In this first video, we explore the parts of a guitar. This is important as there shouldn’t be any confusion in later episodes when we reference a certain part of the guitar and ask you to perform a certain action.

The major part of an acoustic guitar is the body which is made up of wood. On top of this you have the soundboard which plays the largest role in the tone of a guitar, apart from its strings. The hole in the centre is aptly referred to as the sound hole. The sound goes in from the strings, reverberates inside the body, gets amplified and is then projected back out.

Around the sound hole you’ll find an ornamental piece called the rosette which is optional and not present in all guitars. Attached to the rosette is a pick guard made of nylon or plastic. It prevents the wood of the guitar body from getting scratched by the plectrum when you’re strumming the guitar, especially on the down strokes.

Next, we have the bridge which fastens to the body and lets you anchor the strings. The assembly consists of a saddle made of plastic or metallic alloys. This allows the strings to pass over it in a clean manner towards the head stock end of the guitar. The bridge pins hold the strings down and go over the ball (cylindrical) end of the string.

The neck of the guitar has the fretboard/fingerboard and the fret wires. The space between the fret wires is referred to as the fret. Frets allow us to change the pitch by holding down the string at a particular position and shortening its length.

The strings pass through small grooves in the plastic piece referred to as the nut, near the head stock, and finally into the six tuning posts. By turning the tuning post and increasing the tension in the string, we can increase the frequency of vibration and change the pitch of the string.

The final part of the guitar is the strings. This is where the tone originates and where we will have to do the maximum manipulation while playing a guitar.

Each of these parts is explained in detail in the tutorial. All you have to do is watch, understand and learn from your teacher.

The first difference you will notice is a tremolo arm or whammy bar attached to the bridge. It lets you bend the bridge and change the pitch of all the strings at the same time, by increasing/decreasing the tension on the strings.

But the most important difference is with respect to the addition of pickups on the strings. These pickups are basically electromagnets around which a coil is wrapped. When the strings vibrate around their magnetic field, an electric current is generated and sent to the amplifier/speaker. And that’s how you hear the sound from an electric guitar.

The combinations of these pickups can be varied along with certain effects, to produce a lot of different sounds, which is what makes the electric guitar such a versatile musical instrument.

The starting point in learning to play a guitar is having the knowledge of how to tune the strings. For this, you need a basic understanding of notes. These are denoted by a combination of alphabets and symbols, the symbols representing certain characteristics of the notes.

We use the seven letters from A to G, along with certain symbols to denote if a note is higher/lower in pitch to a reference note. The list is as follows:

A A#/Bb B C C#/Db D D#/Eb E F F#/Gb G G#/Ab A

A# = Bb | C# = Db | D# = Eb | F# = Gb | G# = Ab

The six strings of a guitar are counted from the bottom to the top as 1 to 6, with the 1st string having the highest pitch and the 6th string having the lowest pitch.

String 5 is tuned to note A. We can go all the way from A to B to C…and back to A on this 5th string by placing our finger on the different frets. Open string is A, 2nd fret B, 3rd fret C, 5th fret D, 7th fret E, 8th fret F, 10th fret G, and 12th fret is back to A. The frets that we left out are where the notes with symbols come in.

The symbols ‘#’ and ‘b’ are referred to as sharps and flats respectively. A note that is higher in pitch compared to another note is a sharp, and one that is lower in pitch than a reference note is a flat. So the frets or spaces between the notes that we missed out on earlier denote the following notes: 1st fret A#/Bb, 4th fret C#/Db, 6th fret D#/Eb, 9th fret F#/Gb, and 11th fret G#/Ab.

To tune the guitar strings, we can use an electronic tuner (there are many mobile apps available) and follow the notes EADGBE, in that order, from the 6th to 1st string. An easy way to remember this is with the mnemonic, Eddie Ate Dynamite Good Bye Eddie.

As you learn to play the guitar, your ear gets trained over the years, to the point that you can identify and tune the strings without needing an electronic tuner.

Remember, the first thing you want to do before you start playing the guitar is to ensure it is in tune. Watch the video now, and learn more about the different notes and how to tune the strings.

It’s important that you know how to be seated/standing when playing the guitar, and how to hold it properly. This will ensure a comfortable posture and avoid long-term negative effects on your health. Watch this episode to understand the basics of learning to play the guitar.

To begin with, maintain an upright posture and avoid slouching as you get caught up in the music and your instrument. Whether seated or performing standing on stage, pay attention to posture and keep your back straight.

Next is regarding your hands. Your right hand should fall naturally into position, relaxed and easy. Avoid stiffening up due to anticipation – there should be no tension in the right hand.

Grip the neck with your left hand, like you would a cricket bat. Just encircle the neck with your fingers, instead of gripping tightly. Your thumb position may change slightly depending on which area of the neck you are currently engaging, but ensure the thumb remains at the back of the neck.

Coming to your wrists, avoid any sharp angles which may end up putting pressure on your tendons. A relaxed angle is what you should aim for, as far as possible.

While an electric guitar would have a strap, an acoustic may not. To give yourself a comfortable and ergonomic playing position, you could elevate one leg slightly (using a foot stool) or cross your right leg over the left, to give the guitar that subtle lift.

Use these tips and make them regular practice to ensure you start playing the right way from day one.

In this episode, you will be introduced to the guitar pick or plectrum and how to use it effectively while strumming chords or playing individual notes. Finger-style playing is a bit more advanced and would be covered in later lessons.

The pick is basically a small triangular shaped piece of nylon (or other material) that is used to strike the guitar strings. There’s a correct way to hold the plectrum with your picking hand (right or left, depending on whether you are right-handed or left-handed).

It should be held between the thumb and index finger, and perpendicular to your thumb. That is, the pointy side of the plectrum should be at a 90-degree angle to your thumb. By curling in your forefinger a bit, you will be able to exert a good grip on the pick.

Try not to squeeze the plectrum too hard, resulting in muscle fatigue. The tension in your fingers would also affect the music, as you plough through the strings with no subtlety. So it’s always better to have a gentle yet firm group.

Practise a few down strokes on different open strings, starting above the string, gently moving through and gliding over it smoothly. Focus on the down stroke for now. The upstroke would be covered in later episodes.

Next, try to place the fingers of your left hand at certain frets and practise the down stroke to play different notes. One thing to note here is, when you push down the string at a particular fret; ensure you make clear contact (as close as possible) with the fret wire at the end of that fret, so the string rings out clearly, and with the right pitch.

To practise down strokes with the plectrum, you can use the 4-note exercise. This is played on the 5th string using your fretting hand to hold down the notes, and the picking hand to strike the string.

Start with your index finger on the 5th fret; then place your middle finger on the 6th fret, ring finger on the 7th fret, and finally the little finger on the 8th fret. Play these one after the other, and listen to the varying pitch.

Knowing how to use the plectrum takes you one step closer to playing songs using the guitar. Keep your guitar pick handy and watch the video now.

After taking you through a sort of orientation to playing the guitar in the previous four episodes, this video introduces a few simple chords. What would be of even more interest to you is how to use those chords to play a popular song that you would certainly be familiar with.

A chord is basically a collection of three or more notes played together, at the same time. There are four chords that you will learn in this episode. – G Major, D Major, A Minor, and C Major.

The G Major Chord is played with the index finger on the 2nd fret (5th string), middle finger on the 3rd fret (6th string), ring finger on the 3rd fret (2nd string), and the little finger on the 3rd fret (1st string).

It is important that you’re careful while placing your fretting fingers; else you may end up muting the sound because of some overlap on the strings. The right way to hold them down is in a sort of arched manner, so that the open strings ring out loud and clear.

The only exception to this rule is when we want to mute selected strings while playing certain chords – more advanced/complex chords. In that case, you can flatten your fingers accordingly.

The next chord is the D Major Chord. This is played with open string (4th string), index finger on the 2nd fret (3rd string), ring finger on the 3rd fret (2nd string), and your middle finger on the 2nd fret (1st string). The 5th and 6th strings should not be played for this chord.

Generally speaking, you’ll observe the major chords sound more happy and the minor chords melancholic. The A Minor Chord is played with open string (5th string), index finger on the 1st fret (2nd string), middle finger on the 2nd fret (4th string), ring finger on the 2nd fret (3rd string), and open string (1st string). The 6th string is not played/it is blocked.

The C Major Chord is played with the index finger on the 1st fret (2nd string), middle finger on the 2nd fret (4th string), ring finger on the 3rd fret (5th string), and open strings (1st and 3rd string). The 6th string is not played/it is blocked.

These four chords are enough to play quite a few songs – like a few hundred to thousand. In this video, you will learn to play the famous song “Knockin' on Heaven's Door” by Bob Dylan.

We’ll play each chord four times, using only down strokes, to establish a steady rhythm within the span of individual chords as well as while switching to the next chord. You should get comfortable with this rhythm, before we move on to the actual structure of the song.

“Knockin' on Heaven's Door” is played with 2 counts/beats/strokes on the first two chords, followed by 4 counts/beats/strokes on the third chord. The progression consists of G Major – D Major – A Minor in the first round, and G Major – D Major – C Major in the second round.

This progression is consistent for the whole song – verse, chorus, and everything in between. So once you learn this, you’ve basically learnt the entire song.

Rhythmically, this version may sound a bit simplified compared to the original, but that’s only to allow you to develop a strong and steady rhythm hand, and to get a sense of the timing. For now just watch the video, practice well, and in no time you’ll find that you can play “Knockin' on Heaven's Door”.

If you’ve watched the previous episode, you would be familiar with the chords G Major, D Major, A Minor, and C Major, and how to use them to play a simplified version of the song “Knockin' on Heaven's Door”.

In this video, you will learn how to improve your technique in playing those chords and mastering that song. While you may find it difficult initially to play chords, it gets easier to grip the strings as you practise and develop calluses on your fingers.

What is even more challenging with playing songs is changing from one chord shape to another, with accuracy. This requires focus when you practise. A tool that can help you in this endeavour is a metronome.

The metronome is a device that helps you develop a steady sense of rhythm. It gives a pulse or a beat with which we try to sync our strokes. Nowadays there are various convenient apps that you can download for this purpose on your phone.

If you set a count of 4, there will be a pulse of four which keeps repeating. There’s usually an accent (slightly louder and sharper) placed on the first count. This allows you to identify the first beats without having to constantly count.

Apart from helping you fine tune your sense of time; a metronome also allows you to gauge your progress. It has a functionality called Beats Per Minute (BPM), which can be used as a measure when you practise, to progressively increase the speed/tempo as you get more comfortable.

It doesn’t matter how slow you play the song initially. Make sure you match every down stroke with the click of the metronome, and once you get more comfortable you can increase the tempo. This will help steady your sense of time.

Learn to switch chords in a smooth manner, without any delay or losing time. Watch the video now and follow your guitar teacher as he takes you through the steps of using a metronome to practise and perfect the song, “Knockin' on Heaven's Door”.

In this short episode, we cover a few simple exercises that can help you develop your finger strength and coordination, apart from picking up a new skill. You will need your mobile app/metronome for this lesson as well.

Begin by holding down the 5th fret (6th string) with your index finger and playing the note. Next the 6th fret on the same string with the middle finger, followed by the 7th fret with the ring finger, and finally the 8th fret with the pinkie.

Now set the metronome and sync your picking to its beat/count. Repeat this same shape (4 notes) on the remaining strings as well, in the ascending direction. Once you hit the final note on the 1st string, repeat the exercise in reverse, which is in the descending order.

Exercise 1 - Ascending Order

-1-2-3-4-(move to next string)-1-2-3-4-

Exercise 2 - Descending Order

-4-3-2-1-(move to previous string)-4-3-2-1-

Practise these exercises using only down strokes until you get comfortable with it. Then try the same with alternate picking, that is alternate down and upstrokes. Finally, combine the two exercises to ascend and descend with alternate picking.

Use the metronome as a progress meter to steadily increase the beats per minute, while maintaining your picking clean, and with clarity. This is a good indicator/measure of how precise you get with your right and left hand movements.

It will help you develop agility and strength in your left hand, and improve your right/left hand coordination over time. Overall, it will help improve your picking and fretting hand skills, as well as develop a steady sense of time.

Get your metronome, plectrum and guitar ready, practise along with the video, and get more proficient at playing the guitar.

This episode further explores chords in guitar, specifically triads or three-note chords. We will be covering two types of triads – major chords and minor chords. As you would have observed in previous lessons, major chords tend to sound brighter and happier, while the minor chords have a slightly darker or melancholic tone to them.

To illustrate the point, we pick the A Major (A) and A Minor (Am) chords. The fret and finger positions are outlined below:

A Major (all on 2nd fret): Index finger on the 4th string, middle finger on the 3rd string, ring finger on the 2nd string, and open strings (1st and 5th).

A Minor: Index finger on the 1st fret (2nd string), middle finger on the 2nd fret (4th string), ring finger on the 2nd fret (3rd string), and open strings (1st and 5th).

Notice that by varying just one note (by one fret), you get a sound that is significantly different. The other thing that may be on your mind is, why do we call them three-note chords when we’re striking more than three strings? If you observe carefully though, there are only three notes which happen to be repeated in different places.

We’ll now learn the chords/triads in the key of G Major

G Major: Index finger on the 2nd fret (5th string), middle finger on the 3rd fret (6th string), ring finger on the 3rd fret (2nd string), little finger on the 3rd fret (1st string), and open strings (3rd and 4th).

A Minor: Index finger on the 1st fret (4th string), middle finger on the 2nd fret (4rd string), ring finger on the 2nd fret (3rd string), and open strings (1st and 5th).

B Minor: Index finger across the 2nd fret (1st to 5th string), middle finger on the 3rd fret (2nd string), ring finger on the 4th fret (4th string), and little finger on the 4th fret (3rd string).

C Major: Index finger on the 1st fret (2nd string), middle finger on the 2nd fret (4th string), ring finger on the 3rd fret (5th string), and open strings (1st and 3rd).

D Major: Index finger on the 2nd fret (3rd string), middle finger on the 2nd fret (1st string), ring finger on the 3rd fret (2nd string), and open string (4th).

E Minor: Middle finger on the 2nd fret (5th string), ring finger on the 2nd fret (4th string), and remaining open strings.

F# Dim: Index finger on the 9th fret (5th string), middle finger on the 10th fret (4th string), ring finger on the 10th fret (2nd string), and little finger on the 11th fret (3rd string).

Watch the video now, pay attention to the finger positions on the fretboard, practise and learn these triad chords in the key of G Major.

In this episode, we introduce a key piece of information that is fundamental to your learning to play the guitar. While you may or may not be familiar with the name “major scale”, you would undoubtedly have heard it at some point, as most music being practiced uses some version of this scale.

A scale is a fixed set of note distances or intervals. What this gives you is a formula for deriving a consistent sound from the scale.

Notes of the C Major Scale

-C-D-E-F-G-A-B-C-

4th string: Index finger (2nd fret)--Ring finger (4th fret)--Little finger (5th fret)

3rd string: Index finger (2nd fret)--Middle finger (3rd fret)--Little finger (5th fret)

2nd string: Middle finger (3rd fret)--Little finger (5th fret)

For those who’ve watched the move “The Sound of Music”, what you just learnt is essentially Do-Re-Mi-Fa-So-La-Ti-Do. The major scale remains at the core of so much of the technique in western music.

The specific name given to this major scale (C Major) arises from the fact that we played the C note first. Depending on which note you start with, the name of the major scale would also vary.

Once you hit the higher C note in the ascending direction, you can play it backwards as well to reach the lower C. With respect to your picking, you can either use all down strokes or practise alternate picking, depending on your comfort level.

The most important thing is to familiarise yourself with the sound and the fingering pattern, which will only happen gradually, through a lot of practice. This is a great exercise to incorporate into your picking (right hand) and fingering (left hand) routines.

Use the metronome/app to gradually increase the tempo and gauge how well you can execute at faster speeds. Watch the video, understand the major scale and equip yourself with new skills in guitar.

This episode is primarily focused on experimenting with a metronome, and adding to some of the rhythm playing skills demonstrated in previous episodes. You’ll learn how to play in time at a fairly advanced tempo, as you double up the speed.

In earlier videos, we synchronised with the metronome to play one down stroke at every click. Now, we will be doing two down strokes for every click of the metronome.

For the sake of familiarity, we would be using the same chords as the ones used to play “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door”, that is G Major, D Major, A Minor, and C Major.

It’s very important for a rhythm guitar player to be able to maintain fast tempos. And that’s why this exercise is useful – it challenges your right hand to do things at double the speed that you’re normally used to.

For now, only use down strokes and develop a fast yet steady rhythm with them. In later lessons we’ll start to include upstrokes as well, to bring a more dynamic and fluid sound, with variations and a cyclic feel.

If you find this exercise difficult at first, it’s okay to slow the metronome down a bit, so you can play two strokes per click. But increase the speed gradually as you get more comfortable, measuring your progress with the metronome as you go on.

Watch the video now, listen to your guitar teacher’s instructions and develop fluency in rhythm, steadily.

This episode further explores the concept of rhythm in playing the guitar. Until now we’ve been counting rhythm in groups of four notes. This is important because a lot of the music that we listen to is based on this particular grouping.

However, there are many other groupings of notes, some more popular than the others. In this video, we’ll talk about groups of three and groups of six. While you may feel that six is just a double grouping of three, the way we play and feel the time is a bit nuanced, as you’ll come to appreciate.

For the sake of familiarity, we would be using the same chords as the ones we used earlier to play “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door” by Bob Dylan; that is G Major, D Major, A Minor, and C Major. The use of the chords of this song is purely for educational purposes only.

Let’s start with groups of four just to refresh what you’ve already learnt. We’ll be using a metronome as usual to keep time.

Next, change the setting on your metronome (app) to group three notes/beats at a time. This should be pretty straightforward in whichever app you are using. The rhythm follows a -1-2-3-1-2-3- pattern and as usual you will hear the accent (louder sound) for the 1 on every group of three notes.

It’s important that you learn to count along with the metronome in your mind, to the point where it becomes instinctive and you’re not really counting; yet you automatically feel the groups of three. It’s really just a matter of practice.

Start by using the metronome. Then turn off the metronome and count for yourself. Finally, stop counting and just play the groups of three by feeling and tracking the rhythm. You can use the chords -G-C-D- for this practice.

Learning to keep time and having a sense of time is one of the most fundamentals skills you need to play the guitar, even more important than chords, notes and other aspects. In fact, not just for guitar, developing this sense of time will help you become a better musician.

As mentioned before, there are many other types of groupings that you’ll be introduced to in later lessons. For now, just watch the video carefully and put in the practice to ensure you get better at this skill.

This episode expands your training in rhythm. While you’re familiar with upstroke for playing single notes, we’ll now incorporate it in rhythmic playing. What this unlocks for you essentially is the skill to play rhythmic patterns at twice the speed.

We’ll basically be using the returning motion (from one down stroke to the start of the next) to play an upstroke. Apart from the advantage of bringing efficiency into your strokes, upstrokes give you a different sound when you strike the strings from high to low, and this perfectly complements the sound produced when you strike from low to high (down stroke).

A pro tip here is with regards to your choice of plectrum or guitar pick – when you’re playing single notes, it’s useful to have a slightly heavier pick for precision and clarity as it doesn’t bend as much.

However, for rhythm guitar playing, a thinner pick helps soften your attack on the strings and produce better sounds and a nice tone. It also adds a unique flicking sound which gives a percussive quality to your music.

Now we’ll start by playing only down strokes, and then proceed to play them at twice the speed. When you do this, play every alternate down stroke slightly softer than the first stroke. So you get a sort of -loud-soft-loud-soft- pattern.

This was to emulate what happens when you include upstrokes. Now go ahead and replace those soft down strokes with upstrokes. It should sound nice – natural and flowing.

Next we’ll practise with a metronome. Count the second stroke as a space between the clicks, so it goes -1-and-2-and-3-and-4-and-. Set the metronome to four beats for this exercise. The places where we added the ‘and’ is where you need to play an upstroke.

As usual, start with a slower beats per minute on the metronome and speed it up as you get more comfortable. Upstrokes will allow you to play more interesting and complicated patterns and rhythms later. Watch the video now and continue your journey to master playing the guitar.

In this episode, we’ll learn to play all the notes in the C Major Scale as well as chords in the key of C. For reference, on the keyboard/piano, the C Major Scale is the scale that you play by striking all the white keys.

Notes of the C Major Scale: C D E F G A B C

When we say chords in the key of C, it means all the chords made up of notes from the C Major Scale. The finger positions on the fretboard for each of these chords are outlined below.

Chords in the key of C

C Major: Index finger on the 1st fret (2nd string), middle finger on the 2nd fret (4th string), ring finger on the 3rd fret (5th string), and open strings (1st and 3rd).

D Minor: Index finger on the 1st fret (1st string), middle finger on the 2nd fret (3rd string), ring finger on the 3rd fret (2nd string), and open string (4th).

E Minor: Middle finger on the 2nd fret (5th string), ring finger on the 2nd fret (4th string), and remaining open strings.

F Major: Index finger on the 1st fret (1st and 2nd string), middle finger on the 2nd fret (3rd string), ring finger on the 3rd fret (5th string), and little finger on the 3rd fret (4th string).

G Major: Index finger on the 2nd fret (5th string), middle finger on the 3rd fret (6th string), ring finger on the 3rd fret (2nd string), little finger on the 3rd fret (1st string), and open strings (3rd and 4th).

A Minor: Index finger on the 1st fret (2nd string), middle finger on the 2nd fret (4th string), ring finger on the 2nd fret (3rd string), and open strings (1st and 5th).

B Dim: Index finger on the 2nd fret (5th string), middle finger on the 3rd fret (4th string), ring finger on the 3rd fret (2nd string), and little finger on the 4th fret (3rd string).

These are the seven chords in the key of C. While you would be familiar with some of them (overlap with chords in the key of G which we had covered earlier), you would have observed a few new shapes as well.

Watch the video and practise them now. Even more importantly, practise moving between these seven chord shapes. Keep your metronome/app handy and use it to build speed and clarity in your exercises.

In this episode you’ll be learning a bit more about chords. If you’ve watched some of the previous videos, you might have observed how chords in a particular key follow a similar pattern and progression to the notes in that scale.

What this also means is that we have a certain number of characteristics which are transferable from one major scale to another. Let’s take the G Major Scale and C Major Scale for example.

Notes in the G Major Scale: G A B C D E F# G

Chords in the Key of G: G Major A Minor B Minor C Major D Major E Minor F# Dim G Major

Notes in the C Major Scale: C D E F G A B C

Chords in the Key of C: C Major D Minor E Minor F Major G Major A Minor B Dim C Major

Comparing the two scales, we observe the following common progression:

1st Chord (Major), 2nd Chord (Minor), 3rd Chord (Minor), 4th Chord (Major), 5th Chord (Major), 6th Chord (Minor), 7th Chord (Diminished)

You can use this logic/numbering system as a formula when you want to arrive at chords from the notes in a major scale. You’ll find it quite useful in various scenarios; for example if you can’t sing a song in the original key, you can try to lower it and use this formula to figure out which chords to play.

This simple sequence/numbering system for chords can be represented using roman numerals – large roman numerals for major chords and small roman numerals for minor chords. The last/diminished chord is represented by smaller case roman numerals along with a tiny circle/accent in superscript.

Let’s apply this to the A Major scale.

Notes in the scale: A (5th fret, 6th string) | B (7th fret, 6th string) | C# (4th fret, 5th string) | D (5th fret, 5th string) | E (7th fret, 5th string) | F# (4th fret, 4th string) | G# (6th fret, 4th string) | A (7th fret, 4th string)

Chords in the same key: A Major B Minor C# Minor D Major E Major F# Minor G# Dim A Major

This will help you easily arrive at all the chords in a major scale, and thus get familiar with a lot more scales, a lot more quickly. Watch the video now, understand this numbering system, and start making use of it during practice.

In this episode we’ll be further exploring some rhythm guitar playing techniques – specifically to do with the right hand or picking hand. As you’ve noticed by now, your right hand does all the time-related work while the left hand takes care of all the melody and harmony aspects.

The technique that’s being showcased is known as muting – it can be partial or full muting. This basically allows you to play a chord (which normally has a big and open sound) with a sound that is a lot more subdued in terms of notes and harmonies, but also a more percussive sound.

We’ll use a slightly different position to play the G, C and D chords for practising muting.

G Major: Index finger on the 3rd fret (all strings), middle finger on the 4th fret (3rd string), ring finger on the 5th fret (5th string), and the finger on the 5th fret (4th string).

C Major: Index finger on the 3rd fret (1st to 5th string), middle finger on the 5th fret (4th string), ring finger on the 5th fret (3rd string), and little finger on the 5th fret (2nd string).

D Major: Index finger on the 5th fret (1st to 5th string), middle finger on the 7th fret (4th string), ring finger on the 7th fret (3rd string), and little finger on the 7th fret (2nd string).

If you place your right hand lightly on the strings, the sound gets muffled. As you move your right hand from the bridge end of the guitar towards the neck, the sound gets progressively muted and finally deadened.

Normally you wouldn’t want to completely mute the sound (unless for added effect), but the partial muting combined with the wide open sound gives you more dynamics while you play. Practise this by playing two muted strokes followed by a wide open sound on every one of the three chords.

It gives your rhythm a nice contrast and makes it sound more bouncy. All you have to do is place the lower edge of your palm lightly on the strings, close to the bridge, in such a way as to muffle the sound but not deaden it. The position of where you place your hand and the amount of pressure you apply are the two variables you control to mute the sound.

Watch the video now, learn muting from your guitar teacher, and practise it thoroughly to perfect it. You’ll see that being able to play a more dynamic rhythm will always come in handy.

While we’ve covered the role of the right hand (picking hand) in rhythm guitar, this episode explores the role of the left hand (fretting hand) in muting techniques. What this adds is basically a percussive element to your rhythm playing, breaking away from a sort of uninspired sound that is only melodic and harmonic.

To illustrate this, we will use the bar chord version of the G with finger positions as outlined below.

G Major: Index finger on the 3rd fret (all strings), middle finger on the 4th fret (3rd string), ring finger on the 5th fret (5th string), and the finger on the 5th fret (4th string).

Since this is a bar chord, you can mute the chord simply by releasing the pressure on the strings. This gives you a lot of versatility to play long sustaining chords or short muted chords.

You can draw a contrast between no notes (fully muted) and fully articulated notes. You can also experiment with the order of the strokes – muted first and then open; or open first and then muted.

We have a few exercises that can help you improve your muting technique. We’ll use the same G Major Chord and the following 8th note pattern. Start with down and upstrokes and then proceed to muting either the first (downstroke) note, or the second (upstroke) note which would harder to do.

1 & 2 & 3 & 4 &

D U D U D U D U

1 & 2 & 3 & 4 &

X U D U D U D U

1 & 2 & 3 & 4 &

D X D U D U D U

D = Downstroke | U = Upstroke | X = Mute

Once you’re comfortable with this, you can try increasing the complexity by muting two notes instead of one, to improve the rhythm. Just by adding more muted notes to the 8th note pattern, you will be able to arrive at dynamic rhythms and fun new grooves.

Remember to do a lot of the practise along with the metronome as this is a very important time exercise for you to master.

Watch the video now, learn to mute using your left hand, and pick up the practice exercises to steadily improve your muting technique.

This episode focuses on arpeggio or playing a chord one note at a time, instead of all together at once. But we let the notes ring into each other for a more lush sound.

Try this with the C Major Chord, using downstrokes when you are ascending in pitch and upstrokes when you are descending in pitch. You can also add in the G Major Chord for a more fun exercise.

There are two ways to go about this – counting in 8 notes and counting in 6 notes. You can count out loud and play the strokes coinciding with the count.

This is essentially -1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8- and with each count you would be playing a different note of the chord.

This is easier to do with some chords than others, because they are laid out in a way that makes it easy to arpeggiate them. For example, in the C chord, you would be playing four strings that are right next to each other, ascending in pitch, and then descending back to the C note (or root note) that you started with.

However, if you’re doing this with the G chord for instance, and with the 8 count, you may need to skip a few strings so that you’re back to the G note (count 1) after one full ascending and descending cycle. In terms of strings, how you would play this is: String 6-4-3-2-1-2-3-4-6

The reverse is also true in the case of chords like D Major, where you don’t have enough notes for the 8 count. To ensure an even playing experience, how do you adapt the technique? We can add in variations and combinations to increase the number of strings played, although we’ll still be within the span of 4 strings that are used for the D Major Chord. How you would play this: String 4-3-2-3-1-3-2-3-4

Irrespective of whether the chord has too many or too few notes for the 8 count arpeggio, you can come up with interesting patterns and simple fixes to ensure you arrive back at the root note on count 1. Now experiment with the 6 count for the C chord.

Arpeggio is an interesting way of making our songs, especially the slower songs or ballads, sound a little more interesting. Instead of just strumming the chords one downstroke per count, we can arpeggiate them to add some flair.

You will realise that there is often no fixed way to play an arpeggio. That’s what makes it a fun exercise to discover new patterns and learn as you go. Watch the video now and pick up this fun and interesting technique of playing chords in guitar.

The previous episodes covered a lot of interesting guitar techniques and ideas for you to explore. But now we come to a practical application of these techniques to play a popular song that you would certainly be familiar with.

In this video, we’ll look at how you can play “Summer of ’69” by Bryan Adams. The use of this song is purely for educational purposes only, so you can quickly learn how to play the guitar chords for your favourite songs.

The song is in the key of D, which is to say it uses notes from the D Major scale: D E F# G A B C# D

While the actual song is played with a bit of distortion (a grittier sounding guitar) effect, it can be played on a clean electric or acoustic guitar, and it’s just as fun and legitimate.

We’ll be using a mix of palm muting (or right hand muting) which we’ve covered in one of the earlier lessons along with open chords to get a more dynamic sound.

D Major Chord Riff – Introduction

1 & 2 & 3 & 4 & 1 & 2 & 3 & 4 &

D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D

> PM--------> PM----------------------------------------------------------

D = Downstroke

PM = Palm Muting

> = Accent (remove the palm to unmute)

--- = Continue palm muting

One thing to note is that we’ll be almost ignoring the high E string, and instead focusing more on the D, G and B strings in this opening riff. Next we switch to the A Major Chord as outlined below.

A Major Chord Riff - Introduction

1 & 2 & 3 & 4 & 1 & 2 & 3 & 4 &

D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D

> PM--------> PM----------------------------------------------------------

After the introduction bit, we shift from muted chords to nice big-sounding open chords. We’ll use a variation of the D Major, known as the D Suspended 2 (D sus2). All you need to do is remove the middle finger from the 1st string.

D Major: Index finger on the 2nd fret (3rd string), middle finger on the 2nd fret (1st string), ring finger on the 3rd fret (2nd string), and open string (1st string).

D sus2: Index finger on the 2nd fret (3rd string), ring finger on the 3rd fret (2nd string), and open strings (1st and 4th string).

Play one count of D sus2 and one count of D Major by adding back the middle finger on the 1st string. Similarly, we play the A sus2 and A Major in succession.

A Major: Index finger on the 2nd fret (4th string), middle finger on the 2nd fret (3rd string), ring finger on the 2nd fret (2nd string), and open strings (1st and 5th).

A sus2: Index finger on the 2nd fret (4th string), middle finger on the 2nd fret (3rd string), and open strings (1st, 2nd and 5th).

This combination of A sus2 / A Major continues for the verse till the drum beat kicks in. The rest of the song would be covered in the upcoming episode. Watch the video now, learn to play till here and check out the next episode for Part II of the song.

This video is a continuation of the previous episode where we looked at the intro part of the song “Summer of ’69” by Bryan Adams. The use of this song is purely for educational purposes only, so you get comfortable with playing chords for popular songs.

After the intro riff and the D sus2 / D Major followed by A sus2 / A Major portion, we move to a section that we could call the pre-chorus. Here we use the chords B Minor (Bm), A Major (A), D Major (D), and G Major (G).

The sequence for the pre-chorus is: Bm-A-D-G-Bm-A-D-G-Bm-A-D. One thing to note is regarding the last part of this pre-chorus where the singer says “Those were the best days of my life”. Here we strum each of the chords (Bm, A, D) just once for contrast and a dip before it builds into the chorus.

For the chorus, we alternate between D and A as outlined below:

D Major – Chorus

1 & 2 & 3 & 4 & 1 & 2 & 3 & 4 &

D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D

^ PM---- ^ PM---- ^ PM----- ^ PM---- ^ PM ^ PM

A Major – Chorus

1 & 2 & 3 & 4 & 1 & 2 & 3 & 4 &

D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D

^ PM---- ^ PM---- ^ PM----- ^ PM---- ^ PM ^ PM

D = Downstroke | PM = Palm Muting | ^ = Accent (remove the palm to unmute) | --- = Continue palm muting

During this section, there’s a part that gets played on the keyboard. This can be played on the guitar as well, using chord arpeggios. The chords used are Dsus2, D and Dsus4.

Dsus2: Index finger on the 2nd fret (3rd string), ring finger on the 3rd fret (2nd string), and open strings (1st and 4th string).

Dsus4: Index finger on the 2nd fret (3rd string), ring finger on the 3rd fret (2nd string), little finger on the 3rd fret (1st string), and open string (4th string).

The arpeggiated chord sequence is: Dsus2 (strings 1-2-3), D Major (strings 1-2-3), Dsus4 (strings 1-2-3), back to D Major (strings 1-2-3), Dsus2 (strings 1 and 3), and finally D Major (strings 1 and 3).

Next we use the chords Asus2, A and Asus4.

Asus2: Index finger on the 2nd fret (4th string), middle finger on the 2nd fret (3rd string), and open strings (1st, 2nd and 5th).

Asus4: Index finger on the 2nd fret (4th string), middle finger on the 2nd fret (3rd string), ring finger on the 3rd fret (2nd string), and open strings (1st and 5th).

The arpeggiated chord sequence is: Asus2 (strings 2-3-4), A Major (strings 2-3-4), Asus4 (strings 2-3-4), back to A Major (strings 2-3-4), Asus2 (strings 2 and 4), and finally A Major (strings 2 and 4).

This is followed by the second verse which is a repeat of the first verse using chords D and A. We then go back to the pre-chorus with chords Bm, A, D, and G.

There’s also a bridge section which goes outside the key of D.

Bridge Section Chords

F Major: Index finger on the 1st fret (1st and 2nd string), middle finger on the 2nd fret (3rd string), ring finger on the 3rd fret (5th string), and little finger on the 3rd fret (4th string).

Bb: Index finger on the 1st fret (strings 1 to 5), and ring finger on the 3rd fret (strings 2 to 4).

C Major: Index finger on the 3rd fret (strings 1 to 5), middle finger on the 5th fret (4th string), ring finger on the 5th fret (3rd string), and little finger on the 5th fret (2nd string).

We play F-Bb-C-Bb-F-Bb-C-C with the rhythm 1&2&3&4& for this bridge section.

This leads back to the riff we learnt earlier with Dsus2, D, Dsus4 and Asus2, A, Asus4. This is followed by another verse which repeats, then there’s the pre-chorus same as before, a chorus which continues a number of times, and a guitar solo which fades out to exit from the song.

This may not sound identical to the album version as we have adapted it so you can play on the acoustic guitar as well, without having a band to play along with you.

All the techniques from earlier that we incorporated to play this fun song can be applied to different kinds of music in many different styles. Watch the video now and complete your learning of the song “Summer of ‘69”.

In this episode, we look at the G Major Scale and explore how to play it across all six strings of the guitar, rather than just from one G note to the next G (which is one octave).

Notes in the G Major Scale: G A B C D E F# G

Across all six strings this look like: 6th string (3rd, 5th fret), 5th string (2nd, 3rd, 5th fret), 4th string (2nd, 4th, 5th fret), 3rd string (2nd, 4th, 5th fret), 2nd string (3rd, 5th fret), and 1st string (2nd, 3rd, 5th fret).

The last note (1st string, 5th fret) is the A and we’re playing this extra note beyond the G because it is still part of the G Major Scale. This lets us know how far the scale can extend within this particular position.

Play the entire scale now from the 6th string (low E) to the 1st string (high E). Try using alternate picking (downstrokes and upstrokes) to improve your technique. When we play the scale in this fashion, you’ll notice we’re hitting different number of notes on each string – some are 3 notes while some are only 2.

Because there is no uniformity in your ascent and descent, this can be confusing for your right hand, especially as a beginner when you’re trying to learn how to play the guitar. This becomes challenging when you want to break down the scale into smaller chunks for easier practice.

So there’s another way to play a major scale, where we regularise what we’re doing across a fixed number of strings – all six strings in this case. We use the same notes as before, but we play a fixed number of notes per string.

For the G Major Scale, we’ll follow 3 notes per string.

6th string (3rd, 5th, 7th fret), 5th string (3rd, 5th, 7th fret), 4th string (4th, 5th, 7th fret), 3rd string (4th, 5th, 7th fret), 2nd string (5th, 7th, 8th fret), and 1st string (5th, 7th, 8th fret).

This makes it easier for your right hand as you learn to play in string pairs, and then repeat the right hand motion for the next string pair, and so on. In terms of strokes, this would look like: Down Up Down Up Down Up

Now you’ve learnt two things – how to play the G Major Scale across all six strings, and how to play it in a slightly more symmetrical and uniform pattern. Experiment and figure out which one you’re more comfortable with. Both are important from the perspective of improve your guitar skills.

As you progress through the lessons, you’ll become more comfortable with uneven picking patterns and this is important to play advanced pieces of music. The technique you learnt in this video can be applied to all major scales. Watch now and follow your guitar teacher as he takes you through the exercise.

In previous episodes, we’ve already covered upstrokes and how to work them into your rhythmic playing by counting those upstrokes as the &s between the numbers: 1 & 2 & 3 & 4 &

This translates to 8 strokes for every 4 clicks of your metronome. To play the sixteenth note rhythms, we double the count; that is 16 strokes for 4 clicks of the metronome. Try this now using the G Major Chord.

Counting 16 notes per measure

1 e & a 2 e & a 3 e & a 4 e & a

D U D U D U D U D U D U D U D U

D = Downstroke

U = Upstroke

One of the objectives of this exercise is to improve speed while maintaining fluency in strumming, to develop a solid rhythm technique. There are many songs that require you to break up the 4 clicks of the metronome into 16 counts, to get finer levels of control over the beats played in the middle.

The real fun part of this exercise is when we start to leave out or drop notes in the 16 counts, which gives us different rhythmic feels and grooves. To illustrate this, let’s take the song “Torn” by Natalie Imbruglia. The use of this song is for educational purposes only, so you get comfortable with playing sixteenth note rhythms.

This song uses the chords G Major, B Minor and C Major (which you would be familiar with by now), along with a technique that was covered earlier – left hand muting.

Strumming pattern for the song “Torn”

1 e & a 2 e & a 3 e & a 4 e & a

D U D U X X X U X X D X D X X X

D = Downstroke

U = Upstroke

X = Mute

By placing these muted notes in unusual positions in the sixteenth note rhythm, you can arrive at interesting grooves. This is the advantage of having your picking at double the speed as before.

One word of caution is to remember not to tense up your hands. The natural response in these situations is to grip the pick harder, but you should instead try to relax the grip a bit more.

Keep your guitar and metronome app handy, watch the video now, listen to your guitar teacher, and improve your strumming technique with sixteenth note rhythms.

In this episode, we’ll lay the foundation for lead guitar playing, which involves some intricate coordination between the left and right hand, and the knowledge of certain scales. While it’s too early for you to dive into lead playing, learning this foundation will prove useful.

The scale we’ll be covering now is the pentatonic scale which is quite popular on the electric guitar due to the easy way in which it is laid out, and the fact that you can play some beautiful pieces with very relatable sounds from this shape.

As the name suggests, this scale has 5 notes in it. When compared to the major scale we learnt in earlier episodes, the pentatonic scale has two notes less. The A Minor Pentatonic Scale is what we’ll be looking at in this episode.

Finger Position for A Minor Pentatonic Scale

6th String: Frets 5 and 8

5th String: Frets 5 and 7

4th String: Frets 5 and 7

3rd String: Frets 5 and 7

2nd String: Frets 5 and 8

1st String: Frets 5 and 8

You may feel that you’re playing more than 5 notes, but that’s only because we are repeating some notes in order to play across all six strings. Practise this (both ascending in pitch and descending) using a metronome and be sure to match the clicks on the metronome.

A lot of rock music riffs originate in the A Minor Pentatonic Scale, so if you experiment with it, you’re sure to find familiar sounds. Connected to rock music is blues music, and by just adding one more note to this scale, you can arrive at the A Minor Blues Scale.

Finger Position for A Minor Blues Scale

6th String: Frets 5 and 8

5th String: Frets 5, 6 and 7

4th String: Frets 5 and 7

3rd String: Frets 5, 7 and 8

2nd String: Frets 5 and 8

1st String: Frets 5 and 8

Watch the video now, practise both these scales, and once you get comfortable with them, you can start experimenting to arrive at very cool and funky riffs. These two scales are your introduction to the world of rock music.

In this episode we’ll be exploring bar chords in guitar. Basically we use our index finger to bar all six strings (by flattening the index finger), and the remaining fingers in various positions in front of that bar to play different chord shapes.

So why do we need bar chords in the first place? Suppose you’re working with a vocalist and you start a song in C Major. But the singer feels it is too low and you need to play a fret higher, which means all the notes of the song need to be moved one fret higher.

The problem with moving up a fret with a non-bar chord is the open strings don’t get moved up, and thus the new chord doesn’t sound right. But once you use the bar chord version, the index finger acts like the new nut of the guitar and you can easily move the chord any number of frets higher or lower.

The bar is an easy way to take all the chord shapes we’ve learnt till now and move them up or down the fretboard, to accommodate different pitches and sounds. Apart from giving you the flexibility to move chord shapes up or down a fret easily, bar chords also give you more percussive sounds, and enable styles with short notes or staccato as we refer to them.

The bar basically lets you mute the strings instead of letting them ring out, when you want to play short notes. When you use the bar across all six strings it is referred to as a grand bar, whereas if you use it across a fewer number of strings, then it is a mini bar.

Watch the video now, learn to play the bar chord versions of common chords with C-based, E-based, and A-based shapes. Observe carefully as your guitar teacher demonstrates moving up and down the fretboard using bar chords.

Until now, we’ve been using triads or 3-note chords in all the episodes. We’ll now explore seventh chords and how to play them on the guitar.

Seventh chords essentially take 3-note chords and add the seventh note on the corresponding scale. There are a few types of seventh chords that you need to be familiar with. We’ll use the key of C Major to explain seventh chords in this lesson.

We’ll be taking the existing chords (C, Dm, Em, F, G, Am, B dim) in the key of C Major and arriving at their seventh versions based on the scale. The finger positions are as follows:

C Maj7 – 5th string (3rd fret), 4th string (2nd fret), 3rd string (open), 2nd string (open), 1st string (open)

Dm7 – 4th string (open), 3rd string (2nd fret), 2nd string (3rd fret), 1st string (1st fret)

Em7 – 6th string (open), 5th string (2nd fret), 4th string (open), 3rd string (open), 2nd string (open), 1st string (open)

F Maj7 – 5th string (3rd fret), 4th string (3rd fret), 3rd string (2nd fret), 2nd string (1st fret), 1st string (open)

G7 – 6th string (3rd fret), 5th string (2nd fret), 4th string (open), 3rd string (open), 2nd string (open), 1st string (1st fret)

Am7 – 5th string (open), 4th string (2nd fret), 3rd string (open), 2nd string (1st fret), 1st string (open)

Bm7b5 – 5th string (2nd fret), 4th string (3rd fret), 3rd string (2nd fret), 2nd string (3rd fret)

For each of these seventh chords, you can play the base chord and its seventh version one after the other to better appreciate the difference. It can also be a fun practice exercise, playing each chord and its seventh version alternately.

Similar to the C Major scale, you have seventh chords in other scales too. Watch the video now, pay attention to the fingering, practise and perfect these seven seventh chords in the key of C Major.

In the previous episode, you got an introduction to seventh chords in guitar – specifically the seventh chords in the key of C Major. Now, we’ll look at how to use some of these chords to play certain popular songs.

One thing to note is that seventh chords and major seventh chords are quite a bit different, so don’t equate the two.

Identifying the use of these chords in popular songs is a great start to learn them better, and to appreciate how they’ve been used by musicians who came before us.

We’ll explore a couple of songs, starting with “Give Me One Reason” by Tracy Chapman, which uses just three chords, all of which are seventh chords. The use of these songs (or excerpts from these songs) is purely for educational purposes, to get you familiarised with the use of seventh chords.

Chords and Progression for “Give Me One Reason” (12 bar blues)

|F#7 |B7 |F#7 |F#7 |B7 |B7 C#7 |F#7 |F#7 |C#7 |B7 |F#7 |F#7

Chords for Magnolia by J.J. Cale

F Maj7 – 5th string (8th fret), 4th string (10th fret), 3rd string (9th fret), 2nd string (10th fret), 1st string (8th fret)

C Ma7 – 5th string (3rd fret), 4th string (5th fret), 3rd string (4th fret), 2nd string (5th fret), 1st string (3rd fret)

Chords for “I Shot The Sheriff” – Eric Clapton’s Version

Gm7 – 6th string (3rd fret), 5th string (5th fret), 4th string (3rd fret), 3rd string (3rd fret), 2nd string (3rd fret), 1st string (3rd fret)

Cm7 – 5th string (3rd fret), 4th string (5th fret), 3rd string (3rd fret), 2nd string (4th fret), 1st string (3rd fret)

Dm7 – 5th string (5th fret), 4th string (7th fret), 3rd string (5th fret), 2nd string (6th fret), 1st string (5th fret)

EbMaj7 – 5th string (6th fret), 4th string (8th fret), 3rd string (7th fret), 2nd string (8th fret), 1st string (6th fret)

With guitar as with most instruments, it’s a lot about developing a mental and physical connection to the instrument, and understanding the instrument better. And that happens the more time you spend practising with it.

Go back and watch these 25 videos, to catch the minute details and nuances in technique. Also, remember to use the metronome to get your timing right. That’s it, practise and hone your guitar skills