Strummin Along

Seems that most everyone wants to learn to play the guitar. It is such an awesome instrument, and although I am never good at picking favorites with anything, I could probably say it is my favorite of all the instruments I play. At least, it is the instrument I write most of my songs on, and the instrument that I gravitate toward during little stolen moments of my day.

I encourage anyone who wants to learn the guitar to stick with it past that point when the thought dawns on you, "wow, this is harder than I thought" (and that thought will dawn on you sometime during the first 2 weeks you start playing). Remember that every guitarist - even the greatest - had this moment.

Unlike some other instruments, such as the piano, there is no instant gratification with the guitar. With the piano, for example, you simply press a key and you've played a right note. If you play a sequence of white keys, it will sound good and decent. However, with the guitar, this is not the case. This is, of course, not to suggest that the piano is an 'easy' instrument. It has many complexities. I'm only talking about that initial starting point.

When learning the guitar, you are adjusting to and trying to master several things right off the bat ... holding the strings down firmly enough so that the strings don't buzz (and enduring this until you develop callouses), keeping proper finger placement within the correct frets, strumming smoothly (and not plucking a string so hard that you throw it out of tune), keeping your instrument in tune, and so on.

I always tell people to just keep with the guitar past that point because it does get better. There's nothing like getting to a point where you feel you can play a song you love.

I am including pictures of a few of the more simple chords that are related to each other. Click on the images above for a larger view. Once you learn to play these, work on switching back and forth between the chords. Then you can play a song!

I would certainly take it one chord at a time. Work for a few days or a week ONLY on the A chord (start with this chord).

Jessica