How to Play Guitar

Transcript So we’ve been talking about moving from one chord to the other using base notes, right? We’ve been using our four chords G, Em, C and D. But now let’s talk about once you get there what you can do to the chord. So, when I was a kid I can do somebody fooling …

Transcript E minor 7 is next and, I know it sounds funny but we’re going to use an E minor 7 shape to make and E minor 7 barre chord- It’s possible. I’m taking my E minor 7 shape, that’s an open chord, and I’m just going to flip that around so I have my …

Transcript Okay, so now we come to the 7th chords. Dominant 7 or 7, same thing. And this time, instead of using E major or E minor, well we gotta use E7, right? So here was the original E7 shape and how I made that is my 1st finger is on the 3rd string, 1st …

Transcript OK let’s talk about G7. You know G7 we’ve played as an open chord, but you can also make that as a barre chord. And how you do that is you take an E7 shape, switch it around so you have your first finger free, and in this case we’re going to move it …

Transcript OK so here we are B Minor 7. What we’re going to do is we’re going to take E Minor 7 shape, right? Usually I make it with my 2nd finger, but in order to make B Minor 7 I’m going to use my ring finger. All right? And here we go, I’m going …

Transcript G major 7 you can play as an open chords but what we were doing here is talking about barre chords so it’s the same concept as before. We going to take the E major 7 shape a just that so I have my first finger free in order to barre and in this …

Transcript Okay, next is E7. E7 is already an open chord and we’ve been using it to make other shapes, but it’s still possible to make this into a bar chord. So I take E7, switch around my fingers so I have my first finger free, move that all the way up to the twelfth …

Transcript “All right, now we’re up to C minor 7. So we’re going to take an E minor 7 shape, we’re just going to juggle our fingers around a little bit so I have my first finger free to make the barre. And in this case I’m going to move it all the way up …

Transcript Okay. Lets talk about barre chords and how to find any barre code you want. Now, there is many ways to do this, but we’re going to use a couple of ways, right now. And the first way is going to be with the E shapes. So, what does that mean. I’m taking every …

Transcript F minus 7 is a bar code we are going to use the same tools that we used before. We going to take E minor 7 had to flip that around a bit, so I have my first finger little more comfortable and just I’m going to move that 1 fret to the 1st …

Transcript F Major 7 as a barre chord. Just like before what we’re going to do is take E Major 7 the shape, and we’re just going to adjust that so I have my 1st finger free. And this time it’s very simple, we’re just going to move it to the 1st fret. So here’s …

Transcript So, B Major 7 as a Barre chord. Very simple. We gonna take E Major 7, the shape. Just turn it around just so my first finger is free because that’s what we need to use this as a bar and I’m gonna move that to the 7th Fret. So here’s my bar at …

Transcript “We’re going to talk about A Major 7 as a barre chord. First, what we should do is talk about the shapes that I’m going to use, in order to make A Major 7 as a barre chord. I’m going to use an E Major 7 shape and an A Major 7 shape, in …

Transcript In order to play minor 7 barre chords, we should know A minor 7, the shape, and the E minor 7 shape. Both as open chords, right, so we’re gonna, the idea is we’re gonna take those open chord shapes and move them around to learn all the other shapes. RIght. Ok, so how …

Transcript So here is B7. And uh, B7 you can make as an open chord. But uh, but there are plenty of reasons to make it as a barre chord. And here’s two ways to do that. So I’m taking E7, right? My finger’s free so I can barre and I’m making that at the …

Transcript “So we’ve already found the E shapes of all the barre chords. Now, lets find the A shapes of all the barre chords. So, what does that require? Well, that, if you remember here’s our A open chord, A major, right. Here’s A minor. Here’s A seven. Here’s A major seven, A minor seven. …

Transcript “Next on the list is F7. So what we’re going to do is make an E7 cord. Leave my 1st finger free. Bring that up one fret to the 1st fret. So this is F with an E7 cord there. So it turns into F7. Another way to do it is you could take …

Transcript “This is C major 7 as a barre chord. So what we’re gonna do is we’re gonna take an E shape. An E major 7 shape, as an open chord, and we’re gonna adjust that so I have my first finger free. And then I’m gonna move that all the way down to the …

Transcript “Okay we’re up to E major 7 as a bar chord. So it sounds funny but I’m gonna use the E major 7 open shape in order to make E major 7 as a barre chord. So how do I do that? Well, I’m gonna switch around my fingers to get that first finger …

Transcript So we’re up to D7 as a barre chord. So what am I going to do? I’m going to take E7 the shape. Right? Switch around my fingers so I have my first finger free, and I’m just going to make that come all the way down here to the 10th fret. All right, …

Transcript So C Major. C Major is going to be the E type shape. I’m going to bring it all the way to the eighth fret with my first finger as the bar. That’s C-major. Also I can use the A style at the third fret, so here I am. The third fret using all …

Instructions Step 1: The first way to play B major is to take the E major form and move it to the 7th fret. Step 2: The second way is to take the A major form and move it to the 2nd fret. Transcript B Major can be played 2 ways also. Here’s the E …

Transcript Okay, G minor. We’re going to take an E shape, E minor, and we’re gonna move that to the third fret. All right? Here’s my bar at the third; here’s what looks like an E minor chord. I’m strumming all the strings, and that’s G minor. Then of course I could do that with …

Instructions Step 1: To make D minor, take the E minor form down to the 10th fret, or the A minor form to the 5th fret. Transcript Okay, next is D minor. So D minor, if you remember, we played it as an open chord earlier. And you can always do that, but other ways …

Transcript Now we’ve come to the minor chords. So, here’s A minor,right. So, this time instead of E major, of course, I have to use E minor. So, I’m going to use my ring finger and my pinky to make E minor and then I’m going to bring that all the way to the fifth …

Transcript So here we are, F minor. F minor can be played with an E-minor shape. So we’re going to take E minor we’re going to move that to the 1st fret. So my barre’s on the first and I have what looks like an E minor chord there but now I’ve turned it into …

Transcript OK. So, let’s talk about A Major, the first bar chord we’ll do. What I’m going to do is show you 2 types of bar chords. There’s many but the 2 that I’m going to show you are based on 2 opening chords. The 1st one is E Major and then the 2nd one …

Transcript Okay so this is interesting, we’re gonna go to E minor now, and what’s funny about that is we’re gonna use an E minor shape to make an E minor barre chord. I know that sounds weird but we’re just going through all the possibilities here. And so I’m making an E minor shape …

Transcript C Minor’s the next chord. And what we’re going to do is we’re going to take E Minor and we’re going to bring that all the way to the 8th fret. So there it is. There’s my bar across the 8th fret, and then the E Minor shape here. Now turning into C Minor. …

Transcript We’ve come to F Major. F Major, just like before, can be played with E brought out to the 1st fret. Now this is actually an important one I think, because to me, this is how I learned to lay barre chords. What happened was F as an open chord was so demanding, and …

Transcript OK. B minor. B minor is very useful, in the beginning. If you remember, we did B minor as a little, a little chord, a shortened chord. And I said, “OK, you know, later on, we’re gonna change that into a barre chord.” So here’s that moment. There’s the E type. So, I’m gonna …

Transcript OK, bar chords. Bar chords can be a very frustrating thing for guitarists. To me it separates the beginners from the intermediates. And you know, the thing about the guitar is all these open chords that we played, they sound beautiful, but there’s no way to play sharps and flats as open chords. So …

Transcript Okay, so G major. Sometimes, you know, even though we know how to play G as an open chord, there might, it might be necessary to play it as a bar chord. So uh, here it is, there’s the E type again. I’m gonna bring it to the third fret. There’s G major. Then …

Transcript Okay, and now D major. D major is going to be played – I can do it with the E type. So I’m going to take E major and move that all the way up to the 10th fret – D major. And then you can also do the A-style barre chord. And I’m …

Transcript Okay, we’ve come to E major. So I can take my E shape. We can go all the way down here to the 12th fret with our E, and make a barre chord. We can use the A style, which I’m going to do it at the seventh fret. This time I’ll use just …

Transcript So ah another technique your gonna need is bending, and all that requires is you play the one note and you bend it right, see,see how I’m bending the string there to make it sound higher all right. And you can get pretty high with the note, right you can do it with your …

Transcript Lets talk about finger exercises. What we’re going to do here is we’re trying to get your fingers to work independently from each other, right. So, a very simple exercise that we can do sounds like this- one, two ,three, four, four, three, two, one, right. You could do that. Now notice I’m stretching …

Transcript Okay, so now we’re talking about pull-offs, right, it’s the opposite of hammer-ons. What I’m doing is I’m playing the note once, and instead of hammering on, this time I’m pulling off. Right, so you can see there’s a little snap to it. Right? So you can, you can do it from the 3rd …

Transcript Next on the list is scales. So scales ‚Äì there’s many, many, many books of scales, big encyclopedias of scales, but I’d like to show you the most practical scales that I use every single day. The very first scale I ever learned, I like to call it pentatonic pattern number 1, but it’s …

Transcript So, we’ve learned pentatonic pattern 1. Let’s learn pattern 2 and then we’re going to put it all together eventually, right? So, pattern 2, how about we do it at the 12th fret, so it’s going to go 1, 4, 1, 4, 1, 3, 1, 3, here’s where it gets tricky, 2, 4, and …

Transcript OK, so now we’re up to pentatonic pattern number 2 with the blue scale over it. It’s a little tricky. The pattern is 1, 4, 1, 4, just like before. Right? And here we go, here’s where it’s different: 1, 2, 3. All right? So you can already hear that right? And now we …

Transcript OK, so we’re still talking about laying over the major scale or minor scale over the top of what we know. Right? We’ve done that to pentatonic pattern #1. Now we’re going to do that to pentatonic pattern #2. Let’s stay with our same key. We’re talking about A minor or C major. Remember, …

Transcript So let’s talk about slides now. Slides is just another technique you can use to sound more voice like, a little trick. It is what it sounds like. I’m just going to slide my finger from one note to the next. All right? All right so I’m only playing 1 time, I’m only picking …

Transcript So now that we know some open chords, let’s go ahead and use that to play the 12-Bar Blues, right? Almost every single blues song goes the same way. If there were two variations, one could fast blue and one could be slow blues. So, we’ll talk about the fast one now. So, here …

Transcript OK. Next is hammer-ons. Hammer-ons, pull off, trills. They all belong to something called slurs. So all that means is I’m playing 2 notes or more, but I’m just going to use 1 pick stroke in order to make that happen. So I’m going to, let’s say, hammer-on here from the 5th fret to …

Transcript All right, so now let’s talk about extending what we already know, right? So pentatonic pattern number 1, if you remember is 1, 4, 1, 3, 1, 3, 1, 3, 1, 4, 1, 4, and this is very up and down here on the guitar, right? So at some point you’re going to have …

Transcript Obviously to get good on the guitar you have to practice, right? Every single day. I think it’s worth it to do it every day for just even a few minutes. If you were to spend a few hours one day a week, I still don’t think it’s as good as spending a few …

Instructions Step 1: The extension for pentatonic pattern 2 is: 1, 3, 1, 3, 1, 3, 3. Once you have that down, combine it with the rest of the pattern: 1, 3, 2, 4, 1, 4. Transcript So if you’ve been following along we’ve extended our pattern number 1 for pentatonic, and now let’s try …

Transcript Alright, so, we’re talking about now how to get between the chords, right. You’ve figured out all the strums. You can play it without stopping, but now lets figure out fancy ways to get between chords. And one of the first things I ever heard on a recording was this. And I thougt, boy, …

Transcript Alright, so let’s talk about practicing scales a little bit. One trap that people get into is that they think that scales are for speed. Now there are a lot of great guitarists who can play scales very, very fast – but that’s not really the point of practicing scales. We’re just really practicing …

Transcript Let’s talk about one more finger exercise. And this, I actually got from my very 1st guitar teacher. I was 9 years old. He pulled out a business card with every finger combination you could think of, right? All these numbers 1,2,3,4. All the combinations of 1,2,3,4. And I thought that was so interesting. …

Transcript Okay, so pentatonic pattern number one. We can embellish it some more. This time we’ll make it into a little bit of a bluesy scale or a blues scale. All that requires is one extra note. One, four, one, two, three. One, three, one, three, four. One, four, one, four. All right? So, let’s …

Transcript Okay so now we can combine pull-offs and hammer-ons and create a long flowing idea which is called trills, right? So all that means is I’m hammering on, pulling off, hammering on, pulling off, over, and over, and over again. I’ve only hit it one time on the guitar. And you could just keep …

Transcript Now we know how to play the pentatonic scales. So what does that mean, pentatonic? Well, “penta-” is 5, pentatonic, and “-tonic” means notes, so 5-note scales. So if you’ve noticed, we’ve only really been playing 5 notes over and over again. Now what we’re going to try and introduce are the major scale. …

Transcript So we learned a bunch of chords, and now lets try to put them together with some strumming. So one of the first strums that I ever learned, and you can use it for many, many types of music, sound like this. I’m going down, down, up, up, down. Right? Let’s try that again. …

Transcript We can also tap our foot with scales or melodies, or a single note right. And we can take some of those rhythm concepts and put it all together right. So what does that mean? Maybe I’ll play the pentatonic scale — one note per beat. So first let me get my beat going, …

Transcript Let’s talk about finding every note on the guitar. So, if you know anything about music, the musical alphabet goes from A to G, then it starts all over again. It goes on forever. You have A, B, C, D, E, F, G, and then it starts again on A. So in order to …

Instructions Step 1: For this strum, the pattern is: down, down, up, down. Pause for a half beat after the first down stroke and a full beat after the second. Note that the first down stroke is less pronounced than the others. Transcript Let’s do a second strum, right? This will be a variation on …

Transcript Ok lets get little more advanced with the rhythm right. So what we done is we talked about big rhythms the thing lasting for 4 and 2 and 1 beat or 3 beats. Now let’s talk about a breaking down 1 beats, so we are subdividing the beat. So the 1st way to subdivide …

Transcript Let’s talk about basic rhythm. You’re going to hear a lot of terms and maybe you remember some of them from grade school: whole notes, half notes, quarter notes, and then a special one called dotted half notes. Let’s start with whole notes. A whole note is whole. We have to remember that because …

Transcript Okay, fourth strum, right? So what we’re going to do is take a couple of the strums we had already and we’re going to put them together. The first strum we did is, baa, baa baa, baa baa. Put that aside for a second. The third strum we did is, down, down down, up, …

Transcript One of the best ways to keep time is to tap your foot. Now it sounds easy, but its actually a little tricky to sync up everything you do tapping your foot. It’s natural for some, but for most I think it’s a learned idea. First, you’re trying to sync up your left hand …

Transcript Let’s talk about some technique now. One of the terms you may come across somewhere is called alternate picking. And all that means is that instead of just playing down, for every note, right , I am going to start playing down up, down up , so I am going to alternate. Up down, …

Transcript Okay, let’s get a little more complicated. This is going to be our 3rd strum – it’s got a lot of details here so I’m going to go real, real slow. So we go like this: down, down, down, up, up, down, down. So that seems like a lot but you’ve heard this rhythm …