Introduction
^ What the heck are these bubbles?
Contents
About Me
Hi, I am Me Am Bobbo. 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 wiki, which I hope helps a wider audience.
About MAB Wiki
While there are some good youtube series and some nice pdf's I've found to help people learn guitar, I wasn't aware of an all-encompassing wiki...at least one that was up to the standards I feel the public deserves. And while Wikipedia and music specific wiki's exist, they are more about the academic nature of music, not guided lessons, and tend to avoid subjective content. Such lessons exist on various sites, but I never found they offered the scope or expandability of what I'm trying to offer here - many are very basic, while others are geared specifically to a certain genre.
My goal here is to provide resources to expand the musicianship of all guitarists, and possibly even some non-guitarists, regardless of the style of music you play. I have taken basically everything I know about music, organized it, and presented it in an incremental fashion, centered around playing guitar. Of course, I don't know everything, which is why I chose a wiki format - so others can fill in the gaps or strengthen areas where I am weak.
The lessons are laid out in a way that follows traditional music theory, for the most part. However, I try to make examples based more towards modern popular music, particularly rock and/or jazz.
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
Each lesson has a homework assignment that you can practice - this will be important points that you should know from the lesson, directions to play the examples on the lesson or variations of them, links to exercise pages, or creative challenges for you to work out.
Every lesson has a Q&A section for questions where content is confusing or abstract - see Site Conventions#Q/A. These can be asked and answered by anybody.
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.
While most of the site is text, I also use tables, graphics/images, sound clips, tablature, scale maps, and chord charts to help explain things. I have attempted to limit the width or horizontal space that these consume in order to maximize readability across platforms. Still, smartphones using a portrait orientation are likely to have troubles on some pages. Try switching to landscape where necessary.
Tablature
Musical notation is not text friendly, so I will use tablature in this form:
C <-- Chord Name
E------0------------------------- <-- thinnest string
B------1--------------------0--1- <-- 2nd thinnest
G------0--------------0--2------- <-- 3rd thinnest
D------2-----0--2--3------------- <-- 3rd thickest
A------3--3---------------------- <-- 2nd thickest
E-------------------------------- <-- thickest string
^ C D E F G A B C <-- note names
tuning
<-- time, sequence of notes -->
The horizontal lines represent the guitar strings, as though you are laying the guitar on your lap, face-up. The thinnest, highest-pitched strings appear above the thicker 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 on the strings indicate to pick that string while fretting the indicated fret number (more in Basic Technique). 0 means don't fret any notes - pick the open string. You read tablature from left to right, playing the indicated notes in sequence, just like how you read words in a book. When multiple notes appear in the same column (ie. they are vertically aligned), you play them all simultaneously. In the above example, you would strum the 5-note open C major chord, then play the C major scale one note at a time moving from the lowest note to the highest. Here's the exact order of everything you would play:
- 5-note open C major chord
- C note on 5th string, 3rd fret
- D note on 4th string, open
- E note on 4th string, 2nd fret
- F note on 4th string, 3rd fret
- G note on 3rd string, open
- A note on 3rd string, 2nd fret
- B note on 2nd string, open
- C note on 2nd string, 1st fret
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.
For more detail on tablature, including how more advanced techniques are represented, please see the Reading Tab Reference page.
Chord Charts
Chord charts are used to display shapes or voicings for certain chords, as well as finger patterns. These are similar to tab with horizontal strings; however, there are also vertical fret markers. Double vertical bars indicate the nut. This should visually appear like a group of adjacent frets for any particular position on the fretboard. On the left, I occasionally display the note names.
With Explanatory Text Normal Appearance
C <-- chord name C
--> E o|-|-|-| <-- thinnest string E o|-|-|-|
notes --> C ||i|-|-| <-- 2nd thinnest string C ||i|-|-|
being --> G o|-|-|-| <-- 3rd thinnest string G o|-|-|-|
played --> E ||-|m|-| <-- 3rd thickest string E ||-|m|-|
--> C ||-|-|r| <-- 2nd thickest string C ||-|-|r|
||-|-|-| <-- thickest string ||-|-|-|
^ ^ ^ ^
| | | |
nut frets
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. Another advantage of keeping consistent dimensions is that we can see exactly how chord shapes and scales intersect.
Chord charts indicate only one note per string, which is necessary for the marked notes to be played simultaneously. They are commonly marked with letters (o, i, m, r, p, t) to indicate how to finger each note.
- t - thumb
- i - index
- m - middle
- r - ring
- p - pinky
- o - open
Fret Maps
I also use scale maps (or fretboard maps), which display all the notes for a particular scale for some position. Again, strings are horizontal and frets are vertical, similar to tab.
|o|o|-|o|-| <-- thinnest string |o|x|-|o|-| <-- 2nd thinnest string |o|-|o|-|*| <-- 3rd thinnest string |o|-|o|o|-| <-- 3rd thickest string |o|-|o|x|-| <-- 2nd thickest string |o|o|-|o|-| <-- thickest string ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ | | | | | | frets
A fret number indicating position may or may not be present under the map, which would indicate a specific key. Since fretboard maps 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.
The o 's represent frets on that string that are part of whatever scale is being illustrated. The x 's are root notes for the given scale. The * 's indicate something special explained below, but most often refer to a doubled note between the 2nd and 3rd strings that can technically be played in either location but is preferred to be played in the other position (ie - ignore the *'s). These maps are a more compact way than tab to demonstrate the fretboard pattern of a particular scale.
Sometimes, I'll use (R, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7) to mark the scale degree of each note in the pattern.
For more, see Ref: Reading Chord Charts, Scale Maps, and Strumming Notation.
Breadcrumbs
I like to use breadcrumbs like these for easy navigation:
See more about breadcrumbs on the Site_Conventions page.