Beginner Guitar Lessons: Guitar Lesson 7

1. Lesson 7 introduction: Welcome to beginner guitar lessons, lesson 7. My name is Chris Rupp and I'm the founder of the guitar training camp. If you've never played guitar before or you're a beginner looking to improve your skills then my beginner guitar lessons are for you. This course is going to be 10 lessons in total. I will be releasing each lesson one at a time, so you have the time needed to work on and learn the material in each lesson. If you like the first seven lessons and you want the next three lessons, make sure you sign up as one of my students. Here's some clips of what you'll be learning in lesson 7. Measure number 5, what we're going to do is we're going to take this E5 power chords, and then we're going to move it over and we're going to play an A5 power chord, which is playing the fifth string open and we will play in the note E here on the fourth string second chord, 1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4 1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2. We're going to get back to A. Whole step to A. Then a whole step to B, F step to C, and a whole step to D. What I suggest is on beat 1 and 2 in a stronger quarter knots and then instead of trying to mute with this hand, you going to mute with your palm here. You're going to go 1, 2, mute with your palm and then on beat 3 and 4, take your time getting the next chord. Some information about me, I have a Bachelor's of Music degree from Berklee College of Music, and I've been teaching guitar full-time for more than 18 years. I've taught more than 30,000 private guitar lessons so I'm very experienced with what students need to get started on guitar. For more details about the course, check out the course description. I look forward to seeing you inside the course. 2. Notes on your 6th string: In this lesson, you will be learning the notes on your sixth string. These notes will seem like review since you've already learned the notes on your first string. Since a large majority of your chords will be based off of this string, it's going to be super important that you learn these notes. This is your six strings on your guitar, this is your low E. So we're going to go up the natural notes on that string where I start with E, then F is going to be here on the first fret, then we're going to go whole step G, and we're going to get back to A, whole step to A. Then a whole step to B, half step to C, then a whole step to D, and we're back to E on the 12th fret. So square where there's natural notes one more time, it's going to E, F, G, A, B, C, D, and E. Now, let's go ahead and take a look at the sharps going up the neck. So the sharps going up the neck right here is F, so the first sharp on this string is going to be F sharp right here. Maintain neck you have an E sharp right here, but I don't like to think that they exist even though technically they do. Right here is F sharp, then have a G sharp, then we have A sharp, then we're going to skip B and C and go up here to C sharp on the ninth fret, and then we have D sharp right here on the 11th fret. One more time, it goes F sharp, G sharp, A sharp, C sharp, and then D sharp. Now, let's take a look at the flats going down the neck. Right, first flat is going to be right here as E, so on the 11th fret it will be E flat, then on the ninth fret we have D flat right here, then here is B on the seventh fret, so that means the B flat would be on the six fret. Then we have A flat, and then G flat. So one more time, we have E flat, D flat, B flat, A flat, and G flat. Now, it's the flats going down the neck on the sixth string. That's how you play the notes on your sixth string. I would recommend that you go over all of the notes on your guitar regularly until you have them down pretty well. 3. Sight reading on your 6th string: In this lesson, you will be reading the lowest notes on the guitar. There's going to be a lot of ledger lines involved, so get ready. In exercise number 1, we're going to be playing the three lowest natural notes on the guitar. We're playing open E. We're going to be reading Fs and then also Gs. If you take a look at the first measure, you're going to see the lowest note on the guitar, the tab says zero. But if you look up above, you'll see three ledger lines. It's the note that sits below the third ledger line that is open E. So to play that first measure, we're going to go 1-2-3-4. Second measure is a whole note on F, 1-2-3-4. Third measure, G 2-3-4, and then open E 2-3-4. So I'll go ahead and play that one more time,1-2-3-4, 1-2-3-4, 1-2-3-4,1-2-3-4. That's how you play exercise number 1. For exercise number 2, it's going to sound like this, 1-2-3-4,1-2-3-4,1-2-3-4,1-2-3-4, 1-2-3-4. I'll go ahead and play through it one more time, 1-2-3-4, 1-2-3-4, 1-2-3-4,1-2-3-4, 1-2-3-4. That was exercise number 2. For exercise number 3, this one's a little tougher to play. So I'll go through each measure one at a time and then I'll play it all together. So in the first measure, it's going to go, F, E, G, G, G. The timing is 1,2 and 3,4, and for measure number 2, it's going to go E-E-E-E, F-F. The timing is 1 and 2, and 3,4. For the third measure, It's going to go E-G-G, E-G-G, and the timing is going to go 1,2, and 3,4, and in the last measure, it's going to go F-F, G-G, E-E, G-G. The timing is going to be 1 and 2, and 3 and 4. Now I'll go ahead and play it all together. 1-, 2-, 3- 4. That was exercise number 3. That's how you read the three main natural notes on the sixth string. This course isn't designed to make you a really good sight reader. The exercises in this course are just introducing you to the idea of sight reading, and showing you where to play the natural notes on the six strings. 4. Rhythm 5: In this lesson, we'll be taking a look at the fifth rhythm in this course. Let's take a loot at your rhythm. For exercise number 1, I chose to use an open C chord. If you look at the PDF in the resource material, it says random rhythms, then the other ones I tried to have a rhythm that is the same for each measure, it might be either playing the same chord or changing chords. But in this one, I just wanted to have random rhythms for each measure. That way you have to really pay attention and read the rhythms. This is how exercise number 1 is played, it goes, one, two, then we come in with a half note on three, three, four, then it's tied to a quarter note which is beat number 1 of the second measure, so we go three, four, then you don't play 1, you come in on two on the second measure. You don't play number 3, beat number 3, then you come in on 4 with those eight notes. Then for measure number 3, we come in with a dotted a quarter note, which is one and a half beats, so it goes 1, 2, and 3, 4. If I play that one more time, it's going to go 1, 2, and 3, skip 4, skip 1, 2, skip 3, 4, and 1, 2, and 3, 4. Play that one more time without counting 1, 2, 3, 4. That was exercise number 1. For exercise number 2, I chose to use an open D chord. This is how you play this rhythm. Six notes in the beginning, you're going to go 1, and 2, and 3 and a quarter note on 4. The second measure, we start with a quarter note 1, then you have to rest on 2, strum up on the end of 2, then down on 3, and then we have a quarter note rest on beat 4, so that measure goes 1, 2, 3, 4. In the last measure, measure number 3, we just have a whole note. We're going to go 1, 2, 3, 4. Now, I will play through that rhythm two times and you can strum along with me. 3, 4, 1, and 2, and 3, and 4, 1, 2, and 3, and 4, 1, 2, 3, 4. one more time, 1, and 2, and 3, and 4, 1, 2, and 3, and 4, 1, 2, 3, 4. That's how you play rhythm number 5. 5. Strum this open chord progression 3: This lesson is the third installment of strumness open chord progression. Let's take a look at your first exercise. In this exercise one, we have four measures and what we're going to be doing is we're going to be playing quarter notes on beats one and two, and then on beat three, and four, there's going to be rests so it's going to sound like this. Three four, one two, three four, then go on to A minor, one two, rest rest then we want G, rest rest and then back to D minor, three four. I'll go ahead and play through one more time. three four, one two, three four, one two, three four, one two G, for two G for two then D minor three four. So what I suggest is on beat one and two you're going to use stronger quarter notes and then you're going to sub trying to mute with this hand. You're going to mute with your palm here so you're going to go one two, mute with your palm and then on beat three four take your time to get to the next chord. What that's going to do is make it much more comfortable and easier to get from chord to chord so I will go ahead and play through that one more time, one two, three four. That is how you play exercise number one. Let's take a look at the next exercise. For exercise number two we only have four measures, there's going to be four different chords it's going to be A minor chord, and then D minor, then C major, then E major. For each measure it is going to be three quarter notes followed by a quarter note rest so it's going to sound like this, three four, one two, three rest on four, one two three rest on four, one two three rest on four one two three rest on four. I'll go ahead and play that one more time. One two, three four and that is how you play exercise number two, and that's how you play this opening chord progression three. 6. Power chord exercise 2: In this lesson, you're going to be playing power chords based of to the fifth string. It's going to be very important that you can move freely up and down the fifth string while playing power chords. Let's take a look at your first example. Exercise number 1 is going to sound like this. What I did is, I turned the distortion off that way I can talk over while I'm playing. So let's go ahead and take a look at the first measure, we have a D5 power chord looks just like this, and the rhythm goes one and two, three and four. I chose to use proper strumming where you're going down, up, down, down, up, down. If I was playing this at a rock song, I would probably just do it all down. If it was slow enough, I will just go, one and two, three and four. But I do all down strokes in the exercise number 2. So I thought maybe we could try proper strumming. The reason that's tough to strum up on a power chord, is you don't want to hear the force or the sixth string ringing like this. You don't want to hear it, you want it to sound nice and clean. So you only hear those two notes, this D and this A. So what you end up having to do is, your first finger here has to meet out the sixth string, and then your third finger here has to meet out the third string, the G string, just by leaning over a little on the string. You can actually strum fourth strings and still only here two, when you strum up. So that's the best way to do proper muting for a power chord if you're going to be strumming up and down quickly. Like I said in the first measure, it's going to go, one and two, three and four. Then in the second measure we're going down here to B-flat, it's the exact same rhythm. One and two, three and four. Then we're going on up to a C here on the third fret, one and two, three and four. Then we're going down here, it's still a power chord but it's going to be an open A power chord, we're playing the fifth string open. Instead of playing, I could just go like this, I could move down here although we're coming from C. From C I could slide down and then had my finger off but most guitar players aren't going to do that because you get used to play in A chord like this, an A power chord. So this is the fingering that I would use for that A power chord, that's going to go, one and two, three and four. So let's go ahead and play through that one more time, I'll count it out loud. Three four, one and two, three and four. One and two, three and four. One and two, three and four. One and two, three and four. Let's go ahead and play along with some distortion on. One, two, three, four. One more time, three, four. This is what exercise number 2 sounds like. For exercise number 2, we have four different chords. We start with an E power chord, E5. That's going to be starting here and you're going to be putting your first finger on the fifth string, seventh fret, on that E. For the second measure, what I do is, I take this E here and I move it down to a D-sharp. That is an E over a D-sharp chord. Basically what I'm doing here if I was playing an E chord, and I'm going to put the seventh note in the scale in there. It sounds really cool. You hear that in a lot of pop rocks songs, punk songs. Normally when I do it, I use my punk key here. So I go like this so that when I have to stretch it down it's really comfortable, I can just go. But for demonstration purposes, I'm teaching you how to play a power chord like this. I probably wouldn't do that if your hands are big enough and that's comfortable, then feel free. You can see when I'm playing, I'm switching from here and then going into here. But just know in reality, I'd probably go from here to here. But for this exercise, I'm trying to use proper fingering. So in the second measure, well, you starting with an E, it's all straight eight. So you're just going one and two, and three, and four, and then we're dropping down putting the D-sharp and the bottom, one and two, and three, and four, and we're going down here to the fourth fret where C-sharp is. One, and two, and three and four and. Then down to the second fret where B is. One, and two, and three and four. One more time. One, and two, and three and four and. One, and two, and three and four and. One, and two, and three and four and. One, and two, and three, and four and. Notice I'm strumming them all down as opposed in the first one where I was doing some upstrokes. If you wanted, you could go and play through it like that. It's actually very comfortable, but much harder to keep clean. So in a band situation, you'd probably just do down. It depends on how long the song is and how tired you going to get. What I would do is I would probably do this for a little while and then if I started getting tired, I'd probably switch to alternate strumming. Now let's go ahead and take a listen to that again and let's play with some distortion. One, two, three four. One more time. Three, four. That was power chord exercise number 2. 7. 12 Bar blues in E: The 12-bar blues is one of the most prominent chord progressions in popular music. It consists mostly of the 1, 4, and 5 chord of the key. In this lesson, you will be learning a typical 12-bar blues in E. 1, 2, 3, 4. In this 12-bar blues in E, what we're doing here is we're doing a blue shuffle. You could practice this if you couldn't get the shuffle to sound right. You could just practice at these eighth notes like one, and two, and three, and four. That would be playing it straight, just normal eighth notes and that would be perfectly fine. What the shuffle is, it sounds more like this. What you're doing for a shuffle is, instead of playing one, nice and evenly, what you're doing is it's as if you're taking a triplet like triple let, triple let. What you're doing is you're playing the first eighth note, the trip and the let at the end. Triple let, triple let, triple let, triple let, triple let. That's confusing. I just usually tell students if they're new or they're beginners. Just try and see if you can make it sound like it. Most people can. If you can, then I say just play it one and two, and just play it straight eighths. Just at least get through the exercise and it'll sound fine. For the first four measures, what we have here is an E5 power chord. We're playing the sixth string open, which is E. Then we're playing this B here on the fifth string, second fret. For the first four measures, they're all the same. What we're doing is we're going one, and two, and three, and four, and even though they're shuffled technically, it's about one and two, but mentally that's how I think of it because they're just an eighth note. It's just going one and two and three and four, and that is how you play the first four measures. Now let's take a look at measure number, this will be measure number five. Measure number five. What we're going to do is we're going to take this E5 power chord and then we're going to move it over, and we're going to play an A5 power chord, which is playing the fifth string open, and then we're playing the note E here on the fourth string, second fret. It's going to be the same pattern that we did with E. We're just going to move it over, and play it on strings four and five and you're going to do that for the fifth and the sixth measure. For the seventh and eighth measure, we're going back to the E5 power chord for two measures. We are going 1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4. All right, and then in the ninth measure we're going to a B7, and I decide instead of playing and use my pinky, I like to play just a little three finger B7. I'm playing on the fifth string second fret is B. Playing D-Sharp on 41, fourth string first fret, then I'll put my third finger here on 32, which is an A. To me, it feels like a little triangle. It's really like a D7 chord, which you may not know. But if you look at the tabs it says two one two, it means second fret, first fret, second fret with strings three, four and five. That measure, it's an eighth note followed by a quarter note, followed by an eighth note, you're going to count that one and skip two and then let it ring for three, four. One and two and. For whatever reason I like to strum all those down like one and two and three four. Proper strumming would be one and two and why would duke go up, one and two, up on three, up on the end of two three four. But that measure just sounds like, and then for measure number 10, we're going back to the A5 power chord going one, two, three, four and then in the 11th measure, that's where the turnaround is going to be on the first beat, I'm playing E major chord and then I play in some triplets, I'm going to go triple let, triple let,triple let and I'm going three for this third fret here, this D. That's going three, open three. It's three, then the first string open, and then three, and then after this, you could go triple let and then I'm going to just move this finger down and do the triplet here. Two, open two and then one, open one and then in the last measure, I'm going have to start with an open B, second string open and then I'm going to go just. What I'm doing is I'm doing a chromatic approach to this B7, by just starting it up one fret higher. Those last two measures, go. Now let's go ahead and play through it. Both of us. Do your best playing through it. Feel free. You know, at the beginning of the lesson I played through it again. Keep in mind that you can probably slow it down out with whatever course you're looking at, whether it's Skillshare, Udemy, they probably have a slowdown feature teachable. If you can't keep up, feel free to slow the video down. Now I'm going to go ahead and play through the whole thing and hopefully you will play along with me. One, two, three, four. I hope you've had fun learning this 12-bar blues in E. I know that I did. Maybe you like the blues, maybe it's not your cup of tea. Being able to play a 12-bar blues is important for all guitar players. Blues was the foundation of early rock and roll. As a guitar player it's going to be really important to be able to hear and identify the one four and five chords in music. I think playing blues is the perfect way to achieve that.