The 4 Skills I Recommend Beginner Guitarists Learn First

If you're just starting out playing the guitar, or you've been thinking about picking up a guitar you're probably overwhelmed by the vast magnitudes of guitar tabs, lessons, books, videos, and tools here on the Net. As a beginner it's pretty hard to know where to start and what to focus on. For some of us who consider ourselves slow learners when it comes to learning a musical instrument it can seem like an impossible task. So…

I'm here to help you tune out the noise and hone in on the most important skills to learn when picking up your first guitar. I'm going to assume you're right handed for the purposes of these instructions. Which means of course you'll be strumming the strings with your right hand. If you're left handed, no problem, just reverse my directions. Also, this article assumes you know some basic things about music. Like the difference between a chord and a note. If not I encourage you to visit Google and type in "define:chord". Each hand has different skills that it must learn. Here are the two core skills for each of your hands:

So you're probably wondering why I'm instructing you to learn any scale you want, shouldn't I be telling you exactly which scales to learn, and what exactly is down-picking anyways? Let's talk about each of these in a little detail…

1. Left Hand – A Scale, Any Scale

I don't care what scale you use, it could be a G Major scale, a blues box, or a middle eastern sounding harmonic minor scale. Sound cool? It is. I don't want you to learn a scale so you can start writing your own songs or play screaming leads. Nope. I want you to learn just one scale pattern so that you can play it and in doing so teach your fingers to move on the the guitar. And that's it. That should be your only goal.

Practice this one scale until it feels pretty easy for your left hand and you've sped it up as you've progressed. Start very slow. Let me say this again. Start *very* slow. Go slower until it starts becoming painful. Why do I repeat myself to you? Well, you see most beginner guitar players want to hear things played up to speed or much faster than they are capable of playing. It's a guitarist thing. Don't do it. Resist. It will take you longer to learn. Play smoothly very slowly and then playing quickly will be much easier. Also, if you play too fast and you're not playing smoothly you will be practicing a mistake.

The purpose of saying this is not to scare you or freak you out. But, a friendly reminder based on many years of experience and the testimonials of well known musicians through the decades. This exercise will make your fingers stronger, give them dexterity, and get them used to pushing down on strings. To find scales on the Net just search, or you can pick up a book and learn everything I'm teaching you here.

2. Left Hand – The 8 Core Chords

The 8 core chords are the fundamental building blocks of, and I say this with some regret, just about every pop song ever recorded. Yes, once you know these chords you wouldn't believe how many songs you can play. So there's that benefit to you. Learning these chords will also build your finger strength even more than playing your scales. With chords you will have to hold many strings down at once.

This will be a challenge at first and will require your fingers to learn some coordination. For most us just starting out, our fingers are pretty dumb. I mean you think trying to rub your belly and your head at the same time is hard, or doing the Vulcan "live long and prosper" sign is near impossible without the help of your other hand. Well, as with anything that's new a little practice goes a very long way and you'll find you'll build coordination quickly, and quite frankly you'll have a lot of fun.

The 8 chords I recommend you learn are: C Major, D Major, G Major, A Major, A Minor, E Major, F Major, B Minor. In that order.

3. Right Hand – Down-Up Strumming

You'll use this to play your chords. Work very slowly at first. Don't frustrate yourself by trying to play too fast. Sound familiar? Use your pick or your finger nail and while holding a chord, or simply strumming the open strings without a chord, strum down, then up. Repeat. Sound easy? It is. I want you to focus not on your left hand — forget about it. This skill is for your right hand. Strum down, then up. Do this slowly at first and then progressively pick up the speed until you are beginning to fumble your strumming, then slow it down again just to the point where you can play comfortably without fumbling. Repeat. Build up your speed and ease this way.

4. Right Hand – Down-picking

And last, but certainly not least, this will be what you use to play your scales. With it you will be picking one single note at a time. Think do-re-me-fa-so-la-ti-do. Not strum-strum-strum. Some people might argue that you should learn down-up picking like you do with your chords. That's all well and fine, but remember this is about learning the core skills first. Down-up picking can come later when you're ready. For now we want to focus on hitting each note with one down stroke of your pick or finger nail.

Here's what this will do for you. You'll build coordination between your left and right hand. You're right hand will learn the dexterity it needs to pick one string out of six without hitting the other strings.

You can't be sloppy here the way you can be when playing chords. And, you'll learn to smoothly play each note without hesitating between notes. In short, you'll actually very quickly start sounding like you're playing in time. Remember, only down-pick. No down-up when playing your scales. And by the way, do I have to tell you to start very slow? Good, see you're learning already.

Where Do You Go From Here?

I don't care where you find the scale, or the chord charts. Like I said you can find most of this online with some searching, but of course you can get yourself a book.

I'd like to congratulate you for reading this article. Hopefully if you're a beginner you're much smarter about the guitar than you were before. I hope this article helps you learn fast so you can start impressing your friends with new guitar skills and start having some real fun.

This post was written by

Michael Jae.

Michael is a guitarist of over 18 years and has taught lessons, played in front of live audiences, and wrote and recorded his own acoustic fingerstyle albums. He's especially fond of playing classic rock, heavy metal, classical guitar, and fingerstyle acoustic guitar in the style of Leo Kottke and John Fahey.

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