How to Play Guitar Notes for Beginners

Hello everyone, this guitar lesson is about how to play your very first notes and chords.
This video assumes that you have either never played guitar or played very little. However,
I will assume that you know how to hold a guitar and how to hold a pick. If you don’t
know, or aren’t sure how to do either, check out my other video titled “How to Hold a
Guitar and Guitar Pick”. You can find the links in the description.
First let’s go over where the fingers should be positioned relative to these metallic dividers,
which are called frets. From my point of view looking down at the guitar, I want to have
my finger placed as close as possible to the right fret. I also need to press down hard
enough with my fingers so that I make a clear sound.
So for example, this is for me looking down this fret is to the right of this finger and
I just press down hard enough and pick. That's how you make a nice clear sound. You just
press down hard enough on the right fret.
The reason why you want to place your finger to the right and press down hard (at least
hard enough) is because placing the finger too far to the left will make it very hard
to press and will lead to a very unclean buzzing sound, that doesn’t sound very professional.
As you can see, I can’t get a very good sound from the string if my finger is too
far to the left. Make it a habit and try to keep your finger closer to the right fret.
It’s a subtle, but very important point. As you practice often, you will naturally
place your finger close to the right fret with the right amount of pressure.
If you still hear buzzing or no sound at all with your finger placed on the right side
(of whatever fret you are playing on, if you are getting a sound like this or still a buzzing
sound), it means you aren’t pressing down hard enough with your fingers. Squeeze until
you get a good, clear sound. You want to push it all the way down hard enough so you get
a nice clear ringing sound. It doesn't matter what fret you play on. You want to squeeze
down hard enough. If the strings are hurting the tips of your fingers, it just means you
haven’t developed callouses yet and you should be okay playing through it. You should
be okay playing through the pain. Just don’t go crazy and play until your fingers bleed.
That is NOT good for you fingers. You should never push yourself so far as to hurt yourself.
With these points in mind, let’s run through some quick improvised exercises. We’ll be
using the highest-sounding (or highest for short) two strings. I’m assuming you don’t
know how to read tabs, so I’ll show you which notes we will be playing.
I'm going to be using these two strings which are closest to the floor and we're going to
be using these notes:
This note up here on the fourth fret. You count frets by counting the metallic dividers
one, two, three, four. That's the fourth fret. Put your pinky there, put your middle finger
on the second fret (one, two) right there, and I'm placing these fingers on the highest
string (highest-sounding string). Your index finger on the first fret and those are the
three notes we'll be using. In addition to that, we will also use two notes on the string
just above it (or the second highest string) right down here. Once again, fourth and second
fret on the next string. Let me just run through that again so you understand.
Fourth fret, one, two, three, four, on the high E string (that's what this highest string
is called - the string closest to the ground), fourth fret. Second fret on that same string,
again count frets like "one, two,..." - you count dividers or the spacing between them.
It doesn't really matter. So we have the fourth fret - one, two, three, fourth fret, one,
two, second fret, first fret on the highest string, and then the fourth fret on the next
string and the second fret on that [same] next string. Now hopefully that'll make more
sense when we start playing through it, and I will give you a demo of what I'm trying
to show you here and you don't have to play with me quite yet. Just watch what I do....
As you can see I played again the fourth fret on the highest string, second fret on the
highest string, first fret on the highest string, went down and played the fourth fret
on the second highest string, and the second fret on the second highest string. If that
doesn't make sense, go back and look over my description again and try to get a good
feel for the notes that we'll be playing. Now for the exercise itself.
What I will do is I will play this very slowly - that same set of notes down and up - and
then I'll play it fast then I'll play it slow again. For all of that, I want you to do your
best to follow along with me. And again, if you need to stop and pause at some point feel
free to do so. You're always welcome to do that. Whatever it takes to help you learn
this....
Okay and normally you should be playing with a metronome but... and usually before I start
what you want when you are playing along with people is to count off beats maybe four beats
before if you are playing in 4/4 time. That's for the musicians out there.
And that's it. So just practice that and make sure you use your pinky. Try to use the same
fingering that I used - the pinky, middle finger, and index. Always get your pinky involved
in things, especially if you are spreading your fingers across or spreading your hand
across four frets you gotta get your pinky out there. You don't want to use your ring
finger. That's just awkward.
So run through that exercise again sorry for the mistake. I'm just not used to playing
that slow. But hope that makes sense. Comment with questions and follow me on twitter (@freelessons)
and I'll see you guys around. Thanks!