Guitar for Beginners
All the information you need to really get playing
 
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I have been putting together some "Videos" in Windows Media Format 
This will  help you get started faster by, 
actually seeing as well as hearing what I am doing
Look out for the 
"Rockin' Hotdog The Headless Guitarist" logo 
like this sometimes alongside the MP3 links  
which means there is also a downloadable
Window media Player video available.
 
If you are a total beginner;
follow these links to hear/see me talk you through this stuff!!
I will tell you about... 
The videos will download quickly if you,  right click/save target as
How do I hold it? New Hotdog Video 
 
strings/frets   chords  strumming 
Strumming with a Plectrum 
 
Here are a few bits of easy songs for you to play,
hear me playing and talking you through them.
Leaving on a jet plane  / Wonderful Tonight / Knocking on Heaven's Door
Sweet Child O' Mine  / When you say nothing at all / Time of your life
 
These are snippets just to get you started,
 if you would like to do the whole song or the "Proper version"
request it on the Free lesson Request 
TUNING 

The strings are tuned to the notes E A D G B e and are numbered 6 5 4 3 2 1
with the E(6)being the biggest (bass) string,  A(5) the next biggest etc
The easiest way to tune the Guitar, is to buy an Electronic Tuner!
There are loads on the market, but a good buy is the Qwik Tune 2 or the Korg CA20
They are both Chromatic (recognises all notes) and cheap (approx £12)
CLICK HERE TO HEAR WHAT MY GUITAR SOUNDS LIKE "IN TUNE"
FRETS 

Frets are the little bars running across the neck of the Guitar,
the 1st fret is the furthest left then 2nd etc
On some Guitars there is what we call a “Zero Fret”
very close to the “Nut”  ignore this,
the next fret is “1” this is quite rare!
CHORDS
A note is 1 sound, pick a string eg 6th, and that is the note of E.

Strum a few strings together,  and that is a Chord (a collection of notes)

A chord is a position in which to put the fingers of your left hand.
Check out the chordsheet to see how we write chords.

READING/WRITING CHORDS
There are several different ways  of representing chords
 but all of my students have found this way the easiest to see/understand.

When viewing the chordsheet remember that,  the numbers in the circles, 
 are the fingers of your left hand. 
with 1 being the index finger and so on.
have a look at the "Guitar Basics" page for further info

Say to yourself ; Which Finger, goes on which String, in which Fret,
 How many strings do I play?
Don't play strings with an X above  as these are not part of the chord.

You don't need to learn loads of chords,
 in fact you can play millions of songs with just 3 chords!

I always teach people to play D, Cadd9, Gadd5, first, 
as these are really easy to change between
as you only end up moving 2 fingers each time
 go here to read about STRUMMING
download this MP3 to hear D, Cadd9, Gadd5.