How To Play Guitar

To start learning how to play the guitar, before you even strum your first chord, you need to know your instrument. A guitar has several essential parts: the headstock (where the tuning pegs are located), the neck (with the fretboard on top), the body (where the sound resonates), and the strings (usually six of them, though there are variations).

Understanding these parts isn’t just for show; it helps you figure out what goes where and why it matters. You’ll understand what notes are the guitar strings (Low E, A, D, G, B, High E) and by understanding the parts of your guitar you can learn other practical things like how to change guitar strings. Here’s a very basic overview of how it all works:

• The strings are inserted into the bridge and stretched over the sound hole towards the headstock, across the length of the fretboard and through the tuning pegs.
• The tuning pegs are then turned to bring the strings to tension. This dials in the pitch of the strings; how to tune a guitar.
• Set the guitar upright, resting on your thigh, across your belly with the neck pointing to the left of you.
• With your right hand, strum the strings across the sound hole.
• Use your left hand to finger chords and melodies.

It’s also important to set your guitar up correctly. This means having a professional ensure that the intonation (tuning throughout the length of the guitar) and the action (the strings are too high or too low) is all correct. If these are off, the guitar might not stay in tune no matter what, and physically playing the guitar might be harder than needed. These things can be very discouraging while you’re trying to learn how to play. Take the time to get a proper setup by taking your guitar to a professional instrument repair shop. A luthier is an expert in guitar maintenance and repair and will be able to dial in your axe.

On the surface, this may seem trivial. But the guitar is a physical tool that needs to be handled correctly, which will help you learn more quickly. This can be a very important aspect of your beginner guitar lessons.

The key to knowing how to hold a guitar is good posture. This will make a big difference in your playing. You shouldn’t have to hunch over or strain your arms to reach the strings. Your hands and arms should be able to reach the sound hole and the lowest frets on the neck with ease.

If you’re looking to stand while playing, make sure your guitar strap is adjusted so you are fitting the guitar’s position to your physique; don’t adjust your posture or handling to fit the guitar.

Typically you’ll begin learning how to play guitar with a guitar pick for strumming notes and chords. Here’s how to hold a guitar pick Hold the pick between your thumb and index finger with pressure, but not stiff. This could lead to strain.

Once you’re in position, strum all the strings “open;” no strings pressed down on the fretboard or muted. This is the natural sound of the guitar. Place your finger on the fretboard between 2 frets and press down gently but firm. Use your pick to pluck the corresponding string. Try playing each note clearly without any extra buzzing noises or muted notes.

The best place to start for anyone learning how to play on the guitar for beginners is with chords. Basic open chords are the building blocks of all modern music. Once you know just a few of these guitar chords you’ll be able to play hundreds of songs. Here are the basic open chords you should learn first:

Knowing how to play chords on guitar will not only take you far in your learning but will be super fun as well! This is key, since learning how to play guitar can be difficult, even frustrating at times. Finding ways to have fun while learning will keep you motivated. Practice transitioning from one chord to another slowly. At this point it doesn’t matter what order. The point is to get these shapes in your hands and in your head. Additionally, this will be a great way to start building calluses on your fingers. Looking how to play A on guitar? Or how to play B minor on guitar? This chord chart above makes it super easy!

Start with downstrokes, strumming each chord four times, then switching to the next chord. It’s okay if it’s a bit clunky at first—everyone starts here. You might find that some chord chapes are easier than others (I’m looking at you, B major) so stick with what’s working and gradually add new shapes to your practice.

Learning easy guitar songs right away may seem a bit ambitious, but it’s one of the best ways to keep yourself motivated. Choose a simple 3 chord song to get started.Starting with simple songs like these is great because you can focus less on chords, notes or theory so you can focus on the song itself and having fun!

Playing a real song will not only make practicing more fun but also help you understand how chords fit together in a musical context, which will help solidify your understanding of how to play guitar chords in general. Guitar can be a bit strange when learning it in isolation. Adding musical context to your practice is the best way to learn how to play guitar since it will give you an understanding on how various aspects of music, and the guitar itself, all work together. Learning songs early on will boost your confidence and solidify the foundational skills that you're developing.

Pro Tip: Keep a journal of the songs you know/are learning. This will help keep you motivated – look at all the songs you know how to play! Guitar Tricks has a great section of ‘Made Easy’ songs you will be able to pick up right away knowing only basic chords. This is a great place to start. Here’s a list of famous songs ‘Made Easy:’

“Let It Be” – The Beatles
“Smoke On The Water” – Deep Purple
“Sweet Home Chicago” – Eric Clapton
“Honky Tonk Woman” – The Rolling Stones
“Perfect” – Ed Sheeran
“Hey Joe” – Jimi Hendrix
“Highway To Hell” – AC/DC
“My Immortal” - Evanescence

To round out your basic understanding of how to play guitar you’ll need to know these two scales – the Pentatonic Scale and the Blues Scale. Firstly, the Pentatonic Scale is so widely used in guitar playing that, if you don’t take some time to learn it, you’ll be seriously lacking in your guitar skills. And it’s only 5 notes! Here’s the #1 scale you need to start practicing right now:

A Minor Pentatonic Scale

What is the pentatonic scale? Let’s break this down a bit more so we can understand how it all works. Take your standard A Minor Scale and let’s look at these notes in context of scale degrees:

A Minor Degrees: 1, 2, b3, 4, 5, b6, b7

A Minor Notes: A, B, C, D, E, F, G

To build a Pentatonic Scale, simply use the five scale degrees: 1, b3, 4, 5, b7 - A, C, D, E, G. Now you can take that scale degree formula and insert it over any starting note, which will allow you to play the Pentatonic Scale in different keys. We’ll get into this more later when we talk about soloing.

The Pentatonic scale is the most-used scale in any style of guitar playing. It can be used in Rock, Country, Blues, Hip-Hop, Pop and basically any other modern style. The best part about the scale is, when played on its own, it already sounds musical.

You can get through a lot of musical situations knowing this one scale. But let’s take it a step further. When we add one note to the scale, we get the Blues Scale:

A Blues Scale

Let’s break this down a bit more so we can understand how it all works. To build a Blues Scale on guitar, simply add a flat 5th scale degree to the Pentatonic Scale pattern between the 4th and 5th degrees:

Blues Scale Degrees: 1, b3, 4, b5, 5, b7

Blues Scale Notes: A, C, D, Eb, E, G

By adding the flat 5th scale degree (b5) we get the Blues Scale. As you can probably hear, this added note creates a “Blusier” vibe; it adds a bit of tension and color to the Pentatonic Scale. The Blues Scale is the other most widely used scale in all guitar. Though it tends to be primarily used when playing Bules or Rock music.

That added b5 scale degree makes this scale a bit more specific and slightly less ubiquitous.

Understanding guitar scales isn’t something you can fake. Take the time to practice these. Scales are what allow guitarists to “play what they feel.” This is where the guitar language comes in; if you know words (scale notes), you can string together phrases and actually say something in your guitar playing.

With everything you’ve learned so far, now is a great time to develop a simple practice plan. Keeping a plan and a practice routine will do a lot for you in terms of developing your skills quickly. The key with a guitar practice routine is consistency.You’ll get a ton more from your guitar learning if you practice a little bit every day rather than doing mega-practice sessions only on the weekends.

Here’s an effective practice plan based on what we’ve already covered:

• 10 min – Chords. Go over chords you already know, and work on chords you don’t yet have down. Don’t worry about learning every chord right away. Focus on one at a time, if needed. Work on correctly fingering each chord before you strum the strings. Take your time. Once you have your fingerings down, grab a metronome and work on playing/switching chords in rhythm. Set the metronome to 90bpm, then play 4 or 8 clicks/beats on one chord, then switch to another chord, in time. Focus on making those transitions as smooth as possible.
• 15 min – Songs. Keep a piece of paper or a notebook of the songs you already know, the songs you are currently working on, and the songs you’d like to tackle. Learning songs will also help you learn chords at the same time. Most modern songs can be played with just 3 chords, so you’ll be able to play hit songs from early on.
• 5min – Scales. Eat your veggies! Doing regular scale practice, with a metronome, will broaden your understanding of how the guitar works. Don’t skip this step, because it will make everything easier as you get into more advanced techniques.

For this practice routine, try setting an alarm on your phone for the time limit described above, then turn your phone face down and simply practice the technique. I bet you’ll want to keep going beyond the time for these sections once you get rolling. A key element to learning how to play guitar will be to utilize a metronome, always. I want to emphasize metronome usage at this early stage in the learning process. Learning to play alongside a metronome and keep the beat is crucial to being able to play guitar.

Pro Tip: Set a goal. With a goal in mind, your guitar practice will always have purpose and your continued learning will have direction. This will keep you motivated. Simple is best when it comes to goal setting. Maybe you want to be able to switch between all open chords smoothly at a high speed (metronome bpm). Your goal could be to learn a new song every week. Or maybe your goal is to learn how to hold a guitar, finger a chord, and strum the notes cleanly. No matter what your goal is or what level you’re at, you’ll learn how to play guitar more efficiently if you have something you are working toward.

There are always new chords to learn. Aside from open chords, the other most important chords to understand are power chords and barre chords. The best part about these chord shapes is that they can easily be moved around the fretboard. Power chords are quintessential for rock, especially punk or grunge. They are simple to finger and make a huge sound since you are repeating the root note at an octave. They sound massive, therefore powerful! Here’s a basic power chord chart; you should know how to play these guitar chords:

What are barre chords? Barre chords are a bit more difficult since they require you to barre a finger across multiple strings to make the full shape. But barre chords allow for more harmony; they include the 3^rd along with the doubled-root note and 5^th scale degrees. By including more harmony than a power chord (scale degree notes) you are positioned to make more colorful chords later on. From the barre chord shape you can create 7^th chords, augmented or diminished chords, sus chords and more. Here’s a chord chart showing how to play barre chords:

Understanding these two chord types will take your guitar knowledge to the next level. Not only will you know a new chord shape that can be moved all over the place, you’ll be ready to tackle any other more advanced chords down the line. These two chord types are important to understanding how to play guitar.

Guitar tabs are a simplified notation for guitarists focused on fret numbers and strings instead of standard musical notation and theory. A lot of beginner guitar lessons are written in tab instead of musical notation, so understanding tablature will take you far when learning how to play guitar. Chords can be written as tablature, so can melodies and soloing riffs. By understanding how to read guitar tabs you’ll give yourself an advantage in learning how to play guitar. There are a lot of different symbols to understand, especially when you start reading more complex solos in guitar tab form. But more often than not you’ll simply be reading guitar chords and straightforward melodies in tablature. Here’s a handful of common guitar tab symbols you are bound to run across and their definitions:

Each lesson and tutorial on Guitar Tricks comes with standard music notation and guitar tabs. So there are always multiple ways to understand different guitar techniques and concepts. Sometimes, if you aren’t fully understanding an idea, check out the tabs. It may help connect some dots for you!

Most likely you started learning how to play guitar because you saw yourself on stage in front of thousands of screaming fans, taking one of the greatest guitar solos of all time, with lights and pyrotechnics going crazy all around you. We love that dream for you! The first step to getting to legend status is learning some guitar licks. By learning some real-world guitar soloing riffs that true guitar players play, you’ll have phrases and language under your fingers that others will be able to understand.

The best way to start with this is to “transcribe” your favorite guitar solos. In other words, learn the licks by listening and copying what you hear. This way you will get the experience of playing killer licks from the legends themselves. Work not only on the specific notes, but the phrasing and the expression. Pay special attention to how the lick is played.

This is another place where you can utilize a practice journal. As you add more licks to your arsenal, you’ll better know how guitarists form solos, and more importantly you’ll develop better questions to ask yourself when working out new soloing ideas.

Check out the video above for three killer Blues guitar licks you can use right now.

Lick 1

Lick 2

Lick 3

Let’s back up and talk about something a little on the boring side: scales. Those legendary guitar solos and licks are built and created through the practice of guitar scales. The great thing is, nine times out of ten the scales used will be the Pentatonic Scale or the Blues Scale as we discussed previously. If you don’t know these scales, scroll back up in this article and hit the shed!

The next level of scales to understand are the modes. They come in some wacky sounding names like phrygian scale and mixolydian scale. But modes are where you learn the most interesting aspects of soloing. Take these scales one at a time, open up a backing track and fiddle around with them to understand the flavor of each one. It gets quite complex.

One of the most magical aspects of learning how to play guitar is the ability to use different fingers to play different notes/strings. Either at the same time or to mix them together to create cool patterns. This is known as fingerstyle guitar or guitar fingerpicking. It's a great skill for every guitarist to have in their toolkit. Once you get started with it, you'll be hooked. Even if you are only looking to rock some power chords, doing simple finger exercises on an interesting chord can be hypnotic.

Here's a basic fingerpicking pattern you can use to get a feel for what this guitar playing style is all about

You’ll have heard this pattern played by a wide range of artists from The Beatles to Bob Dylan. It provides a great rhythm that never seems to want to stop. Being able to play in this way is great for pulling out the guitar around the campfire or at the beach. Picks are easy to lose, so being able to play with only your fingers is a great skill to have.

Combining chords into progressions is how songs are made. Knowing what chords fit into a particular key is how you can create chord progressions. Understanding the Circle Of Fifths is a great way to learn how this all works. This will help you know how to play guitar on an even greater level.

The key is knowing how to decipher the Circle of Fifths on guitar. Looking at it by itself is a bit overwhelming; if you go right or clockwise you’ll be traveling across 5^th intervals, but if you move left or counter-clockwise you’ll be traveling across 4ths. There are many key signatures to understand, shared notes, and more. Let’s break it down very simply and find the most important notes in any key: the I, IV and V chords.

Here’s how the circle works: whichever key you are working from, the 6 neighboring chords are the corresponding chords for that key. For this example we’ll be in the key of C major, the root note/chord is the top note:

Going around the circle to the left, or counter-clockwise, you’ll get your IV chord, which in this example is F major:

Traveling to the right from the root, or clockwise, you’ll get your V chord, which in this example is G major:

Now you have the I, IV, and V chord! You can do this same process starting on any note on the circle.

It’s important to understand how a key is built and what chords are within a particular key. With this knowledge you’ll be able to anticipate the upcoming chords during a jam session, or if you’re filling in for another guitarist on a gig. You’ll also understand more context behind a solo; if you know what scales fit well in a particular key based on the circle of fifths, you’ll be able to easily pull licks from those scales as the chord progression plays. From here you can build your own chord progressions or even write a song. The possibilities become endless.

By now you’ve probably said to yourself, “My fingers hurt!” Don’t worry, this is normal. Developing calluses on your fingertips is by far the most challenging part of learning how to play guitar. Understanding chord shapes is one thing, not being able to press those shapes down because your fingers hurt too much is another. Building your calluses is a main reason why people stop learning how to play all together. Once you overcome this challenge, there will be nothing to stop you from learning how to play guitar at any level.

After practicing the above concepts for a few weeks you might want to broaden your horizon and see what else there is to learn. Let’s start doing that with more complicated chords. The next chord type you should get under your fingers is the 7^th chord family. A 7^th chord is created by adding a 7^th scale degree to the major or minor chord shape. Let’s start with Dominant 7th chords and Minor 7^th guitar chords.

Dominant 7^th Chords

Minor 7^th Chords

Understanding 7^th chords will allow you to play a ton more songs. They also add a lot of mood to your chord progressions. Try playing back and forth between the regular minor, minor 7 and dominant 7 chord shapes on the same chord – A minor, Amin7, A7. Practicing this way will help you understand the multiple variations on each chord. Don’t forget your metronome!

All the curriculum we’ve covered will take you through to the end of the Guitar Tricks Guitar Fundamentals Course 1. You can always double back and make sure you’ve mastered all the concepts above. But that can be stifling, not to mention a bit boring. Even if you haven’t gotten your barre chords completely clean, or if you still trip a little bit over your Pentatonic scale, it’s totally ok to keep going. It’s important to stay excited and to have fun with your practice. Sure, there will be off-days, but if you have too many off or dull days in a row you won’t want to continue picking up your axe.

At this point, look back on all the things you’ve achieved. Give yourself a pat on the back! Some super famous guitarists have made an entire career on playing a few power chords (Green Day, Nirvana). As long as what you are doing brings you joy, you’re progressing.

Remember – consistency is key. Even if you can only get the guitar in your hands 10min a day, that’s better than nothing. As with learning any skill, if it becomes a part of your regular routine, in your muscle memory and in your long-term memory, you’ll be engraving these techniques and you’ll remember them forever.

You’ve learned a lot so far! At this point you’ll know how to play guitar better than most. The key to continuing on your guitar journey is to simply be sure to pick up your guitar on a regular basis and have fun with it. Even if you don’t sit down to run scales, try to at least strum through some chords or play some of the new songs you’ve learned. It’s important to keep up your muscle memory. Learning how to play guitar is just like any skill, if you stop doing it you’ll lose some of your ability. But you don’t need to shut yourself in and bang your head against the wall. Keep your ongoing practice fun! Find a friend to strum along with. And playing along with Jam Tracks will help keep things interesting.

If you find yourself stuck, grab a Custom Lesson Plan so you can stay on track with your learning goals. Feel free to reach out the Guitar Tricks Forum for answers to all of your guitar questions from other students within the program. And while you’re at it, sign up for a FREE 14-day trial to gain access to the amazing and detailed guitar lesson content that Guitar Tricks is famous for. Learn how to play guitar today with the best online guitar lesson program on the market.