the string and we play the open string four times. Then we play the first fret with finger 14 times. Then finger two plays the second fret four times. As you add the next finger down on the fretboard, keep the previous finger down on the fretboard. Finger one stays down as finger two presses on the second fret, and so on. Next finger three goes onto the third fret, then F four goes on the fourth fret. The pinky is usually the weakest finger for most people, so you have to be patient with yourself here. Now we start this same sequence on the high string. Play the open R times F. One goes onto the first fret, then add the second finger onto the second fret. Then finger three goes onto the third threat. Then finger four goes onto the fourth threat. Remember to keep each finger on the fret as you add the next finger. This will help you to get a nice stretch in your left hand. From here, we're going to play this exercise backwards. We keep finger four down on the fourth threat and play it four times. Then we release the fourth finger, finger three on the third threat four times, then release finger three and play finger two on fret 24 times. Then release finger two and play finger one on the first threat four times, then play the open string four times. Then we go back to the string fourth threat with finger four. When you make that change, you want to set up all four of your left hand fingers so that each one is dedicated to a threat. This way your left hand fingers are in place as the exercise continues. So the fourth threat four times, third fret. Then the second threat, then the first threat, then the open string four times. So that's the entire warm up exercise. Let's play it together and we'll play the entire thing two times. Here we go. 1234. Nice job. So, in this lesson, we learned a warm up exercise that covers two strings. In our next lesson, we're going to learn another new D. 30. E Chord: In this lesson, we're going to learn how to play the major chord. Let's get right into it. To play the major chord, we take finger one and we place it on the third string, first fret. Then we take finger two and put it on the fifth string, second fret. Then we take finger three and we place it on the fourth string, second fret. And then we play the first, the second, and the six strings open to play this chord. We strum all six strings to check if we're getting a nice clear tone for this chord. We should play each string one at a time. This way we can check if any of our fingers are causing problems with this cord. All right, let's practice this major chord by taking our hand away from the fretboard and then building the major again. So first finger onto the first fret of the third string. Second finger presses on the second fret of the fifth string. Then the third finger presses on the second fret of the fourth string. Remember we play the first, the second, and the sixth strings open. Let's play the whole chord. Now you want to play on your fingertips, and you want to keep a nice curve in your wrist. In your left hand. Again, you want to have a nice space between the palm of your hand and the neck. Don't forget to use your left hand thumb to press on the back of the neck. You want to stay nice and loose everywhere. That will help you to create a nice full sounding major chord. As an extra tip, when I'm tuning my guitar, after I've tuned each string, I'll actually play an E major chord. And make sure that the chord sounds good and that all the notes sound and tune to each other. Remember to be patient with yourself. You've got to build up the muscle memory and the strength in your left hand. In this lesson, we learn the major chord. In our next lesson, we're going to learn another new chord, a major. 31. A Chord: In this lesson, we're going to learn how to play the A major. Let's take a look at it. To play the A chord, we take finger one and place it on the fourth string, second fret. Then we place finger two on the third string, second fret. And then we add finger three to the second fret of the second string. Then we five strings down, starting from the fifth string. Something you might notice here is that my first finger is not pressing down right behind the fret wire here. I'm pointing this out because with some chord shapes, there just isn't enough room on the fret board to press down right behind the fret wi, with each finger. It's not something to stress out about, it just means that you might have to apply a little bit of extra pressure with that first finger. In this case, when you're starting to play this cord, remember to press with your fingertips and that will help you to achieve a nice, clear tone. And it'll keep your fingers from muting adjacent strings. With this chord, we want the first the fifth strings to ring out. You also want to keep that nice gap between the palm of your hand and your left hand and the neck. You'll see on this chord diagram that there's an X above the sixth string. That means you don't want to play that string. Try to start your strum from the fifth string. Let's try to strum one string at a time. Starting from the fifth string, we have a nice clear sound. There's a variety of different ways that we can form this. A major chord in the left hand probably come across chord charts that use different fingering, that's totally fine. For example, sometimes I'll bar the second, the third, and the fourth strings with finger one like this. It just depends on the song that you're learning. You're welcome to try out different ways to form this chord, but I personally feel that the fingering that I've given you in this lesson makes the most sense to get started with. Don't forget to be patient with yourself. Learning guitar is a process, and slow and steady practice is the best practice. In this lesson, we learned the A major chord. In our next lesson, we're going to learn another new song. 32. Song 4: In this lesson, we're going to learn how to play another song. In this song, we get to use the two chords that we've just learned. Major and a major. So let's jump right into it. In this song, we have two sections, a verse and a chorus. Let's start with the verse. Here's what the verse sounds like. We start with a major. For a major, we don't play the sixth string. We play the open fifth string. Finger one goes on the second fret of the fourth string, F two goes onto the second fret of the third string. Then F three goes onto the second fret of the second string. We play the first string open. Then when we, from the fifth string through the first string, our second chord for the verse is D. As a review to play the D chord, we avoid playing the fifth and sixth strings. You play the fourth string, open finger one goes on the second fret of the third string, F, three goes on the third fret of the second string. Then F two goes on the second fret of the first string. Then you from string four through one. Those are the two chords for the verse. For our strumming, we strum each chord one time and then switch to the next one. We start with the A chord and strum down, then switch to the D chord, also with the downstrm. For the rhythm, we're playing a whole note on each chord. We start with a 234, then we switch to D1234, and we play A to D four times total for the verse. Let's try that together. 1234, So that's the verse section. Let's move on to the chorus section. For the chorus, we add in one new chord, and we use a different rhythm pattern. Here's what the chorus sounds like. The new chord in the chorus is to play, we play the open sixth string, Finger two goes on the fifth string, second fret finger three goes onto the fourth string. Second fret, finger one goes onto the first fret of the third string. Then we play the second and the first string open, remember free major, we all six strings. Let's go over the chorus progression. We start with A, then we switch to, then we play for the chorus. We're playing quarter notes. We start on A and play two downstro notes, then switch to D for two downstm quarter notes. Then we switch to for four dostro quarter notes. And we repeat that entire pattern four times. So let's try out this chorus together. Here we go, 1234, then we end with a whole note on A. So let's try to play the verse and the chorus together. And after we play the chorus, we end on a whole note on A. Here we go, 1234. Great job. This song is really good for practicing our major and major chords. I hope that you have fun with this. So in this lesson, we learned another new song. In our next lesson, we're going to learn our fifth song for this class. 33. Song 5: In this lesson, we're going to learn how to play another song. In this song, we have another chance to use the two newest chords that we've learned, major and a major. And we get to play them in new combinations. So let's jump right into it. So we start with a verse, here's what it sounds like. We start out with our D from C, we switch to an A major chord, then we move to an major chord. Finally we switch to a chord. That's the order of the chords. For the verse we play to a to, we're going to play each chord for two beats. The verse is 2 bars and we repeat those 2 bars four times for the rhythm. It's two quarter notes per, and we're going to use all down strums that looks and it sounds like this. We've got the chords and we've got the strumming for the verse. Let's try and play this verse together. Here we go. 1234. Nice job. Let's learn the chorus. Now, for the chorus, we're going to use two chords that we have already played in the first section. Here's what the chorus sounds like. For the chorus, we start on and then we switch to E for the rhythm. Now we play 44 notes per chord and then switch to the next chord. And you want to continue to use all Do strums. This section is repeated four times as well. Let's play this chorus section together. I'll count us in 1234. Now let's play the verse and the chorus together. We'll start with the verse and play that four times. Then we'll move into the chorus section and play that section four times. After the chorus, we'll strum one downstr on C to end the song. Okay, here we go. 1234. Awesome job. This is a great song for practicing switching between very common chords that are in tons of songs. And we get to use our two newest chords that we've learned, E and A. In this lesson, we learned another new song. In our next lesson, we're going to cover an introduction to power chords. 34. Power Chords: In this lesson, we're going to cover an introduction to power cords. Power cords are built using two notes and they have their own unique sound. There are a few different ways you can play power cords. Some utilize two fingers in the fretting hand to form the chord, and others utilize three fingers in the fretting hand. But this video lesson is meant to be an introduction to power cords. We're going to focus on playing power cords that utilize one finger in our left hand along with an open string. The chords we're going to focus on are called open position power cords. Power chords are very versatile chords and they're used in many genres. They are different from major or minor chords and they're often referred to as five chord Power chords have the letter name of the chord with a number five to the right of the letter. For example, five is an E power chord. Let's start with the power chord. We play this top low E string, then we add finger one to the second fret of the fifth string. We're only going to play the sixth and the fifth strings together. One tip here is that you can use your index finger to gently touch the fourth string so that the fourth string is muted. Muting adjacent strings like this allows you to be more free with your strumming. Our next power cord is G. To play this one, you put finger two on the third fret of the sixth string. While you're pressing this down, your second finger will be muting the fifth string just by gently touching that string. And then you want to try and catch the fourth string open as you're strumming. Do you have a muted string in between the sixth and the fourth strings? The next power chord is a. For this one we play the open fifth string, then we add finger one onto the second fret of the fourth string. So you want to strum the open fifth string and fourth strings together, you want to avoid playing the sixth string. And here you can use the first finger to mute the third string by lightly touching the third string. Okay, let's play that one. Now we're going to learn one more power chord. Let's take that five chord shape. One string set down to play a D power chord. For D five, you want to avoid playing the sixth and the fifth strings. And you play the fourth string open and then finger one is on the third string. Second fret. And you want to try to only strum strings 4.3 We've learned four power chords now let's try to practice them. Let's play a whole note on each power chord. We'll play 555, and then D five. And we'll play this entire pattern two times. Here we go, 1234, Great job. As an additional exercise, you can also mix the order of those power chords. So in this lesson we learn four power chords. In our next lesson, we're going to learn a song that uses these chords. 35. Song 6: In this lesson, we're going to learn our final song for this class. It's a song that puts our four power chords into action. So let's jump right into it. We're going to start off with the verse, and here's what that sounds like for the verse. We're playing the five chord. As a review, we play the open six string, then we place finger one on the second fret of the fifth string. Only strum the sixth and the fifth strings for this chord, then we quickly play a five chord. Now since this five is only played for one really quick eighth note, we can just play the sixth string, Third fret with finger two. This is an abbreviated five power chord. It's one that a lot of bands use. In particular, it reminds me of the band CDC and how they use this technique in their riffs and songs. Let's check out the verse progression, strumming one time per chord. Measure one we have five with a quick and abbreviated five. Then we repeat this first bar three times. In the measure two, we play just five. Let's go back to measure one. By the way, we're going to be using all down strums for this song. We start on 5.7 eighth notes, then on the last eighth note of measure one, we play that not, so let's hear the entire measure, then we play that first bar three times total. Then in bar two, we play the five for eight eighth notes. All right, let's play this verse together. Here we go, 1234. All right, now we're going to move into the chorus. Let's listen to what the chorus sounds like. For the first measure of the chorus, we have the D five again to play D five. We have the open fourth string, then we take F one and place it on the second fret of string three. We're only going to strum the third and the fourth strings together. That's the D five. Then for the next measure of the chorus, we have the G five power chord. For this one, you put finger two on the third fret of the sixth string. While you're pressing this down, your second finger is going to be muting the fifth string. Then you want to try and catch the fourth string open while you're strumming down for the last two measures of the chorus, we have the five chord. And again, to play five, we play the open fifth string. Then we take finger one and place it on the second fret of the fourth string. Then we strum the fourth and the fifth strings together. Let's check out this chorus progression. Strumming one time per chord. We start the chorus with a D five. We play that for one measure. Then the next measure we play the five. Then for the last two measures we play five. So we're going to continue with all downs strums in the chorus. And here's what the chorus sounds like. We repeat the entire chorus four times. Let's play the chorus together. Here we go. 1234. Nice job. All right, let's put the verse and the chorus together. We'll play the verse, then the chorus, and then we're going to end on a whole note on the D five chord. Here we go, 1234. This is a great song to practice your open position power chords. I hope that you have fun with this. In this lesson, we learned our sixth song for this class. In our next lesson, we're going to wrap up the class with some more tips and resources. 36. Final Thoughts: Okay, that wraps up our acoustic guitar basics course. Thank you so much for joining me here. I hope that you've found this class fun and have gained a really solid footing for your acoustic guitar. Playing some final notes about learning acoustic guitar. First of all, be patient with yourself throughout the process. There's a lot to learn. So take your time, get to know your gear, get to know the sounds that you like, and get familiar with the chords and the scale we worked on during this course. Just do your best and most importantly, have fun learning acoustic guitar. Also, try to pick up the guitar every day if you can. This will help with building up strength, especially in your fretting hand. It will help you to build up the calluses on the fingertips of your left hand. Regular playing and practice will help to build up your muscle memory as well. As far as an approach to practice goes, I think it's a good idea to mix your practice up. What I mean by that is to rotate between practicing scales, chords, learning from tabs and chord sheets. Learning your favorite rifts and songs, playing with other people, and recording yourself playing. If you can spend about an even amount of time with all of these aspects of playing acoustic guitar, you'll be well on your way to developing and growing as a guitarist, as a musician. When it comes to this class, you can always come back to any particular lesson and review it as many times as you need to until the material really sinks in. And definitely take advantage of all of the opportunities to jam along with me in the video lessons. Also, don't forget to download the supplemental materials that I've created for this class. I hope you enjoyed this course. I have other classes on guitar, ukulele, and songwriting. And if you enjoyed this class, I recommend that you check out my other courses as well. Music is an infinite subject, and there's always more that we can learn about playing guitar and creating music. Thank you so much for joining me. Have fun, and I hope to see you in another class soon.