Playing in G

Ok guys! Here's your first lesson. Now, we'll get into chord theory and keys later, but right now I don't wanna bog you down. We're gonna start nice and easy, playing a standard riff in the key of G. I'll explain what that means soon, but for right now just learn these chords:


G major



C major



D major

Now when you play these chords, you want to push firmly on the strings, using enough force to have the note play nicely, not buzz. Try and use your fingers only to generate the power to push, but if you need to (such as when playing barre chords, which we'll get to later) use your wrist to help with leverage. Try not to though. Now, once you can play these chords, we need to practice playing them in a "chord progression". To put it simply, a chord progression is a series of chords that you play. For today, we'll play G C D C, a very common progression. We'll play at around 120 beats per minute, or bpm. To achieve this, tap your foot twice for every second that passes. To make this easy to understand, tap your foot on every bold section in the count One Mississippi. That, or you can use a metronome. I hope to have one on the page as a sidebar widget shortly. Now, with your foot tapping (or the metronome clicking), count the taps. One, two, three, four, one, two, three, four. On every one, play a chord. It would go like this: G 2 3 4, C 2 3 4, D 2 3 4, C 2 3 4. If you need to, slow down the tempo until you can play it, then keep pushing yourself faster and faster until you reach the target speed. This is key to playing later on, so make use of this learning technique now. When you have this mastered, try playing on the one and three of every count. Try playing on all four.

In our next lesson, we'll learn a basic strumming pattern, look closer at what a chord progression is, and build upon this basic progression in G. See you soon!