Guitar Fundamentals Course 2
This course is designed to directly follow Guitar Fundamentals 1. It builds on the skills and concepts required to learn guitar from the beginning. You will learn basic picking techniques, more about chords, and other next-step topics.
Chapter: 1: More Right Hand Tricks
In this chapter you will learn simple examples of picking hand techniques like finger picking, arpeggiation and more guitar strumming patterns. You will get a lot of practice playing these techniques along with beginner song examples.
Recommended Songs
Now that you know even more chords, try these new songs: You Can't Always Get What You Want (Made Easy), You Shook Me All Night Long (Made Easy). And by adding a capo, you can play even more songs without needing to learn extra chords: Man Of Constant Sorrow (Made Easy), Wide Open Spaces (Made Easy), Kiss From A Rose (Made Easy).Whenever you play a chord with all six strings it sounds nice and full, which is great. But you can also get some really cool results out of separating the low strings from the high strings. This concept can ultimately get incredibly advanced and super cool, and even here in its most early stages it's extremely useful and fun to explore.
Published: 11/29/2021In this tutorial we’ll explore all the great sounds you can get when you take any of our open chords and play the notes of that chord one at a time. The technical term for a chord, where the notes are played one at a time is arpeggio and when we use it as a verb we call it arpeggiation or to arpeggiate. It's an extremely common technique on both acoustic and electric guitar, and it's a wonderful sound.
Published: 11/29/2021Up until now we've used a very simple eighth note based strumming pattern, and I hope you've seen how incredibly useful and fun that pattern can be. Now we'll breakdown and practice another simple strumming pattern, that's only slightly more involved and even more useful.
Published: 11/29/2021One of the most beloved sounds on the guitar is the sound of finger picking. It sounds great on both electric and acoustic guitar, and it can be used to play an infinite number of songs. It can also be used for solo guitar playing and instrumental arrangements, and it's just a wonderful sound overall.
Published: 11/29/2021In this tutorial we'll break down and play through a song with multiple sections that uses most of the new picking hand techniques we've explored in this chapter. This is a song that was written specifically for this tutorial, but you can take this approach with any song you already know or that you learn down the road. If you know what the chords are, then try to make it work as a finger picking song or with the new strumming pattern or the arpeggiation.
Published: 11/29/2021Chapter: 2: More Chords
In this chapter you will learn common ways to embellish open chords, dominant 7th and major 7ths versions of basic open chords. Also included is the basic concept of chord progressions in a key signature. You will get a lot of practice playing these chords and progressions along with beginner song examples.
Recommended Songs
Now that you know your dominant chords, try these songs: Honkey Tonk Woman (Made Easy), (I Can't Get No) Satisfaction (Made Easy), Highway To Hell, T-Bone Shuffle, Walkin' After Midnight (Made Easy).In this tutorial we'll look at some super cool and useful embellishments that you can add to your basic open chords. Think of the open chords as the cake and the embellishments as adding icing or decoration. We'll go through some of the most common examples of open chord embellishments
Published: 11/29/2021In this tutorial we'll explore a whole new type of chord called a 7 chord or with the proper term it's called a dominant 7th chord. These chords have a cool bluesy tension to them, but they're used in all styles of music. Any chord can be turned into a dominant 7th chord, and in this tutorial we'll explore some of the most common examples
Published: 11/29/2021In this tutorial we'll explore another type of chord called a major 7 chord. Even though this chord also has the number 7 in its name, the sound of it is drastically different from the bluesy dominant 7 chords we explored in the previous tutorial. Major 7 chords don't have any bluesy tension, but more of an emotionally ambiguous rainy day vibe.
Published: 11/29/2021In this tutorial we'll explore all the great and very colorful sounds you can get from letting certain open strings stay open and ringing, while moving fretted chord shapes around on the neck. Not only will this unlock a new and useful sound for you, it's also a great exercise in thinking more horizontally on the guitar.
Published: 11/29/2021In this tutorial we'll breakdown, practice and play through a song that uses all of our new chords and sounds that we've explored in this chapter. This song will follow our usual roadmap starting out with an intro, then a verse and a chorus. Then the verse and the chorus repeat and finally we reuse in the intro for the outro.
Published: 11/29/2021Chapter: 3: More Melodies
In this chapter you will learn the blues scale and common ways to use the major scale to play melodies. Also included is how to combine scales with chords. You will get a lot of practice playing these scales and chords along with beginner song examples.
In Guitar Fundamentals 1 you learned the minor pentatonic scale, and we tried a very basic example of what's called improvisation, where you simply make it up as you go. Now we'll add two notes to our minor pentatonic scale pattern, which will give us a lot of cool, bluesy tension to play around with when we improvise. When we add these two notes to the pattern, we call it the blues scale.
Published: 11/29/2021In this tutorial we'll explore the C major scale you already know, but from a whole different angle. Now we'll play it horizontally on one string. This opens up our understanding of the fretboard to see how to construct a major scale with the major scale formula.
Published: 11/29/2021In this tutorial we'll learn the open position of the C major scale. On top of giving us a fun and bluegrass sound, this open position major scale will also, ultimately enable you to switch seamlessly between the melody notes in our scale pattern and our classic open chords. This is the key ingredient in playing melodies and chords at the same time.
Published: 11/29/2021In the previous tutorial we learned where to find all the C major notes in the open position. Many of these notes are the same notes we use for our basic open chords. In this tutorial we'll explore the relationship between those scale notes and open chords.
Published: 11/29/2021In this tutorial we'll learn an original instrumental song that uses all of our cool new chord and melody techniques. This song will work well on both acoustic and electric and if you learn it well it'll be a perfect piece to try performing for someone in your life.
Published: 11/29/2021Chapter: 4: Rhythm Guitar
In this chapter you will learn more about rhythm. Included is making riffs with power chords and scales, rhythmic anticipations, playing 3/4 time and playing in a triplet swing rhythm. You will get a lot of practice playing these rhythmic concepts along with beginner song examples.
Recommended Songs
Now that you've completed Chapter 4, try these songs: Bright Lights, Big City (Made Easy), Sweet Home Chicago (Made Easy), Wide Open Road, Runaway Train (Made Easy).In this tutorial we'll explore more of the great sounds you can create with the basic two note power chords we first explored in Guitar Fundamentals 1. We'll use power chords to play riffs, which is a ton of fun, and these examples will work well on both electric and acoustic guitar.
Published: 11/29/2021Many songs use a rhythmic technique called anticipation, when the chords don't change on the first or third beat of the bar, but instead they fall on one of the upbeat eighth notes in between the quarter notes. We count these as ‘and’ in between the quarter notes. This is a very powerful and super common sound, but it can be quite tricky to learn at first. So in this tutorial we'll go through it one step a time and look at some of the most common examples of anticipations.
Published: 11/29/2021In this tutorial we'll explore some more riffs because why wouldn't we?! Playing riffs is one of the most rewarding things on both electric and acoustic guitar, and coming up with riffs is one of the best ways to internalize all the new tricks and techniques you learn along the way.
Published: 11/29/2021In this tutorial we'll explore all the classic sounds you can get from counting 3 beats in every bar, instead of 4 like we've done up till now. This gives you what is called a waltz rhythmic feel, and I have no doubt you'll recognize the sound of it. Of course that means our usual strumming pattern won't work the same way, so in these lessons we'll cover how to strum in what's called 3/4 time.
Published: 11/29/2021In this tutorial we'll explore how to play with a swing feel. You'll most definitely recognize this sound, and it's surprisingly easy to create. As always we'll start out by looking at the mechanics of the swing feel and then immediately after that we'll put it to use in some fun musical examples. And by the end of this tutorial, we'll use it in a song
Published: 11/29/2021We've gone through a lot of new material in this chapter, so in this tutorial we'll combine as many of the new elements as possible into a fun practice song. As always we'll have an intro that sets up the mood for our song, then our steady verse cruising down the highway, our exciting and climactic chorus, then another verse and chorus. Finally we'll reuse the intro as an outro to end the song.
Published: 11/29/2021Chapter: 5: Barre Chords With and Without The Barre
In this chapter you will learn how to play a variety of barre chords shapes. Also included is common beginner workarounds for barre chords. You will get a lot of practice playing these chords along with beginner song examples.
Recommended Songs
Here are some more songs to try out now that you've learned a ton of chords, riffs and melodies: Please Mr. Postman, Wild Horses (Made Easy), My Immortal (Made Easy), When Will I Be Loved (Made Easy).In this tutorial, we'll take the first exciting baby steps towards the mountain top of barre chords. Throughout this chapter you'll become acquainted with some of the most common barre chord shapes and you will learn some simpler versions that don't actually require any barring.
Published: 11/29/2021In this tutorial we'll explore another classic barre chord shape based on the open A minor chord. You’ll learn how to use this chord shape without actually having to barre. This chord shape is a minor chord, and you'll see that it's incredibly useful for you to have a minor chord shape that you can move around freely to play all your sharp and flat chords.
Published: 11/29/2021In this tutorial we'll continue our barre chord introduction by adding another classic shape to the mix. This chord shape is an A major chord, and once again we'll strip it down to a voicing that you can move around freely without actually having to barre. You already know the E major shape, and by adding the A major shaped barre chord to the mix you'll have access to pretty much any major chord that you ever need.
Published: 11/29/2021In this tutorial we'll learn a practice song making use of the three barre chord shapes we've explored in this chapter.
Published: 11/29/2021Chapter: 6: Playing And Singing
In this chapter you will learn the basics of playing guitar and singing at the same time. Also included is four songs to learn and practice along with.
In this tutorial we'll learn the classic bluegrass song 'Will The Circle Be Unbroken', but we'll come at it with a less traditional approach. You will learn how to play the songs in order to accompany yourself singing.
Published: 11/29/2021In this tutorial we'll continue our exploration of playing and singing at the same time with an original song called 'Tomorrow'.
Published: 11/29/2021In this tutorial we'll explore another song that I wrote specifically for you to practice playing and singing, very appropriately called ‘Nothing In My Way’.
Published: 11/29/2021In this tutorial we’ll explore one last song for this topic of playing and singing, a song I wrote and actually released myself called ‘Wrote You A Song’.
Published: 11/29/2021Chapter: 7: Where To Go From Here
In this chapter you will learn the possible paths to follow after you complete the Guitar Fundamentals courses. Included is information on the various musical style courses available to follow: Acoustic, Blues, Rock, Country. This chapter will serve to help them make an informed and inspired decision for where to go next.
In this tutorial we'll explore a fun practice tune with a strong country vibe and see how that feels under your fingers.
Published: 11/29/2021In this tutorial we'll play through an example of something you might find in the acoustic course to give you an idea of what that feels like under your fingers.
Published: 11/29/2021In this final tutorial we'll break down an example of a rock style sound.
Published: 11/29/2021Frequently Asked Questions
Definitely! With so many online resources like Guitar Tricks, teaching yourself guitar is totally doable. Just stay consistent and patient with your practice.
It varies, but you can start playing simple songs in a few months. Becoming proficient usually takes about a year of regular practice.
Start with the basics: learn simple chords, strumming patterns, and easy songs. Online guitar lessons or beginner apps like Guitar Tricks can guide you through this step-by-step.
You won’t become a rockstar in 10 days, but you can definitely learn some basic chords and simple songs. It’s a great start to get you hooked!
Practicing an hour a day is fantastic! It’s enough time to make steady progress without overwhelming yourself.
Two hours a day is more than enough to see significant improvement. Just remember to take breaks to avoid burnout and injury.
As a beginner, aim for at least 20-30 minutes of focused practice each day. Consistency is key to building your skills.
You can start sounding pretty decent within a few months if you practice regularly. The more you practice, the better and more confident you’ll sound!