Bitesize Beginners Guide to Guitar

1. Introduction: Hey everyone, My name is Jake and welcome to my biocides guitar course for beginners. I've been a guitarist for 20 years and a full-time career musician for five. In that time, I've grown a successful royalty free music business called jazz music. And I've played live with a number of different bands. Over the years. I've become fluent in plain many contemporary and older styles of music, such as rock, blues, Pop, Funk, and reggae to name a few. When it comes to learning the guitar, you want to feel at home with your instrument. You want it to be an enjoyable and fun learning experience and something in life that gives you great pleasure. So in this class, I'm going to break it down as simply as I can to help you cover the very basics of learning the guitar. Whether you've got an electric guitar or an acoustic, it doesn't matter. This course will apply to you. By the end of this course, you will have learned how to understand the different parts of the guitar. String names, tuning, how to coordinate, or two hands, strumming, play major and minor chords, and play guitar riffs. But lastly, we'll be finishing off with some song and reef exercises. So you can put all this knowledge to good use and come away learning a few cool songs to show your friends. Besides the songs you'll be learning in this course, you will go away armed with enough cause to learn as many other songs and even create your own. I'm hoping you'll find this course easy to digest, informative, and most importantly, a fun learning experience. So thanks for watching and I'll see you in the first class. 2. Ingredients Of The Guitar: Before we start learning to play the guitar, you want to understand how it actually works and what parts are used for different functions. The guitar is made up of three fundamental parts. The body, the neck, and the head stock, or instrumental, into making the glorious sound that it produces. First, you have the body. Now, most guitar bodies are made of wood. This because would resonate sound unlike any other material. It's the vibration of the word when the strings or play that sets the tone of the guitar on the body, you have the bridge which holds the strings in place. Then you have guitar pickups which carry the sound electronically from when you play the strings through a jack cable to the guitar amplifier, you flick this switch accordingly to choose which pickup you want to use. The treble pickup produces a more cutting by T and higher-end tone. Whereas the rhythm pickup produces a warmer Laura in tone. And keeping it in the middle produces a mixture of both pickups. You also have volume and tone knobs to adjust the loudness and presence of a guitar sound. And lastly, to get it working, you just need to connect the jack cable from a guitar amp into the plug hole of the guitar. Then you have the neck, which connects the headstock and the body and glued along. This is the fretboard. When notes and chords are played, each note is separated by a thin metal bars called frets. On the other side of the guitar is the headstock. This is where the strings of the guitar are held in place with something called a nut, which has grooves in it to hold the strings in place. And this is where the headstock meets the fretboard. The headstock also has metal pegs to help you tune your guitar. You can twist and turn the peaks like this until your guitar in tune. You can buy portable guitar tuners at, in nearest music shop online or using a phone app, otherwise, built-in tuners on DAW software to help you find the right pitches. Now you understand the ingredients and the functions of the guitar. We're gonna be learning what the string names are and how to use the tuning pegs. I'll see you in the next class. 3. String Names and Tuning: In this part of the course, we'll be identifying the names of each of the strings that you'll be playing. We'll also be learning how to use the tuning pegs to get the correct pitch of each of the strings with the help of the guitar tuner. The strings on a guitar, or varying thickness as you go down from the low E string to the high E string. The E string at the top is the thickest. The high E string at the bottom is the thinnest. The term is called string gauge, which refers to the thickness of a guitar string. Now the gauge of a guitar string affects the tension or feel of a string and the tone the string produces when it's played on the guitar. Lots of gauge strings are easier to play and bend, but they have a thinner tone than heavier gauge drinks. The names of the strings, the standard tuning from the thickest and thinnest are as follows, a, D, G, B, and E. Sometimes learning an exercise to help you remember the names of these streams can come in handy. A couple of hours toward that was quite helpful and quite funny is eat or they get big, easy. And also another one which is every amateur, does get better. Eventually, when you played the strings together, it sounds like this. Sounds cool, right? But we can get it sound better. But before I tell you how to do that, you're going to need to learn how to tune your guitar. Tuning is a set of pitches to which the open strings of the guitar attuned. There are many different guitar tuning profiles, but we're going to use EAD G be the tuning that we're in right now. And the most commonly used one, which is called Standard Tuning pattern. Your knees turn them SO tuning pegs located on the headstock to be able to tune it. How do we know, what know that guitar string is tuned to? Easy. We use a tuner to tell us. Now you can use an electronic tuner that you can click onto the guitar like this, or a built-in tuner that you can find in software or even use a smartphone, Android app. Now it's tune the guitar. You simply pluck a note and the tuner shows you the note you just played. Most tuners like this will show you with an oscillating needle how far away from the note you are. If it's too low for the note, is a term known as flat. So you just turn the tuning peg up until it reaches the middle. And on the guitar tuner. The same goes for if it's too high from the node, which is a term known as sharp, you just need to turn the tuning peg down until it reaches the middle. Repeat this cycle for every strings on your guitar. And then you get tau will be in tune and I'm ready to play. Next. We're going to learn how to coordinate the two hands and learn to play a single note. I'll see you in the next class. 4. Play A Single Note : So now you understand what the guitar is made of, its different functions and how to tune it. We're ready to play, except right now, you probably know how to play. That's where I come in. I'm going to show you how to play a single note on the guitar. First, the left hand, your thumb goes behind the guitar? Like this? No, like that. Behind the second fret. Your fingers don't go on the frets. They go right behind them. And then you apply your fingertip to the note that you want to play. In this case, we're going to put our left first finger on the first fret of the B string. As you can see, the palm of my hand is relaxed and away from the guitar. And the rest of my fingers are comfortable in an arch position. Then with your right hand, hold the fat part of your guitar pick in-between your thumb and the end joint of your index finger like this. Nice and relaxed. No tight grip or figures out, just help lead this. So take your right hand with the pick and pull your pit down over the string and pluck it like this. If you play the exact same string with your right hand but released the first finger off the front of your left hand, you play a different note. You can do this on any of the strings and any of the phrase with any of your fingers. And you will produce any note on the guitar. So let's playing another note. This time. If you take your third finger on the left hand and place it on the third fret of the B string. That would sound like this, which is a higher note than the previous one. To get used to changing between notes on the guitar, you can practice plucking that second string with the right hand. Inconsistent timing and moving between the first fret with your index finger, third fret with your first finger and back again. Well done guys. Now that you've learned how to play a couple of notes on a guitar. I'm going to teach you how to play chords. In the next lesson, I'll give you an overview of what courts are and how to use core boxes when referring to think of placements, look forward to seeing the next class. 5. Chords - Play E Major: Guitar chords are a group of at least three notes played together. This means three different notes with three different pitches. Codes are used to convey emotions in songs and compositions. The two main types of chords are major chords and minor chords. The major chord sounds much happier. Whereas a minor chord sounds a bit more sad or more gloomier. However, you can use a variety of major and minor chords in many combinations to create a variety of emotions all throughout a piece of music. In the next few lessons, you'll be learning major and minor chords in the first position. This means using the first three frets of the guitar. Once you have these chords mastered, you'll be able to play along to so many different songs that apply these. Not only will I show you how to play a chord, take a look at the diagram that's just come up. This is called a core box. Accord box tells you where to press your fingers down to play a chord. The lines running vertically, or the strings from left to right, E, a, D, G, B, and E. The lines running horizontally or the metal threads. Black circles are your fingers. And the white circles mean play the open string. The zyBook means don't play the string at all. Now the chord boxes are really good to use because they help you to place your fingers when practicing chords you've learned and when learning new ones. So now you understand what chords are and how they are used in music. Let's dive in and learn our first one. To start off, I'm going to show you one of the easiest cords in popular music, E major. Now, a major is probably one of my favorite quotes to play, because you can walk out to play softly. And it just gives you a great feeling. He major. So the first thing we do is place our first finger on the first fret of the G string, like this, followed by our second finger on the second fret of the a string. And finally, third finger. Second fret on the D string. This is the E major shape. Remember to keep your fingers arch so they aren't covering the other strings and your palm is relaxed at the back of the neck. Next, we take the pick with other hand, the fat part in between your thumb and first finger. And we've your E major shape strung down from the low string to the high string like this. Well done, you just play the major. If you were paying attention to the cold box, you'll see that it has the E major chord. Chart it out for you exactly how we just played it. So there you have it. I've shown you how to play E major, but most popular songs have in fact, two or three chords as a bare minimum. So the next part of the course, I'm going to show you two more major chords to add to your arsenal. I'll see you in the next class. 6. Play A Major and D Major: The two new chords that I'm going to show you in the first position again like last time, which is the first three frets are a major and D major ones. We've learned these chords. We're going to show you how to use them in a song like before. Please take a look at the core box diagram shown here. So you can double-check your finger placements and get your bearings. So let's start with a major. Get your first finger and place it on the second fret of the D string like this. Remember to keep your fingers arched like this and not flat like this because we don't want to get that annoying gamma and buzzy sound you can hear right now. Yeah, first finger, second fret on the D string, followed by your second finger on the exact same fret. So on the second fret placed onto the G string, keeping your fingers arched. Then finally, the third finger on the same fret again, second fret, place down on the B string. And that's the major shape. Quite an easy code because you can see all three fingers are on the second fret. But make sure you keep your fingers arch because you want to play that high E string as part of the cord. When you strum down where you pick. We're going to start from the a string and string down from the a all the way to the high E string like this. You can see here apply to all five of the strings apart from the low E string. The reason for this is for the standard open chords that I'm showing you, the first string that you hear it has to be the root note, the base name, e.g. a. Major. The first node that you're going to play is a the base note. So you don't need to play the lower base note, like E over it. You can mute the a string so that you don't play it by bringing your thumb over the top of the fret and dampening it softly to give off a dead meat. It's around the corner I showed you previously a major. You can play the low E string because that is the root note. Okay, The first note, that code, that's a, There's a major. That's another really important and popular chord to add to your collection. You'll be playing so many songs with this one. And like I said before, you can refer to the core box on the screen that has the a major chord chart it out exactly how we just played it. Right guys? So let's carry on and learn our third major chord, D major. It's another really popular standard code, and we're going to utilize these pressing down on the high E string. So take a look at the code box. You'll see that this time we don't play the two of those strings in this chord. We can meet both of these notes by placing your thumb over the top of the frame, like we did with a major, will be dampening two notes instead of one. So with the two lowest strings muted will be using the remaining strings. For these chords, the D string will be played as an open note with no fingers pressed on it at all. Then the next string, g, you place your first finger on the second fret. Going to add your forefinger now to the third fret of the B string. Then to finish off on the high E string, your third finger with the second fret, like this. With D major shape. All say, grab the pick and strung down from the fourth open D. Like this. Like I said, we play all four notes of this chord and not the lower two. Guys. You're doing so well. And you've learned three staple chords in popular music, a major major and D major. A strongly encourage you to keep going over those three chords and practicing them alongside the core boxes that have to pause, chart it out for you. In the next class, we are going to be doing a strumming exercise. You'll learn how to change between the three course I've taught you in a continuous motion and get you practicing your timing and coordination between two hands. I'll see you in the next class. 7. Rhythm and Strumming Exercise: So now you've learned three awesome guitar chords. I'm sure you want to start learning some songs. But before we do that, we're going to talk about strumming patterns and timing. Strumming is when you continuously play up and down guitar strokes in certain rhythms and timings like this. Great way that musicians keeping time is by using beats and bars. The speed, also known as tempo of the song, is recognized, but number of beats in each bar. The most commonly used time signature in popular music is called for four, which means counting four beats per bar. Now there's many different timings like 3454 and so on. But we're gonna just focus on for four, as that's the most commonly used time signature in music. A good way to practice your timings by using a metronome. The metronome is a tool used by musicians to practice keeping in time. The way it works is by providing a software rhythm track that's in sync with the timing that you select on your metronome device. There are plenty of free metronome online apps and door software and so on. We're now going to use the metronome in a core change exercise to help us keep in time, we're going to practice changing the cause between D major. D major. D major again. Now this is a good exercise to get you used to show me your codes using the four-four time signature, which means we're going to be changing the courts every time we hit the first beat of every bar. Let's get the MIG code into position and gently strong like this, playing all the notes in the chord. Then to transition smoothly to the next chord, D major. We're going to move our third finger on the B string down to the third fret, followed by bringing that middle finger all the way to the hyphae. And then moving your first finger on the same fret down to the next string. Play all those strings nicely with arch fingers and relaxed palm. And you've moved today. For E major, will need to move that first finger down, a threat to the first fret, followed by your third and fourth fingers on strings AND on the second fret. And then struck, then back to the major slide, that first finger up to the second fret. Then fourth finger on the third fret of the B string. And the third finger, second fret on the high E. So you'll be transitioning between chords like this. 1234, 1234, 1234, 1234. Let's put that to good. Use them with the metronome. I've set the speed to 65 beats per minute, Nice and slow. And once I've counted before, we'll play each chord on the first beat of the bar, like this. Very nice guys. We've just played the basic chord sequence with a single downstroke for each drum. Let's learn how to do an upstroke and incorporate more strumming into our rhythm pattern. Of course, you can play it continuous chord with downstrokes like this. But you'll find it's much easier and more interesting to upstroke. Following a downstroke. Australia. You can repeat this motion and breathe through it effortlessly. It not only makes it easier to play multiple different rhythms, it also allows other streets shine through a bit more, e.g. the downstroke has more emphasis on the low strings. As you start on the upstroke, stars on the highest drinks. So they shine through a little bit more. Remember, there's no one way to play the guitar. The options are limitless and I encourage you to take one teaching you and eventually width competence, create your own unique style of play. Let's repeat the same exercise last time, where we played a major, D major, E major, and back to D. Only this time we're going to dive straight in the deep end here and play on every beat of each bar. We playing down-strokes on beats 1.3 and upstrokes on 2.4 like this, right? The metronome is set to 65 bpm, like last time, I'm going to count to four and then we'll start strumming the same course as last time. I D a and back to date will repeat that twice around. And and like I said before, referred to these core boxes when you're practicing and also feel free to adjust the speed and tempo settings of your metronome if you're finding it too fast or too slow. Next, we're going to use the exact same cause to lay your first song. It's a really famous song written in the '60s by a bank or the trucks. And the song is called wild thing. Let's continue this in the next class, and I'll see you then. 8. Song - The Troggs - Wild Thing: If you hadn't already guessed, this song is called Wild Thing, popularized by none other than the garage rock band The trucks in 1966. It's a really popular beginning on to cover and it's one I definitely recommend to add to your guitar song repertoire. It's a very lively, cool song to learn and it's quite easy to play if you know the three chords. Major, D major, E major, which by now at this stage of the course, you already do. Those are the only three chords used in this song other than the G6, which pretty easy to play, and there's no fingers on the fret at all. So let's get to it. I'll show you how each part of the service plate in the demonstration, I'll just play for you guys. You'll notice that the song heavily relies on the strumming and rhythm pattern, which give wild thing that variant distinctive hook. You see that playing the song with simple up and down strokes like this is not how this august plate has a much more unique and creative strumming pattern like this. Now, most of the way through the song, you're playing a chord progression of two strands on a two strands on day, two strands on a Tuesday, arms on date. There are a few variations of this, but that's the main one. The first thing we're gonna do before we get to playing the rhythm pattern of the song correctly, is practice playing two downstrokes of each chord and showed you between them like this. The reason I'm telling you this is that the song place predominately on page 12.4, like this, 1313. So altogether is platelet this with all downstrokes on the guitar. I'm going to play a much slower speed. So you can get to grips with it. 1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2 3, 1, 2, 3, 1, 3, 1 3. So that's the chorus. Now I'm going to show you the verse. This is easier in terms of core changes, but it's important to get the rhythm right. Before I mentioned the use of a G6 cord. But don't worry too much about the ins and outs of this code. It's just the open for strings play with no fingers on the frets like this. Playing the verse comes in towards the end of the course. So after you've played the course four times round, when you're about to play the two d course drums. Instead of playing those two cores like that, you'll play a faster change between G6 and a alternating like this, landing on the right, on the next bar. So if we count in from the fourth time rounded the course transitioning into the verse. It goes like this. 1231234. So on that. And for one is J6, G6. And so once you're in the verse, you repeat that quick chord change every 2 bar for the next 8 bar. So I'll counting from one and then play the verse. 1, 2 3 4 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4, 1 2 3 4, 1 2 3 4 and 1 2 3 4, 1 2 3 4, 1 2 3, 4, 1, 2, 3. And then straight back into that rocking chorus. Let's play the whole thing now and start from the beginning of the course to the verse and the chorus again. 1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2 3 and 4. 1 2 3, 4, 1 2 3 and 4. 1 2 3, 4, 1 2 3, 1 2 3 and 4. 1 2 3, 4, 1 2 3 and 4. And 1 2 3, 4, 1 2 3 and 4. And 1, 2 3, 4, 1 2 3 and 4. And 1, 2, 3, 4, 1 2, 3 and 4. And 1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3. That's the chorus. 131,313,134.1. So there you go. That's how to play the trucks version of wild thing. And to recap what we've just learned today, just make sure you practice those code changes between a and a with simple, too strong record. Just to get used to the changes. Once you're comfortable with those changes, then you can practice the song with the correct rhythm pattern that I just showed you while making sure you keep count while playing. 12313. Remembering to play on the hands. And the same goes for the verse, especially with that alternating change for one another. Good whitespace, this song is to listen to the record and play alongside it. You'll notice small variations in the plane. And it's actually helpful to play along with the song itself to get more fluent with it. In the next lesson, I'm going to show you two more chords to add to your arsenal. G major, C major. I'll see you in the next class. 9. G Major and C Major: We're going to learn some magic words now, remaining in the first position, which is in the first three frets. This chord is G major, and it's a must-have for beginning guitarist and, or guitarist for that matter. It involves the root, third, and fifth notes of the G-Major scale, which is G, B, and D. There's a couple of ways to play open G major, and I'm going to show you both, both ways to play this chord. You second, third, and open Fred nodes. So the first way involves placing your middle finger on the third fret of the low E string, followed by your first finger on the second fret of the a string. That's the B note in your code. Then bring the ring finger all the way down to the third fret of the high E, which is the G note, but an octave higher. Keep all those fingers arched because you'll be playing the open strings in between, which are a, D, G, and B. Once you've got the G major shape, strum down on all the six strings like this. This is your first way to play G major. Sometimes for this particular shape guitarist like to incorporate four fingers into the code by moving the ring finger down to the B string. And then placing your little finger where the ring finger was. The third fret on the high E. This allows the dino to bring out a bit more and gives you some options on how to play your chord. Nice chyme to it. The other way to play G major is the shape you like this. Put your fourth finger on the third fret of the low E string covering that genomes. Then the middle finger on the second fret of the a string. Then finally, the little finger covering the hygiene. And play it all together. It sounds like this. There you have it, G major and a few different ways to play it. Trots. Keep in mind that the reason I'm showing you this is because there's no one way to play the guitar. And throughout your journey as a guitarist, you're going to discover a way of playing that suits you. So having a few different options can be really good to helping you develop your own style. Next up is C Major. Probably the happiest color there is, in my opinion. And certainly one of the most used in popular music. Locker wasn't a major cause I've shown you the key notes in the C major scale, or the root note. The third note, fifth note, G. The surrounding open notes which make up the chord. Let's dive straight in. So by now you're probably used to my teaching style when it comes to codes. We can utilize for it's 12.3 for finger placements, leaving the remaining notes open. So get your ring finger and place that on the third fret of the, a string, full up by your middle finger on the second fret of the D string. Remember to keep those fingers arched and no slack so you have room to play the open notes in between. Finally, the index finger on the first fret of the B string. We're not going to be playing the low E. So place your thumb over the neck, damping the strings. I was muted. So coaching position, pick the ready, now strong down from the a string. And then you have C major. So well done guys, that's C major done. And the last of the five major chords that I'm going to show you in this particular course. By having learned E major, major, D major, G major, C major. You'll be able to play hundreds of songs in popular music and even create sums of your own with them. Remember to keep referring to the core box is shown on the screen when you watch these videos back. And as well as the core shopping exercise I just showed you, you can even make up your own exercise with your own combination is a core changes. In the next class we're going to learn a song incorporating the two newest course I showed you. The song we're going to learn is a 60 song called Love Me Do, written by John Lennon and Paul McCartney of the most successful group of all time, The Beatles. I'll see you in the next class. 10. Song - The Beatles - Love Me Do: I love you. Oh, always be to Love Me. Do right guys, in this class we're gonna be learning a song called Love Me Do, written by John Lennon and Paul McCartney and the Beatles, arguably the most successful and influential band of all time. We're going to be incorporating the two newest cause I showed you G major, C major, and D major, which we learned earlier on. So here's what you need to know for Love Me. Do. I recommend playing G major with the second and third fingers over here, middle and ring. And your pinky right here on the high E string. Because you couldn't be changing from G to C constantly throughout the song. So I think it's a much easier way to transition between the two chords. Now for the strumming, you'll notice that I'm gonna be emphasizing certain drums, making them a bit louder like this. You can see for the first G chord, I hit for downstrokes with emphasis on the second and fourth beat, hitting more of the highest strings. Whereas on beats 1.3, we hit more of the lowest strings like this. So for downstrokes with more emphasis on the two, and for this matches that really nice strumming pattern that you can hear in this song. Then the second chord is C major. You'll be hitting two downstrokes, followed by two upstrokes. And downstrokes. In this kind of rhythm. You can see it's really got a swing with them on that Paul, when he gets the upstrokes. Downstrokes, again, you can emphasize more of the low notes of the chord. The upstrokes. You can emphasize more of the high strings. You might notice, instead of leaving the high E string open, I've left my pinky finger on the third fret to let that hygiene note ring out as this has played in the original. This also makes the transition between the G and C corps much smoother without having to take that pinky save and then back again on G. Remember to keep your thumb gently muting the low E string as you won't be playing that. So that sequence, G to C, we're going to call the strum pattern. So when I say the strong pattern, that's going to include everything we've just learned, the C and G codes. So that's drum pattern happens three times in the beginning. And then the fourth time before the word star, we repeat the same strumming pattern again. However, we stay on the G chord instead of Cheney to see like this. So that last bar still has the downtown of a bound, like in the previous drum patterns by stays on the G, down, down, up, down. So if we play what we learned so far, it will sound like this. And a 1234. Stay on the G for that last fourth time around. Now the verse comes in with the words and guess what? The same shrunk passing of G and C back-and-forth. So we play that strum pattern three times. Then on the fourth time around is the part of the song where they sing. So please, when the pattern finishes, you play a single short C code on the first beat as the music stops in the song like this. So when you hit that C code, you can quickly mute it. And then when it sings, love me, do straight back into that GC, twice round before it goes into the second verse. Now, the only other section to learn in this song, it's called the bridge, which comes directly after the second verse, and that introduces the D major chord. Okay, so here we start with a D chord. We're going to come in with some nice downstrokes. For the downstrokes are going to be emphasized on strummed 2.4. We'll repeat that twice and then do the exact same thing for the next chord, which is C major. As you can see, we play the C chord onetime round, and then following the sea, we play the G major only this time with the down, down, up, up, down strum pattern. So altogether that sequence goes like this. So there you have all the core sections of Love Me Do by The Beatles. I hope you have some fun learning this and keep referring back to the different parts of this video to help you get each part of the song nailed. For some of you, this is going to seem quite easy, excellent, but for some others, not so easy. So I recommend practicing the song comfortable speed. When you feel more confident, like I said, when learning dwarfing, try playing along to the original record. As this will get you really into the vibe of practice in the song and help you get more fluent with it. So now we've covered a second, so easy major chords, we're going to learn in the next lesson, a couple of minor chords. I'll see you in the next class. 11. E Minor and A Minor: Hey guys, welcome back to my bite-size Guitar calls for beginners. Now we're going to learn another type of code. We've learned a number of open major chords, which all sound very positive, such as a major, major, major, G major. And that's because this is what these chords are designed to do. They give off a happier and positive vibe when you hear them? What we're going to learn now is a minor chord, more specifically E minor, which sounds a bit sad for a moodier compared to the other equal we've learned, E major. This will open up an entire new Arsenault songs for you to learn when including this important minor chord, there are two slightly different variations of how to play minor. They both help you make easier transitions between different courts, depending on the song, you will make your own judgment on which one to use. So the first way is very simple. Just put your index finger on the second fret of the a string like this. Then your next finger on the second fret of the D string. For this chord, you're going to play all of the strings from the low to high. So with the rest of your hand arched and your thumb raised off the neck so you don't block the low E string. You have your first E minor shape. Now the second variation, I actually think this one's easier than the previous. This is because it's exactly the same as the image shape, but we're index finger from the first fret string, pulling it open like this. Sound a bit more detail. This time, your middle finger, It's got to take the second fret, a string, and then your third finger on the second fret of the D. Like this. You can see how easy it is playing from E minor to E major. The last quarter I'd like to show you is a minor, which like E minor and minor chords, you might use the flat third of the chord scale instead of the major third. Like I said before, the root, third and fifth notes make up a chord. And depending on how you change that third note of the scale, depends on whether the chord is major or minor. So this is how you play a minor. Your middle finger on the second fret of the D string, followed by your ring finger on the second fret of the G string. Then finally, your index finger on the first fret on the B string. You'll be playing the root note of the chord, which is open a. Raise your thumb over the neck and down from the top string, which you won't need to play. So we get a minor shape with you picking your hand too strong, the five notes like this. So now you've got an arsenal of seven chords. To learn as many songs as you want to. You have five major chords and two minor chords. With all that done, I think we should learn a song now using E minor and a minor. Join me in the next lesson. I'll see you soon. 12. Song - Oasis - Live Forever: Ron and God made you feel the mom replied. Maybe, maybe that song if you didn't recognize it, is a famous song from the 90s from a very popular rock band called Oasis. The song is called live forever, and it's in the key of G major, and it's definitely a party piece that goes down really well. If you play this in front of anyone really on top of that is quite easy to learn more be using the new course. We've learned E minor and minor along some of the other major chords, G major, D major, and C major. So we're going to start straight away on the G chord. Vocal and guitar comes in right at the same time. I'll leave out the strumming pattern for now. I'm just showing you the chords with accounting of 12341234. You're strong G on all four beats of the bar, and then do the same for d. Then a whole bar of a minor forced drums. The next bar is two beats on C and then two beats on D. Then we repeat the whole thing again. So due date. And then we go into the chorus. So you do E minor, then d for whole bar, and C for two beats. Day for two beats. Repeat. The last chord. We're going to go to C major for two whole bars, then back to G for 2 bar. I'm going to play through Oregon without destroying pattern, just so you can get used to the chord progression, 1234. Then we go into the course. And then the progression starts all over again. So that's all the courts you need to know for this song. That's pretty much the whole thing. Let's move on to the strumming pattern. So the basic strumming pattern goes like this, and I'll play it a bit slower so you can follow easier. For you. Has much more of a blue. Now that sounds a lot more free and loose and more like the original record. And he has an overall better vibe about it. Let's play it then with a more interesting rhythm pattern from the star all the way to the end of the chorus. 1234. So that's more or less the whole song. Just that core sequence repeated, like I said before, live forever. It's just a staple songs play front of other people. And if you can get it nailed, you're always gonna get people singing it right back at you, which is such an awesome feeling. Next up, we're going to be moving on from courts now and learning about guitar riffs, which is the next step up from chords. I'll explain more to you in the next course. See you there. 13. Riff - The Beatles - Day Tripper: What is it? Guitar riff, quite simply put, a guitar riff is a hook of a song and that can be the most recognizable thing in the song. It's a sequence of notes and chords that repeats throughout the piece of music. In the next couple of classes, we're gonna be learning some very signature guitar riffs for some very popular tunes. The first one we're going to learn is day trip or by The Beatles, mainly using the lowest strings of the guitar. And then the second one is a more modern tomb by the black keys called Lonely Boy, which mainly uses the highest drinks. So we can get used to using those. So we're gonna get started on our first guitar riff, verifying this day trip up by The Beatles, released in 1965. Now this is a pretty simple thing. There's a couple of quick changes, but I think it's really good exercise to get those fingers used to moving faster and coordinating better. Firstly, let's break down the wave note by note, a much slower speed. Why it gets grips with learning the actual notes of the riff. We won't start by playing it as fast as the original tempo while we're learning it. The first note is open E, followed by 3.4 using the same string, using your second and third fingers. Then you first finger on the second fret of the a string. So the first four notes altogether. After that, we go up to the D string. Second fret using the same finger. Then open D. So if we play that all together, then the next note is back down to the a string on the second fret. Then a little jump to the fourth fret of the D string using your third finger. Now everything up to there is this. Then the next note is back down to the a string on the second fret. Then open D. Then hit the second fret of D. Then just start the riff over again back on the a. So let's play the root four times now, linked to a click track at a much slower speed of 65 beats a minute, which you can practice over and over with 1234. So you can always practice the metronome to help you keep time. And if it helps you to set a slower tempo while you're perfecting this wave. Then by all means do that. And eventually you'll be asked to play close to the original speed, which I'll play along for times like this, 1234. So that's the main roof of dietary fiber. And that's played four times in the intro. And for diversity is played twice. Please stick around for the next lesson because we're gonna learn a more modern reef that makes use of the highest strings of the guitar. Two, I'll see you there. 14. Riff - The Black Keys - Lonely Boy: 123. We're going to learn a cool guitar riff or guitar melody, if you will. It's an opening riff for a more modern song called Lonely Boy by the black keys. We're gonna be using more of the highest strings of the guitar, as well as some lower strings. It's good to get used to moving around all the different strings. Firstly, I just want to say in my demonstration, I did combined some chords with the melody just to give it a bit backing. But we're going to break it down much more. Just learn the main single note riff. Let's get started. The whole roof goes across 4 bar. So let's start with the first bar consists of two notes on the low E. But you start on beats 2.3. You'll notice I'm dampening the first note and sustaining the second one. Then the second bar has five nodes. One starting on the high E, followed by a quick change to the third fret, B string. Third finger. Then using your second finger, jumped to the second fret, G string. Then a quick open G, back to the second fret again. So the whole second bar is, Let's play back the first 2 bar. I'm going to play with the metronome, a much slower speed of 90 beats a minute. So you can follow 1234. Now velocity bars follow the exact same rhythm pattern, just different nodes. So bar three, the first two notes are the second finger. Second fret of the G string. Buffer is. So second finger again, second fret on the G, and a quick change to OBJ. And then move your finger down to the D string. Second fret again, and in the last few notes, or open D back to the second fret. So together, bar for is. So that's the whole riff. 4 bar. I'm going to repay the whole thing from start to finish as low speed of 90 beats per minute with a metronome 1234. So that's the main roof of Lonely Boy that's played twice in the intro before jam on the E code. Keep practicing and eventually you'll be able to play them to the record at the original speed. Now there's obviously a lot more to this OP. Check it out, including that first guitar part before the main riff. But the main point of this exercise is to get used to playing a riff with those high strings and keeping as simple as we can in these bite-size beginner's guitar course, I'm including some guitar tabs to help you refer to note placements when you're practicing. And of course, just take your time and we play any parts of the video as many times as you need to get you fluent in this really cool rock and roll with. 15. Conclusion: Guys, we've reached the end of my bite-size beginner's guitar course. And I just wanted to say thank you so much to everyone who has tuned in and hopefully taken something valuable from these lessons to help you on your journey to becoming a great guitarist. Learning guitar can be quite a challenge to start with. So make sure you don't get frustrated with it. If you find yourself getting frustrated with it, I recommend that you have a practice and then just put the guitar down and come back to it with a fresh mind. The more times you can come back to it with a fresh mind, the better. So I recommend making a practice schedule so that you can practice a little bit every day, making that commitment to practice every day, he'll be sure to notice a significant improvement in your plane. And with this Skillshare course is here for you. So you can keep going back to the videos as many times as you want to. And hopefully you'll be picking up new things you may have missed the first time round. Also try not to compare yourself to other musicians or feel disheartened when watching more experienced guitarists. Remember they all start at the same level as you and try to forget the idea that practice makes perfect practice makes improvement. And as long as you stick with it, you will always improve. With these chords, riffs, techniques, and exercises I've shown you. You will have an endless amount of songs to start learning. And being a creative musician, you can even start using some of these ideas if you want to create and develop your own songs or pieces of music. I'm hoping I've provided you with enough ammo to kick-start your journey to becoming a great guitarist and more importantly, your own guitarist. Please feel free to share this course to anyone else who might want to learn guitar and subscribe to my mailing list so I can update you with future tips and courses. Lastly, thanks so much for coming on this journey with me and I hope to see you soon.