This hour long lesson is aimed at helping the beginning guitar student get started off on the right foot by covering all the fundamentals of the electric guitar. By the end of this hour lesson, you're going to know your instrument, and you're going to be making music ... guaranteed!
Chapter 1: Understanding the Guitar
The first thing any beginner must do is understand the physical parts of the guitar and how they work. Sometimes, all these various parts and electronics can be a little confusing for a beginner, so it’s important that we make you comfortable with the electric guitar and all its functions. I’ll explain things like the pickups, selector switch, controls, bridge, frets, and any other important physical elements of the guitar.
Chapter 2: Strings and Basic Chords
In this chapter, we will learn about the strings, how to tune them, and how to form basic chord positions. I'll show you how many strings you should play for each different chord, and will even address left hand dampening of the strings as a means of playing some of the chords more cleanly. I'll also take a look at how to properly hold the pick.
Chapter 3: Chords, Chords, Chords
Chord shortcuts is the main focus of this chapter. I'll also take a look at important building blocks like power chords, partial barre chords, and even a few blues shuffles.
Chapter 4: Scales, Picking, and Strumming
This chapter features a great introduction to basic scales, and various picking styles to help you along. Included in this lesson are up and down “alternate” picking techniques, as well as the more aggressive “all down” picking styles. I'll also demonstrate some basic strums and how to relax the wrist of the picking hand, as well as learning to make the right hand the “drummer” of this one-man band!
Chapter 5: Hammer-ons, Pull-offs, and Slides
The final chapter of this beginning lesson takes a look at the more “vocal” techniques of the guitar, such as hammer-ons, pull-offs, and slides. I'll also show you how to put all of these into action as part of scales, licks and rhythmic strums.
When you're all done, you're going to walk away with basic knowledge about the following key components of beginning electric guitar:
- The parts of the electric guitar
- Learning the strings
- Tuning up properly
- Basic chord positions
- Shortcut chord positions, such as partial barres and power chords
- Left-hand dampening
- Basic blues shuffles
- Alternate up-down picking as well as all-downstroke picking
- Making the right hand the “drummer”
- Hammer-ons, pull-offs, and slides