How to Teach Yourself Guitar Part 1

1. Teach Yourself Part 1 Ep 1: Hi, I'm Dan. And welcome to my skill share class How to teach yourself guitar. Now I know what you're probably thinking. This is a strange title because the very fact that I'm here and I'm teaching you how to play guitar means you're not actually teaching yourself. Okay, I get that. I'm aware of the seemingly contradictory nature of the title, but I'm here to tell you that what I do is I teach you the basics of guitar, and I do teach you the first step. What, through my original method, I'm giving you the tools that you need to then use my class as a launching pad to be able to teach yourself from then on for the rest of your life, I'm giving you lifelong lessons and methods that you can use to enhance your practice. So whether you're just a complete beginner and you want to start from ground zero on the guitar or you're an experience player, but you found that your practice habits have become stale and you're playing the same things over and over and you're not really learning anything new anymore. You can use this class to help you to kick start the creative part of your brain where you can go. Hey, I'm understanding not only where to put my fingers, but why. And now I can figure out other places that I can create new versions of the cords. I can do new very things in my practice time. So thank you so much for checking it out. And I look forward to working with you in this class. 2. Teach Yourself Part 1 Ep 2: Hello. I'm Dan. And welcome to less than one of how to teach yourself guitar. All right, So like I said in the previous video, if you've watched it, I understand the fact that I'm here teaching you means you're not actually teaching yourself. But again, I'm going to give you the lessons and the tools that you need to be able to use my classes , a launching pad to be able to then take the basics that I've given you and figure the rest out on your own. So this is less than one. Welcome. Uh, So here's what I do every time that I meet with a new student to start lessons with them and I want to start by going over this awesome instrument and going through what everything is called and going through how it all works. So the first thing to know is that, uh, you've got your body of the guitar. It's made out of various different kinds of wood you've got then the neck of the guitar, which is right here. And then this right here is called the head stock. Now, what we do is you take a strength and you spread it between this point. These points here. You take it through the grooves in what's called the nut. It goes down over the frets and it's stretched to this right here. And this is called the bridge. And so, by stretching the string, it's kind of like a rubber band where if you keep tightening and tightening it, you're pulling that tension and it's going Boing, boing, boing, boing! My, my, my, my my Sorry, I'll limit noises like that. Uh, but you're creating tension, which creates a vibration. So when I pluck a string is vibrating at a certain wavelength at a certain frequency that's creating that note, it's pretty cool stuff. So then these are the frets as I take my finger and I'm closing the gap. I'm actually taking the gap from this point or this point, and I'm shortening it. And as I shorten that gap, it's creating mawr tension, which creates a higher pitch. So that's a little bit about how this works now. You also noticed there is a hole here and an acoustic guitar, and here at this point there be pickups on an electric guitar, and what that does is it takes those vibrations, the whole in an acoustic guitar. The vibrations go inside of it. Excuse me as well as outside, they found surround in here, and each each guitar has a little bit different thickness. They bounce around, and then when they re come out, they are amplified. So that's kind of how an acoustic guitar works a little bit now on Electric guitar has pickups, and those pickups didn't take those same vibrations, and they turned that Translate that into an electrical signal and most electric guitars, then have a pickup. I mean, not a pick up where the cable goes, and it takes those electrical signals through the wires into an AMP and then outcomes. The sound amplified. That's a little bit of the physics behind it, And I always just thought, That's interesting. So I think it's worth noting. So when we go to actually learning about playing the guitar, the first thing you need to know is what the strings are too too tuned to. You've got e a de g be. And so again, the first and the last are the same note. Now, for this next part, I'm gonna be going over notes. I'm gonna sit the guitar down, so excuse me. So for this next part, I'm gonna be talking about notes, and we just went over What the notes are that each string is tuned to. But if you're brand new to music, you need to understand a few things about notes first or about music in general. So how music works is it's a lot like Adams. It's a lot like physics, actually. So you may or may not be aware that there are these building blocks of matter called Adams and Adams come together through bonds to form chemical molecule compounds right molecules. So Adams foreigner molecules and then molecules come together to create more and more of it . So, like water is made of H 20 those molecules are bonded together, and enough of them come together to form a substance or an element like something like water. And so, But then you can take those molecules and they can make things like cells in the human body , which the cells then come together to form systems which form organs which form you. And so it's this principle of taking something small and elemental, and then it bonds with another one to create a larger thing. Music works the same way, and if you break music down, you've got the note. The note is the smallest element of music now. And note by itself, though, isn't really actually music. It's just a frequency of sound. It takes the relationship it has with the other notes to actually make music. So when you take a note and then play another note, uh, the now you've got something. Now you're starting a melody, or you can take a few notes and play them at the same time, And that's when they really stack in new form chords. So Accord, and specifically a major chord, is formed with three different notes. You take a scale of notes and you take the first note in the scale. The third note of this scale in the fifth note of this scale, if you play those three notes back to back on top of each other do do do bring, it gives you a cord, and so accord is three notes, almost like a molecule of Adams. And then, though just playing one chord isn't really music again, you need multiple cords to be played in sequence to create what's called a chord progression. And so for me, it goes like this note is small. Then it comes together to form accord with two other notes. Then those chords are played in relation to other chords, and you get a chord progression. And another way to think about a core progression actually is a key in the key of the song can only be discerned, really, either through playing this scale so you can play all the potential notes right after another in sequence or by playing a group of chords in sequence together one after another , you can identify what the key is so again notes to cords to corporate grecians and keys, and then it can even go beyond that. But that's where I'm gonna leave you for now. So in this first lesson, really, what I want you to grasp hold of is the idea of how that guitar works, but also how music works. So we're going to start in. The next lesson is we're gonna talk about we're gonna pick one key, one note and we're gonna branch off of that and give you an example. Now, here's kind of the heartbeat of this whole class and really one of the most important things that you can know, which is that music is a repetition of patterns. Now, that's not the only thing music is. But when it comes to playing music, if you can start to see and recognize those patterns will start to get better and better because you'll be able to teach your self you'll know. Oh, this is how it works in this key for this cord for these notes, I bet it works the same way for the others. And for the most part it does. So we're gonna look at one note, we're gonna look at one key. We're gonna look at one chord. We're gonna look at one court progression, and through that, I'm gonna show you a pattern for plucking with your fingers. That shows you the scale in that same pattern, the same finger pattern. If you just change what fret You start on, you'll be able to use the exact same pattern to play with scale. So do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do do and then you move your fingers the same way. Do do do do do? Do, do do. It's really cool. I'm gonna show you all that in the next lesson. Thank you so much. 3. Teach Yourself Part 1 Ep 3: All right, welcome to the next lesson. So, as I stated before, what we're gonna talk about today is we're gonna look at one note, and, uh, we're gonna build off of that note to learn the scale and learn the repeating pattern that you can use for any scale. Major scale, I should say we're gonna learn today, and ah. Then how to take that scale and figure out how to play a chord of the same name as the note and, uh, this will work for any major scale in any major court. It's really cool. So let me show you. Uh, here we go. So today we're going to start with the note G, and let me explain how to get to that. So ah, as you may or may not know, with music, the note names are are using the letters of the alphabet starts with a I got a B C D E f g . And then it starts over again. A B C d E f g. Now, if you think for a moment about how a piano looks, you've got white and black keys, so the white keys are all the regular little letter names got a B, C D E f g, and then it just repeats right on and on or not. The Black Keys are what's known as sharps and flats. So you've got a right one up from a would be even a black key. That would be a sharp. Okay, then B is the next white key. But then when you get from a a sharp be you think about a piano. You've got three Blackie's than two white keys next to each other than to black keys and then another two white keys next to each other and then three black keys to, But it just repeats from there. So to remember, what are the two white keys that are next to each other? Two sets of two white keys. Ah, it's B and C and E and F, and I've created a little pneumonic device. It's before college eat fish. I dont know why. Thats just what it is. Enjoy that. So we started a a a shirt. Be see, so there's no be sharp. There's no see flat. There's no black and betweens before college, so be sees a a sharp B C in C sharp d de sharp e. Remember, eat fish E f f sharp, g g sharp, and then we start over at a Now Sharps and flats are interchangeable, but flats go backwards. So if you go from a white key up to the right, it's a sharp. If you go from a white G down to the left, it's a flat. So starting a we'd go a then a flat right, which is the same note as G sharp, but a a flat G G flat, right then F e remember, eat fish F e e flat, d d flat C before college CB b b flat B flat to a and then we're back to where we started. That's kind of how notes work. Then on the guitar, we have frets now, going from a white key to a Blackie right next to it is called 1/2 step. Okay. And going from the before college, eat fish, the two white keys next to each other. Um, that's also 1/2 step. Okay, cause you're going from one note right to its very next note. Now, if you're playing to White keys one after another and there's a Blackie in between. You're skipping. Well, that's called a whole step, right? So to go from a to B is a whole step because you're skipping over the flat. To go from B to C, however, is 1/2 step because they're right next to each other. There is no Blackie. If I went from B to C sharp, that would be a whole step because I'm skipping the note of seat. So basically 1/2 step is where you're going from one note right to the very next note. A whole step is when you skip over one note. So each fret on a guitar is 1/2 step, meaning that if I remember the tuning E a d g B So if this 1st 1 is he, then that means if I put my finger here on the first fret on the e string, that's gonna be the next note. It's 1/2 step. So remembering our pneumonic device before college eat fish. We know that e there's no sharper flat in between. So it goes E. And next note would be what f sharp right then G, which is the note we're gonna talk about when you go from Gene G Sharp when you go from the shark A made nature a sure to be remember before college of me See right C C shirt Dee dee sharp. And then here's a cool thing also about you See these dots? My guitar has dots on the side. A lot of guitars. Your guitar, in fact, might have the dots on the front. But the cool thing is, as we count up again and we look on the side view, uh, these dots correspond to typically not every time, but typically, um, what are called natural notes or non sharpened flat notes. So, like if I'm here or here actually, right there, that's hey, that dot is a and that dot is Jeep, And that dot is be so those dancer that help you The other thing to point out is here There's double dots in the double dot means an octave. Now what is an octave? An octave is from the root O. C. T. Oct meaning eight. So it's a note eight away from the other note. But what that means is it's the same exact note. Remember when we said that low gi and hide here the same note. Well, they're just hire e is low. I need this hot right. So when we go a B C D E f g and then it's back to a right. It repeats well, on a scale you could go. Let's take the C scale. For example. You go C D E f g a b See it repeats that C D E f G a b See. So the repeating is eight notes away. C D E f g A b See? So that's an octave C one to C eight. So there are seven different notes in a scale. On eighth note is the same as the first note. So in later lessons I'll talk a lot about eight and one being same, and that's what I mean. Eighth note in the scale and the first note in the scale are the same note just up and active. So if we started an open E, which is kind of like this nut right here playing the note for us and we go up to the double dot where e. So it's e heinie. So that is probably good enough for this lesson. Next lesson will take one of those notes and we will extrapolated accord and learn the scale and see the pattern. See you next time. 4. Teach Yourself Part 1 Ep 4: All right. Welcome to your next. Listen, uh, last lesson got away from me a little bit if I'm honest. So the labelling mind that match up with some of the previous things I said. But I realized as I was talking, I needed to go over a few other things. But so I think now that we've gone over how the frets work, how notes work, how scales work a little bit, we can then move on. So I'm gonna teach you the G note and the G scale so again to review open E right here. And you know what I in the previous lessons, I didn't say this. There is a mnemonic device to remember the strings. It's e a DJ, which is every American does good building. I'll say that again. Every American does good building engines. It's not a true statement because I'm not good at building engines and I'm an American, but it's just there. It's like before college eat fish. It's just something stupid. Teoh help you remember. So if we know again, we're starting at low E. Every and each one is 1/2 step. Then you can go eat F F f sharp f sharp to gene. And that's where we're gonna be today with G. So I'm gonna teach you the G major scale, and then I'm gonna be able to then show you how to figure out how to play the cord. So where do you put your fingers on the neck to play a G chord? Well, some teachers might just show you, OK? And you know, if you wanted that teacher, you could go find that teacher. But I want to teach you how to teach yourself. I want to teach you why you put your fingers there, right? So, uh, what we need to do is go from the note and then talk about the scale is that we can build off the note to go to the cord and go to court progression. So here we go. The G scale goes like this. Oh, I'll show you that again. It's itchy in a then on the a string, the second fret be than a string third fret. See who A string fifth fret De um in the d string. The second fret e thin the d string the fourth fret which is f sharp on and then g again So again, pattern you can use with your fingers is to go is to put one finger in every fret. You see how I'm doing that first finger on that second fret middle finger on the third fret fourth finger on the fourth fret pinky on the fifth fret. And what you do then is used the finger that corresponds to what? Fret that you're on. So I'll start with G. You always start with this pattern with your middle finger on the note that you're starting with a G scale. You start on the note g So again, e m f sharp g now because the next note I want is two friends away. I'm gonna use my pinky, right. So, Gene and next No, What I want is on the second fret So used my first finger Be now Then I take these off and again I'm on the third fret so used my middle finger again for see the next night I want is on the fifth Fret So I use my pinky next Really want is on the d string on the second Fret . So it was my first finger. Next note I want is on the fourth fret. So I'm using my ring finger for the first time on the D string for F Sharp and then might be, so again, a little faster. Planet rest my arm a little bit. I'm propping it up. Here we go. A be seen Dean, feel free to pause and rewind. If you need to see that a little slower, I'll do it again. I was watching myself it. Here's the cool thing, that pattern of using your middle finger than your pinky than your first finger, then your ring finger and all that. That pattern there is a secret. It's the same pattern. No matter what note you start with, I'll say that again. That pattern is the same, no matter what note you start with. So here's how you can begin to teach yourself. Here's a little homework for you. What you need to do after you finish this video, this is figure out another notes scale. Play another note scale, so play G right. But start that on another note. I'll do it for you. I'll show you. Here's a on moved up two frets to do a whole step so I'm going from G to a same pattern. Watch a great move up again. It's the same pattern. Move up again. It's the same pattern. So again you can. You can do this. You can teach yourself. Here we go, Jean. Now, I mentioned that cords are made up of the first, the third and the fifth notes of the scale. So if we know that, how do we identify what three notes make up a G court? You guessed it the first third in the fifth note of that scale, I'm gonna take a drink of water. So here's how we do that. We play that same pattern, Jean, This time we count, we go. Okay, Here's the first G two is e after easy shook a right. Then third is here Which if I'm starting on the a string right, then I go a a sharp Be okay. So I know what goes G A is 23 is be so I know the second note in a G chord is be Jean B one three game. Now we need to find five. So we go, g a b. It's 123 The next one is this one, which is a a sharp B C so g a B C. That's for So it's five. This one and it's a a sharp be before college B C C shirt, Dean. So jean be seen. Those are the three notes that make up a G chord array. We found them. Now you can do this for other notes and other courts. How you would do that? IHS move up again to a and do that same thing a 123 So 134 fine. 135 And guess what? When you do that, you realize it's always gonna be this note this note in this no again patents. So I mean, being Dean for a it's a c sharp. So, uh, in the next lesson will just continue this momentum we're building and figuring out your first court. Thanks 5. Teach Yourself Part 1 Ep 5: All right, Welcome to the next lesson. We just figured out how to find scale. We learned the pattern of the fingers. We figured out how toe learn what notes make up accord in a major key. No, I'm gonna set the guitar down for a second. I think that this is a good time to go over the difference between major and minor and some of the other kinds of cords out there kinds of keys. So before we continue, uh, I just want to go over this. I've been mentioning it's a major court. What does that mean? That it's major? Well, um, the major key is probably the main or the primary key in music. So you've probably heard this song door Amy have also allow Tito. Well, that is a major scale. The writers of that song, uh, for the musical they took just a typical major scale, and they did what every song does, which is arranged those notes in in order to create a melody, Right. But they genius Lee just used the scale itself. So the ramey of also latte ito dough, the theme and the ah, uh, you see, that's what we're doing when we're singing, we're taking the notes of that scale and we're moving them around and we're singing them in different rhythms and in different orders to create a melody. And so the major key is the primary one. And some would say that the major key sounds happy that a redo blue do you know it's very happy. It's cheery. Um, it uses the third note in the scale to be able to convey a just a happy, cheery state. And if we get into the physics because again I like teaching you, why not only what we know that when you're stacking those those notes, remember, a note is a wavelength. So picture a wave, you pluck a string and there's wave going right. Well, that wave has a certain length. So it goes from here to here, and it makes that right. So it's one more room. And then from there to there, it's going under right. Does that make sense? Is a wave. Do you picture that sound waves? Okay, well, what a note does when you play a chord is Then you play a second note on top of that. Well, the next note does not have the same wavelength, right? It's a new one. It's higher. So it's a shorter wave. Well, the first and the third, the third is going to be half so that the nodes still line up. Okay, And then your fifth is gonna be 1/4 right? So that no one's lineup, That's why they sound pleasing. When you put it together. It's because there's no what's known as dissonance. Dissonance is when you play two notes over each other, but the nodes don't line up and what you get is this weird like we're gonna get you can hear kind of. That was a very strange sound. I apologize. You can. You can hear the difference. Let me show. You grabbed the guitar. And if I play these two notes, you can hear that they gel or these three notes. They gel with each other. But now if I play, uh, say these two notes, you can kind of hear that it's going. I'm I'm sorry, embedded with the noises, but here they line up. That's the same note. Nodes lineup. There's no clashing, but here you can almost hear the waves clashing and vibrating. You know that. So what? A key is basically in a major KIIS. Somebody really smart way back in history. Who is figuring out this music stuff figured out These notes, They sound pleasing. Together, they can come together to form great melodies. And actually, they're wavelengths are are pleasing as well. So actually, I'll keep the guitar. So what other kind of keys are there? Well, there's major thin. There's minor minor keys. Sound sad? Oh, just you go from having a great day. It's a major key. I have a really sad day and of course there is a minor scale. But I don't want to confuse you yet. I'm not gonna go over in the minor scale too much because what I like to do again teaching how to teach yourself, Ah, speaking from experience and from talking to a lot of people, memorizing and learning all those scales is actually, in my opinion, a terrible way to start. Now. Don't get me wrong. You need to eventually learn them because you're never going to be able to solo or play more like this. If you don't know your scales, you'll never be ableto jam fully and be able to just, like, shred a crazy solo without knowing your scales. But you don't have to start there. I think too many times like that's all your practice time is it's not any fun. So, uh, well, I'm gonna teach you is just the major scale. And then to learn how to go from that to learning accord to then being able to figure out on your own use that same major scale to figure out chords and then also how to go from major to minor because it's the same pattern you can go from major mine. Tom. I see how it my fingers are doing the same thing. It's a repeatable pattern. And if you learn those repeatable patterns actually more exciting, So, uh, this was a short in between lesson, but I just wanted to go over the difference between Major and minor. We're going to continue and learn that court. I know you're waiting for it desperately to figure out how to play this first court, so that will be the next lesson. 6. Teach Yourself Part 1 Ep 6: all right. I think it's finally here. It's time to figure out how to decipher cord from the scale. So you know 13 fine. So let's do what we need to do to learn how to translate that into accord. And so again, those notes were G 123 B for five, indeed. So, what you're going to do if you have six strings to choose from here and using the tools we've already learned on how to figure out what? Notice what you count up, right? It's open E f f sharp G. We're gonna use count up all the strings and for six strings, repeat g be and D over and over again because those were the only three notes you need. Those were the only three notes that make up the major chord. So when you're playing the court on the guitar, Onley play those three notes, so but you have six strengths to play three notes. That means some of them are going to repeat, and that's OK. In fact, that's what you want. So we'll start with G. That's obvious. So then what you want? You're going to go okay in the in the line of these. It would be great if you could just play all of all of the notes and one friend. That's not that's not what you want. So But you also don't want to play a note like this, right? You don't want to do that kind of stuff. You don't have to stretch. So the goal is okay in this kind of three fret area around my first note, where can I put my fingers? That will be comfortable. But that will repeat all those three notes. Hopefully, you understand the gold. So if the first notice here and again I'm going to start on the middle finger then I know that be is right here. Rex from G A B. So I'm just going to start by doing this. And I think some of you can already tell that's the start of the G chord. Some of you've probably already seen people play it, but see how easy that was Not to just memorize that. That's where G is, but to no, here's the scale. And to just go, I'm just gonna play and be the same time. That's the start of the G court. Then the next drink is is every American. What did I say? Every American does. Well, wait. That's already one of the notes g b D. So I don't need to put my finger anywhere because I just let it ring out. That's our cord. It's the only three we need well, but let's repeat it. So what's the next string? Well, it goes. Every American does. Does what does good building engines. That's the rest. So every American does good. We'll wait the next string. The next drink is one of our three. It's G. So what? Each string, you're gonna ask, is this one already? One of my three notes. If it iss just leave it open. And if it's not, figure out where you need to go. So for G, it's G. The next one is a That's not it. So a B D. That's one Medine. Next drink is G, so just leave it open. Charge, right? What's the next train? Every American does good building. Let's be that's one of our notes. Oh my gosh, this court stuff is easy. And what's the last one will? The last ring is E. Every American does good building engines. But you can also know that because it's the same as this one. Here's a pro tip. Uh, wherever you're putting your finger on this string, it's the exact same. Okay, it's little shortcut now to get there. You If it wasn't the same, you would remember you'd go E f f shirt G right, but pro tip. Little shortcut again. It's all about patterns. What? This And this is the same. So it's always, always gonna play the same thing unless you're intentionally doing something different. So here's the court G being the There you have it. That is G court, your first court. Go ahead and try to play that. Put your fingers there. Think about what you're doing. Putting a Gino next. Labinot playing the open D the open Geo just struck a couple times. Now I'm gonna pause here before we go any further. I'm gonna finish this lesson by explaining something that's probably happening if you're playing along and that is, your fingers are going to start to hurt, and that's because I'm gonna I'm first. Your fingers are hurting because the strings are obviously cutting in. So I don't know if you can see that you can. I've got, like, little I'll show here on this camera. I've got little divots and my fingers and ah, they don't hurt me, though, because you're gonna form over time what it called callouses. Over time, you're going to keep continuing to stick that that string that really piece of, like, nylon or steel into your finger, and it's going to cause grooves. It's getting painful, but over time and form a callous and it's not gonna hurt the other thing to think about when it comes to forming calluses is what's called your guitars action. Okay, let me grab this again and show you the action is actually strap action is the distance between the string and, uh, the neck So this it's a tiny on my guitar to tiny distance now in your guitar, especially if you bought may be a relatively inexpensive, cheaper guitar. But there's nothing wrong with that. They're actually great to learn with. Your action might be higher. What that means, though, is it's gonna take more effort to push that string down on to, uh, onto the fret, so it's gonna dig in even stronger into your finger, which Actually, I think ah started guitar that's not actually as expensive. Hadn't. Doesn't have a smaller action is probably better. You're gonna form those calluses quicker. Now it's gonna hurt a little more. I'll be honest about that, but it'll probably it'll probably take not take his long. And that's the thing we're going with here is like, how can we jump in as quickest possible? Learn as many fun things as possible to kind of get over the bat. Right. You've learned one scale. That might be a little boring, and you've got hurting fingers. But look how quickly we've already learned. Not Onley one chord. But why? That court is the way it is. Uh, and so you want to think about your action and your fingers hurting, So, uh, to finish this lesson, I want to give you some homework. You know that chord now? You figured out how to get to it. So I want you to practice playing that and strumming. I'm gonna go over one last thing. Um, if you played it along with me and it sounded like this not is good, The reason why is because your fingers are probably too flat on the strings. Okay, Because there's something called deadening the strength. If you are just lightly touching it, it's gonna give you that sound if you press it down hard enough, though, it's gonna bring out. So what you're gonna want to do is take your fingers and try to get them to see how I'm doing to get it, like right on the tip of your finger, right, the tip of your finger down not side down onto the fretboard, every single note to ring out. So when you first form that chord, play each individual string, make sure it rings out. Once you get it, ring out, go one to for one to three and do this as long as you can stand and do that as long as you can stand it to get those fingers, uh, to get those callouses formed on your fingers and learn a little bit of strumming. 12 three 12 As long as you stand, give your fingers arrest and do it again for mitt again. Make sure each note brings out then one just like that you're playing. See you next time 7. Teach Yourself Part 1 Ep 7: Oh, hi and welcome back. So at this point, you have learned a cord jeans, and you've learned how to use the scale to figure out how to do accord. And now this is for major chords. Remember, you also had homework to use the tips of your finger and make sure every strength brings out it didn't destroying for it. So, uh, if you haven't really done that, I would encourage you to pause its video and go and do that for a few times. You want to build those callouses on your fingers and you don't want to learn too much too quickly. Okay, So with that warning out of the way, that was brave enough to keep going. Uh, what we're gonna learn in this video is three, three more chords and we're going to use the same technique we did before with the scales. And I'm gonna show you my favorite starter forecourt progression, which allows you to take these two fingers that you've played on Eastern and the Deep on the e string and the B string in the third fret of the G court. These two and this corporation allows you to putting G and then another court and another court another now ever picking up these fingers, which makes it really easy to get started because all you have to do is worry about moving these two things. Now what chords are we going to learn? Well, the artist Jean, that's one second Corbin Alert is called C to miss this. I'll explain why it see to. Then you've got the minor seven thin You've got D suspended on bond. Basically, that's G C E minor, Andy. But because you're you're doing these two strength thes notes, add something to each chord that makes it a little different. So what it adds here to see is this note right here, which makes the C two. And I'll explain why in a little bit years a minor and again this note in this note you mind this is a team award, but this note makes that miss this pitch. All right, smell. Let's get into the nitty gritty. So if we're going to talk about playing a C chord, what we need to do well, let's play this C scale. Now here's something cool. Here's a pattern to be aware of when it comes to this pattern with scale. You know, you're moving your fingers in this certain way. Well, here's what's cool. Remember, you get to start that anywhere, right? Anywhere on the east ring. It's the same pattern, right? That same pattern works if you start on the a string as well. Now it doesn't work if you started in the GI Street, but on the a string, it's the same pattern. So watch, uh, cool. Is that so? Now, with one pattern with one finger pattern, you know, all of the notes, all of the the scales that start on the cheat on the street and and all of those to start on a strict. So if I am standing here and I'm thinking okay, I want the c chord and I'm on the e string, I have to count up the f sharp G aging Sharpay H R B c Remember, before college eat fish to me. See, sheriff D We'll see. So I have to go here. Just really hung up or I could go. Okay. A shirt being sing. Just what I'm gonna recommend that we do. So, uh, here we go. The scale going? What notes those we'll see is easy because it's all the white keys were on a piano. There's no sharps or flats, so it c o d who he after, Jimmy. And remember what three notes of the scale make up a major court. Remember, it's the first third, and if it so we've got C home. One detainee 123 So three is beef or five and five is G CD and June. Now, just like RG court, we need to then play those, uh, repeating over the six string. So what I do? Well, we started our eastern can. We say All right, where's the closest See E g? Well, Eastern itself is, However, we don't want to play that, because when it comes to the guitar, you've got travel on the top, right? The top most rings air travel there high. And then, oh, down here low. You've got the low string since the base. When you're playing accord, unless you're doing something intentionally different, you want toe. Always play your root note or your one note or your named note. In this case, C always wanna play that the bottom most that it's the lowest note that rings out, like on a PM you would play the corner of the right hand. Doesn't really matter what order you play them in the right. And as long as on the left and your plans. Well, it's the same thing, so I mean, after of jeans, you should, you know, sees way of here. Well, again, we don't want to do this kind of thing. So we're actually gonna skip this string altogether? That is an option. Uh, you don't have to play, so we'll just start home right here with our seen. So see, right here on the A string and we know seeing de ese right here again. Here's another pattern thing. Help. Who was that? G is here. See? Is here your fingers were doing a very similar thing. It's just another cool pattern thing with a guitar. So see what you said. Well, every American desk good. Who's another open next drink is be so if we're counting, be seen in G being for college seeing so a c chord. Oh, in the last two games, you can play this last one because it's not the lowest one. So speak or it goes like this. It's C and earlier you showed me. That's right, because what I'm gonna do is actually put my pinkie on this Eastern. The reason I could do that is absurd. G C E G G is one of my notes, So you always have the option plans being add thinking that's the first thing you actually in some cases, have two options better within the 1st 3 or four Frets there when you're playing, according which could be cool. So he's here. Or but now here's why this court is called C two. Because instead of playing a scene notes from here in the court, I'm adding Oh knows that well mean cc shirt. I'm intentionally adding a D note to this court. And no, that's not in the three major chord notes, but it is a note that is in the scale. Okay, so this is where it gets confusing with cords. A major court regular major court has the 1st 3rd of the fit, but you have so many more options of notes that you can add if you want to. And so I'm going to add deep and de is which one it's seen, Dean. It's the second note in scale, which means it's gonna be it's gonna make that court a C to you. See how that works. A C two because D who's the note you're adding and D is the second note in the scale, which means to this. 8. Teach Yourself Part 1 Ep 8: so that c two and the next chord we're gonna work on ISS de suspended. And so this one's a little unique. Remember, what we would do is do our scale. So identify a a sharp being. See, see shirt D. So this is the you here or here, and I could do my pattern for the scale. Right? Identify. The 1st 3rd and the fifth, which is 12345 So that's a d. And I'm gonna speed this process up now a little bit because I've shown you in depth. I'm gonna speed it up. Just give you the answer. It's Dean. Enough shark, right? And then a Dean A s. So what we're gonna do is think through, All right, Uh, on the east, Drink me. That's one of the notes. But remember, we want d to be the lowest, so that's not gonna work these way appear So we're gonna x on that one, too. Then a well d f a a is one of them. And here's where we're going to make an exception. Told you want d to be the lowest in the case of the D chord and pretty much on Lee the D chord. You can play the A because these two were open when to open strings right next to each other. Do you hear that sound? They make? For some reason, when you play these together, even though is lower, it sounds like d D rings out more strongly than the A. So you can actually leave basically Onley in this chord on Lee for this court, you can leave the A open. So a open then D open and the next thing is G so g to shirk a K is one of our notes de lecture a actually being B C C shirt de that's one of her notes. S o a T s o goes a It's right and left e. I think I remember what I was doing is I was playing like this on that makes what's called a D suspension. So a word about a suspension. The suspension is when there's a note that rings out in Accord, and the suspension makes the court sound like it wants to resolve. What does it want to resolve Teoh regular board? So this It's like the old famous like, uh, it feels like it's saying. It's like unresolved suspend. That's perfectly fine to play that place. You're playing that progression. But here's a word on suspension, and here's where things get really cool. Uh, how you make a suspension for every single chord, every single one without fail, every major court is you take the third. Remember, it was Dean. I'm sure the Onley Upshur up in this chord 88 ensure you take the third and always the third, and you raise it 1/2 step. Suspend. So here's G. What's the third in gene? 30 G is be so I could be here. Or be open one on the beast drink. I'll use the open one of the B string I go. There's the regular years of suspension, despite raising that third. Raising that third. How cool is that? So if you raise the third half step, you get a suspension every single time, and that's D now that reveals a little bit of my process in teaching you how to teach yourself. I always start with the major scale. That way you only need to know one scale. Then I teach you the other courts, so there's suspended chords. There's minor chords There. Seven chords. There's major seven chords. There's diminished chords. There's augmented chords. I know it's it's a lot. But what I'm teaching you is not how to memorize all those chords, but I'm gonna teach you how to go from a major chord and turn a major court into those other courts. So again you find the major chord and remember, raised the third halfs that you got suspension. So the last chord I'm gonna talk about his e minor seven and that's a minor court. So what we're gonna go over is how to turn a major into a minor and then how to add the seven. So here we go. And I'm gonna speed through this this next one. So e here's our pattern. Esso E g shirt and be Those are the three me and and so your e major court is e rings out, Then a nature being That's one of the notes d t shirt me. That's a repeat of me, G. J. Sharp. It's one of our notes. Sure. And that right there, my friends is. And, uh, now how do I go from a major to a minor? Well, just like with a suspension where we raise the 3rd 1/2 step to go suspended with a minor, You actually lower the third half step. So in this case with e quarter, the third is G sharp in the cord. There's the G string right here and I played that. That's the only G sharpen scored, Theo only third. So all I have to do, just take my finger that's on the G string on the first fret and lower by taking the finger off and letting the nut here play a note. So go through G sharp G E o c. What that's done has gone from happy major rich, full happy sound of a major chord Calgon Minor, which is saddened with submissive, minor, sad low court. So this is a major and this is now again before I was heading these notes in right eso How do I get from this thing? This What is that doing? You hear how it changes the sound way as we know from going over this already that this note So the third fret on the string is G and the third fret on the B string is D you get D in jeans every every one of these cords. What we're doing is adding D and G was that the cord likes it or not. And if the court doesn't like it, then we rename the court, right? See? Didn't like it because he is not in the court, but D is the second note in the scale. So it becomes C to d Liked liked it just fine except turned it into a D suspension. And so e minor, what does it do? Well, um, remember it was e be and G shirt, so wouldn't we? When we're playing and then we've played you might way added g t Mind it, we're just adding more of that minor sound. That's all we're doing there. What happens if we throw the d n? Well, if you remember from the first lesson with when it comes to scales, uh, one and eight are the same, right? So in the e scale, one is e and eight is E. So what would be one down from e in the alphabet? What would be D? And one down from eight is set, you see, So and C D is the second note in the skiff. But E D is the seventh nook in the scale. Meaning becomes e minor way lower the third and it from seven. We have been. So now you know all four of those courts G C to e minor seven. 9. Teach Yourself Part 1 Ep 9: So this concludes part one of learning how to teach yourself. Now, you know, four chords. You know how to use your fingertips and playing them. You know how to when you play them to ring out each note and what you need to do before you watch. Part two is really practiced playing those four chords and moving your fingers moving fast . So here's the exercise You're gonna play G. Make sure all the notes ring out. Then you're gonna play it for four, then move to see, make sure they all bring out play it before you're gonna have to e minor. You play for a move to D suspended, but bring out and keep practicing that until you can move your fingers in the amount of time it takes to strum four and transition. So, like this one. Move, move, move. I'm able to move in the time it takes me to get ready to do my next strong and keep practicing that the other exercise that you should do is just randomly put your finger on a string somewhere just and then say OK, what note is that? And count up. So that's the D string d T shirt being me shop, then remember, There is no you sure that was a trick before college Eat fish. So Dean d share mean that was a G through my finger There. That's a Greek. So throw your finger randomly. Somewhere trying to figure it out. Count up. Remember, before college, eat fish. Remember, every American does good building engines and see if you can no start to memorize those notes. So happy playing everybody. Thank you so much for checking it out. And, ah, don't forget to check out Part two when you're ready.