Introduction

About Me

Hi, MeAmBobbo. I have played guitar as a hobby since 1997. While in college, I basically got a minor in music (technically I did not) to learn more about it from the academic side. I'm not the most prolific or accomplished player by any means, but I definitely know a lot about the instrument. Some friends/family recently picked up playing guitar, so I decided to write out some lessons for them. This led me to create this page, which I hope helps a wider audience.

There are some good youtube series out there and some nice pdf's I've found to help people learn, but I wasn't aware of an all-encompassing wiki. I hope some others can help expand on this foundation in areas that I am weak.

Intended Audience

These lessons should suffice to teach every beginner the basics, regardless of the type of music they like or whether they play electric or acoustic. These are not designed simply to teach technique or even guitar-centric knowledge. I try to move more and more towards a music theory foundation as applied to guitar. I want to leave the reader with a greater appreciation and curiosity for music in general, which can be expressed through guitar.

Again, I am not a guitar master, and I am focusing on the things I know the most about. I feel I can thoroughly cover everything you need to know to become an intermediate musician and composer. I will even cover advanced topics; however, these will likely serve more as a branching off point than an extensive resource.

My main interest musically is rock and roll of almost every stripe. Yet I find the most interesting rock musicians incorporate a variety of styles into their music, such as jazz, blues, classical, ragtime, funk, and folk. I aim to help understand key features in such genres and how to incorporate them into your playing.

Lesson Order

Not every lesson is going to click right away. You may need to read through several times or press on and revisit later. Lessons are presented in an order that I feel goes from simple to complex. They are not required to be read in perfect order, so it's possible to jump around; but especially early-on they should be read in order to make more sense. See the Table of Contents.

Common Conventions

Every lesson is designed to incorporate 4 elements: lesson information, technique, music theory, and application. Early lessons may not contain all 4 parts by necessity. Each lesson will have a "homework" assignment that you can practice.

Also, I'm going to assume you are right-handed for the sake of clarity and brevity. If you are left-handed, anytime you see left in relation to a body or fretboard direction, switch it with right, etc. Anytime you see right-hand, I mean picking hand. Left hand means fretboard hand.

Tablature

Musical notation is not text friendly, so I will use tablature in this form:

fig. 1
   C
e--0-------------------------
b--1--------------------0--1-
g--0--------------0--2-------
d--2-----0--2--3-------------
a--3--3----------------------
e----------------------------
      c  d  e  f  g  a  b  c

The horizontal lines represent the guitar strings. The letters on the left indicate the tuning used. If they are not present, assume standard tuning (more info in Tuning and Harmonics), which is the same as written above. The numbers indicate to play (pick the string of) that note while fretting the indicated fret number (more in Basic Technique). 0 means don't fret any notes - pick the open string. Tablature, like classical musical notation, is temporally aligned from left to right. So you play the left-most note(s), then the next one(s) to the right, and so on. In the above example, you would strum an open C major chord across 5 strings, then play the C major scale one note at a time moving from the lowest note to the highest.

The "C" above that first chord indicates the chord name. This may or may not always be present. Similarly, the letters below the last string represent the note names of the single notes being played. All this will be covered in greater detail later on.

You can use the Reading Tab Reference page if necessary.

Fret Maps/Chord Charts

I may also use fretboard maps and chord charts. These take the below form, very similar to tablature (or tab):

Scale Map	Open Position chord	Moveable Chord	Non-Open Position Chord w/ Open Strings
|o|o|-|o|-| |o|x|-|o|-| |o|-|o|-|•| |o|-|o|o|-| |o|-|o|x|-| |o|o|-|o|-| 0	o|-|-|-| |i|-|-| o|-|-|-| |-|m|-| |-|-|r| o|-|-|-| 1	|i|-|-|-| |)|m|-|-| |i|-|-|-| |-|-|r|-| |-|-|-|p| |t|-|-|-|	o|-|-|-|-| o|-|-|-|-| |-|-|p|-| |-|-|r|-| |i|-|-|-| |-|-|-|-| 4

Each horizontal line of text represents a string, like tab. The strings are divided by vertical bars, which represent the physical frets. (You fret "behind" the fret like in the maps above; see Basic Technique.) The last line of text with a number may or may not be present. It specifies the fret numbers to use. Only one number is used; it alone is sufficient. All frets to the right are simply +1 fret. Since fretboard maps and chord charts are patterns that can be used on any group of frets on the guitar, they are not necessarily tied to any particular fret numbers, which is where their power lies (example 3 can be used on any group of 4 frets).

In the above examples, the 0th fret is sometimes marked. This means play the open string. This is more common for scale patterns than chord charts. Chord charts can use open strings, even if you fretting far away from the open strings. Thus, open strings are often marked to the left of the leftmost fret, as in examples 2 and 4 above.

The first figure is a fretboard map or scale map/chart/pattern. The x's represent frets on that string that are part of whatever scale is being illustrated. The R's indicate root notes of the scale. The *'s indicate that these are the same note, but can be played in either location. These maps are a more compact way than tab to demonstrate the fretboard pattern of a particular scale.

The other examples are chord charts. You may notice my chord charts don't look like traditional chord charts, where the strings run vertically and frets horizontally. I find that a bit confusing, especially when interspersed with tab. Mine are consistent with tab and how one typically views the fretboard - horizontal strings and vertical frets. It may take a second to get used to it if you are accustomed to traditional chord charts.

Chord charts and scale maps represent almost the exact same thing, except scale maps indicate every member note of the scale, including multiple on the same string, while chord charts indicate only one note per string. This is so all the marked notes can be played simultaneously. Additionally, they are marked with letters (o, i, m, r, p, t) instead of x's and r's to indicate how to finger each note.

Symbol	Finger
o	Open
i	Index
m	Middle
r	Ring
p	Pinky
t	Thumb
)	Barre (discussed later)

The first map and middle chord chart represent the same scale/chord information as the tab above, but in a more compact form.