Lesson 1

Before You Start

Welcome to your first lesson. Here you're introduced to the basic elements of your left and right hand techniques, how to position your hands and how to play a note cleanly and efficiently. You can probably get a sound out of your guitar already but taking some time to get these basics under control here will reap rewards later on.

Resources

Here are your notes

Outcomes

By the end of this lesson you will know how to

  • hold a pick
  • use it effectively 
  • position your left hand
  • fret a note cleanly

The first video is about how to hold and how to use your pick. You can download the notes here.

Download the video here.

This one covers your basic hand position and how to fret a note cleanly. You can download the notes here.

Download the video here.

With that you can get a start on your first song - Spoonful. Here's the TAB

Download the video here.

Practice

So you've got the basics here of how to use your pick and how to fret a note on the fretboard. You will have already done more than this just through experimenting and playing around with your guitar, the idea now is to spend a bit of time practicing the exercises here and then go back to the playing around that you were doing before but this time you'll know how to hold your pick and you'll be starting to develop an approach with your left hand. In future lessons you'll learn more specific skills to make your movements accurate and efficient but just playing around now won't hurt so go for it.

Divide your practice session in to three and spend equal time:

  • Doing the exercises.
  • Practicing the song
  • Playing around and exploring to see what you can find.
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