How to use a Capo for Beginners

A capo is an inexpensive yet very useful tool.  You clamp the capo onto the frets of the fingerboard of your guitar and it allows you to instantly change the pitch of your guitar strings to a higher pitch. How high you make the pitch of your guitar depends on the fret you clamp the capo on and each fret will take the pitch one half step higher.

This incredibly useful tool has a number of advantages.  If you are playing with a band and you want to match your guitar to another musician or singer, its as simple as clamping on your capo to the appropriate key.

Another advantage is with playing chords.  A chord that is difficult to play in an open position can be played in an easier way by using a capo. This is wonderful if you are a beginner and want to learn a song that has difficult chords.

So if you don’t already own a capo, I highly recommend that you head out to your local music store or go online and purchase this inexpensive and highly useful tool for the guitar, the capo….

Read the rest of this post on how to use a guitar capo for beginners

Guitar Theory Lesson – Learn the Notes of the Guitar

Familiarizing yourself with the notes on the guitar is an important part of guitar playing.  I know it isn’t the most exciting part, but if you take time during your practice routines to learn them, you will be a better musician because of it.

Instead of just popping up a chart with all of the notes on it, I am going to explain how you can find all of the notes on your own.  It is more interesting this way and will actually help you burn the notes into your memory better…..

View the rest of this guitar theory lesson on the notes of the guitar

Daily Guitar Practice Routine – Improve Chord Changes

A difficult hurdle to overcome as a beginner guitar playing is mastering your chord changes. You must be able to change from one chord to another quickly and without error.

You are likely to get frustrated in the beginning as your fingers won’t do what you want them to do.  This is normal and it will take time for you develop what’s called “Muscle Memory”.  Muscle Memory develops from performing an activity over and over again.  You perform an activity so often, that eventually it becomes second nature and you don’t even think about it. This is what will happen eventually with your guitar playing.

Here is an excellent chord practice routine that you can add to your daily practice sessions.  This is a great way to improve your chord changes and develop that muscle memory.  This is a wonderful exercise that will help you become better at learning how to change between all of your open chords….

View this daily guitar practice routine here.

Advanced Acoustic Guitar Lesson – The B Major Chord

The B Major Guitar Chord is found in the B Major Scale: B C# D# E F# G# A# B. It is made up of the 1(root note), 3 and 5 of this scale. Meaning the notes B, D# and F#. Now to add more depth to the sound of the chord you add  two more F#’s and another B. The F# note is at the root of the chord meaning the top of the chord shown in the diagram on the page that follows…

Read the rest of this Advanced B Major Chord Guitar Lesson Here.

Beginner Strumming Patterns for Acoustic Guitar

Learning how to properly strum your acoustic guitar will possibly be one of your biggest hurdles as a guitarist. Rhythm and coordination does not come easy to some of us.  The videos below are going to change that hopefully.  After watching the video lessons below, you will hopefully become a strumming genius.  Enjoy and remember to take things slow and try not to get frustrated if you don’t catch on right away….

Watch these videos on Beginner Strumming Patterns Here.

C Major 7th Guitar Chord Lesson

The C7 Chord (also known as the Dominant C 7th Chord) is often referred to as a Blues chord. Once you learn to play it, you will understand why. It just has a real bluesy sound to it. It is definitely one of the easiest beginner chords to learn how to play.

There are several different ways to play it, but I will demonstrate the easiest way in the following post. The C7 Chord is found by first locating the 1(root note), 3 and 5 positions (C, E and G) of the  C Major Scale: C D E F G A B C, and then adding a flat 7 note. To locate the flat 7 note, we first find the 7th note of the C Major scale (B) and then go back a 1/2 step to the BFlat. So the notes of the C7 Chord are: C E Bflat C E ….

Read the rest of this C Major 7th Guitar Chord Lesson Here

Learn Basic Guitar Chords – D7 guitar chord Lesson

The D7 Chord (also known as the Dominant D 7th Chord) is often referred to as a Blues chord. Once you learn to play it, you will understand why. It just has a real bluesy sound to it. It is definitely one of the easiest beginner chords to learn how to play.

There are several different ways to play it, but I will demonstrate the easiest way in the following post. The D7 Chord is found by first locating the 1(root note), 3 and 5  positions (D, F# and A) of the D Major Scale: D E F# G A B C# D, and then adding a flat 7 note. To locate the flat 7 note, we first find the 7th note of the D Major scale (C#) and then go back a 1/2 step to the C. So the notes of the D7 Chord are: A D A C F# ….

View the rest of this D7 Guitar Chord Lesson Here.

Learn the A7 Guitar Chord

The A7 Chord (also known as a Dominant A 7th Chord) is often referred to as a Blues chord. Once you learn to play it, you will understand why. It just has a real bluesy sound to it. It is definitely one of the easiest beginner chords to learn how to play. There are several different ways to play it, but I will demonstrate the easiest way in the following post….

View this beginner guitar chord lesson here.

E7 Guitar Chord Lesson

The E7 Chord (also known as a Dominant E 7th Chord) is often referred to as a Blues chord. Once you learn to play it, you will understand why. It just has a real bluesy sound to it. It is definitely one of the easiest beginner chords to learn how to play. There are a several different ways to play it, but I will demonstrate the easiest way in the following post.

The E7 Chord is found by first locating the 1(root note), 3 and 5 (E, G# and B) of the E Major Scale: E  F# G# A B C# D# E, and then adding a flat 7 note. To locate the flat 7 note, we first find the 7th note of the E Major scale (D#) and then go back a 1/2 step to the D…

Read the rest of this beginner e7 guitar chord lesson here.

Basic Classical Guitar Lessons

Want to learn how to play classical acoustic guitar? Not sure what or how to learn how to play this beautiful style of guitar playing? Classical guitar can be quite challenging and one of the best methods for learning how to play is to watch video demonstrations and lessons. One of the best places online for video resources like this is YouTube. So what I have done is gathered the 10 classical guitar video lessons for beginners from YouTube below. I do hope you enjoy and learn a great deal by watching these instructional video lessons. Enjoy!

View these basic classical guitar lessons here.