the BEGINNERS GUIDE TO GUITAR MASTERY THE 15 STEPS TO CREATING your own music on the guitar INDEX Page Number Contents 1 About this book and why we made it 2 Our philosophy and community 3 Guitar Construction 4 Strings and string names 5 Open position notes 6 Open chords 7 Strumming 8 Tablature and notation 9 Riffs 10 Barre chords 11 Power chords 12 Pentatonic scales 13 Arpeggios 14 Major scale formula 15 String effects 16 Octaves 17 Alternate tuning 18 What now? 19 About us ABOUT THIS BOOK Hey there reader, and guitar player! We have created this learning resource in an attempt to help people accelerate their journey of understanding the guitar, and inspire them to start creating their own music. A lot of people when wanting to start playing guitar will go straight to Youtube, learn ran- dom songs here and there, but the information you are consuming is really scattered and has no building of structure. This makes it harder for you to remember, much longer to improve, and when you don’t feel like you’re improving you’re going to lose motivation real quick. Think of this book as a blueprint of what you need to learn, and the order you should learn it in, so you can start wailing on the guitar and creating your own music as quickly as possible. WHY WE MADE IT We are committed to teaching people not only the technical aspects of playing this amazing instrument, but also to helping people understand, interpret, and celebrate this phenome- non we call music. Besides being a lot of fun, playing and practicing music can bring a lot of positive health benefits to your life too. Playing music has been proven to have many cognitive benefits like reducing cortisol levels making us less stressed, and constantly stimulating the mind making us sharper for much longer into our older years. We believe that playing the guitar, or any instrument for that matter, is a life long learning experience which should be accessible and promoted to everyone. We are truely appreciative of music and hope to help people all over the world find and cultivate this appreciation too. 1 OUR TEACHING PHILOSOPHY When it comes to teaching, our goal is to get you playing and creating your own music as quickly as possible. We do this by building a strong foundation of skills and knowledge using what’s called the 80/20 rule. The 80/20 rule, or pareto’s law which it’s often called, is a rule that states that when it comes to comparing our input to output, there is always a large imbalance. The 80/20 is a numerical representation of this imbalance - 20% of what you give will bring you 80% of you results. We tend to believe that the return and rewards we get from something is dependent on how much we put into it. Fact is, a lot of your input will have very little significance compared to other more impactful things you could be focusing more attention on. Some examples of the 8020 rule can be found... • Doing business, 80% of your sales are made by 20% of you sales team • In relationships we tend to spend 80% of our time with 20% of our friends • Even with how we dress, we tend to wear 20% of our clothes 80% of the time This rule is also true when it comes to learning and playing the guitar, 20% of guitar skills and knowledge are used 80%, if not more of the time! This book is designed to highlight what we consider to be the most essential 20% of guitar skills and theory that will get you playing and creating music as quickly as possible. JOIN OUR COMMUNITY To help connect guitar learners and players all over the world, we have created a Facebook community, inviting everyone who has downloaded this Ebook to join and contribute. Just click on the icon below to join, and feel free to ask question, share with everyone your progress, and we would also love to get feedback and suggestions on how to improve our resources, and help the community grow. JOIN OUR COMMUNITY 2 THE BEGINNERS GUIDE TO GUITAR MASTERY GUITAR CONSTRUCTION WHAT IT IS Guitar construction is understanding the different types of guitars, all the pieces of each guitar, and a general understanding of what each piece does. Throughout your learning your vocabulary will grow, but you will want to get the basics down from the beginning. This will help for further explanations. Ac�u�t�c Gu�t�r THE BASICS El�c�r�c Gu�t�r Head Tuning Keys The 3 main types of guitars Nut you will come across are: Neck Frets 1. Steel string acoustic Fingerboard 2. Steel string electric Position Markers 3. Nylon string classical Body Pick Guard Soundhole Pickups Pickup Selector Saddle Volume/Tone Controls Vibrato Bar/Whammy Bar Bridge Output Jack TIPS AND TRICKS As you will notice, there are a lot of extra features on the electric guitar. The best way to deepen your understanding of what all of these do is through trial and error. The most important thing for now is to understand the most essential vocabulary you need to know for tuning, changing strings, the fingerboard/fretboard and individual frets. 3 THE BEGINNERS GUIDE TO GUITAR MASTERY STRINGS AND STRING NAMES WHAT IT IS The guitar is a 6 string instrument. We can refer to these strings by using numbers (1 - 6 from bottom thinnest string up), or letters based on their tuning. When we use letters to name the strings, we refer to the musical note which that string is tuned to. The most common way to tune a guitar is called Standard Tuning. Standard Tuning: E - B - G - D - A - E THE BASICS When the guitar is sitting on your lap EADGBE in the playing position, the bottom 654321 thinnest string is string 1, and the top thickest string is string 6. Note: For now you will only need to know about standard tuning. We will mention alternate tuning later in this S�A�D�R� T�N�N� book. String 1 - E (Thinnest) String 2 - B String 3 - G String 4 - D String 5 - A String 6 - E (Thickest) TIPS AND TRICKS The string names and their numbers is an essential to learn and memorise. This is going to be the main way to communicate chord positions, scales, and help visualise the guitar neck. An easy way to remember is using this 6 word sentence: Easter Bunny Gets Drunk At Easter String 1 String 2 String 3 String 4 String 5 String 6 4 THE BEGINNERS GUIDE TO GUITAR MASTERY OPEN POSITION NOTES WHAT IT IS The open position notes are all of the natural notes (A,B,C,D,E,F,G) on the first 3 frets of the guitar neck. A whole note means that the note isn’t a sharp(#) or flat(b). If you can memorise all of these notes, just on the first 3 frets, it will work as a really strong foundation for accelerating your understanding. By memorising these notes and positions you will quickly familiarise yourself with the musical alphabet, and it will be a huge help when it comes to memorising the rest of guitar neck. THE BASICS Here are all the open position notes on the first 3 frets. The first vertical line of notes (E,A,D,G,B,E) is the tuning of the guitar so we play them all just as open notes (play the string without your finger pressing down on the string). TIPS AND TRICKS Try playing through all these notes, but using your first finger (index finger) for fret 1, your second finger (middle finger) for fret 2, and your third finger (ring finger) for fret 3. This way you will be training your fingers to play scales, which you will learn more about later. The best way to memorise these notes, and practice your finger movements is to play through them ascending (string 1 - 6), then descending (string 6 - 1). 5 THE BEGINNERS GUIDE TO GUITAR MASTERY OPEN CHORDS WHAT IT IS A chord is the combination of generally 3 notes played at the same time. Chord progressions (a series of chords played together) are what creates the harmonic foundation of a song, and in a band would be played by the rythym guitarist. Open chords are the chord shapes which we can play using notes in the first 3 frets, mixed with open string notes. If you can learn a handful of open chords, you will be able to play hun- dreds of popular songs. A lot of people who play the guitar will learn enough of these open chords and pick up a few songs, then stop learning there. It feels really great, and is a huge win when you start playing songs with open chords, but trust us, there are so many even better benefits when you keep progressing THE BASICS The best way to learn and memorise these chord positions is to understand how to read chord diagrams. Here is an example of some common open chords explained with chord diagrams. X O O X O O X X O 1 1 1 2 3 2 2 3 3 a minor c major d Minor TIPS AND TRICKS Hot Tip: keep fingers on their tips and try to not mute other strings with flat fingers. Important: if your fingers haven’t started hurting yet, when learning the open chords they definitely will.