Strumming Versus Picking
One problem beginners have is they tend to stick to only one style of playing. In my mind, there are two common ways you can play the guitar—picking or strumming. If you stick to strumming and never try picking, you will get really good at strumming and won’t want to pick. My advice would be to try to learn some easy songs that require picking and some that require strumming.
These are some pretty simple songs you can learn easily and try to sing to as well (you can check out where to find the tabs and/or chords on my “Easy Songs to Learn” page):
3 Easy Songs to Start with that Involve Picking:
Plain White T’s – “Hey There Delilah”
Music Video
Chords / Tabs
Jewel – “You Were Meant for Me”
Tabs / Chords
Music Video
Green Day – “Good Riddance / Time of Your Life”
Music Video
Chords / Tabs
3 Easy Songs to Learn that Require Strumming:
Howie Day – “Collide”
Music Video
Chords / Tabs
Deep Purple – “Smoke on the Water”
YouTube Video
Chords / Tabs
Nirvana – “Smells Like Teen Spirit”
Music Video
Chords / Tabs
If you happen to enjoy singing and want to eventually be able to sing and play at the same time, once you’ve learned the guitar part for these songs it wouldn’t hurt to begin trying to coordinate singing with playing at this point. The earlier to train yourself to coordinate singing and playing guitar, the better!
Finger Placement – Left and Right Hands
One of the most common mistakes beginners make is placing your fingers in the wrong place on the guitar fretboard. Learning to place your fingers correctly is essential, because if you learn guitar wrong, it becomes harder to play, and it is very hard to break bad habits. Make sure your guitar is the right way around, using your right hand to strum, and your left hand by the neck of the guitar.
Begin by picking a guitar fret, any fret, preferably a guitar fret closer towards the tuning pegs so that we don’t run out of room. Your index finger (or pointer finger) should always play this fret that you have chosen. Your middle finger should always play the notes on the next highest fret, your ring finger should play the next highest fret notes, and your pinky finger the next. If the guitar fret you picked in the beginning was the first fret, this is how your fingers would be placed:
Easy songs for beginners guitar
If you want to use any notes higher or lower than these four assigned guitar frets, no problem, just keep your fingers in that fixed position, and don’t let your index finger stray into other fingers’ territory!
Your right hand will be holding the pick. Make sure that the pick you are using is being held securely between your index and middle fingers and your thumb. Too much of the pick exposed when playing will result in a louder-than-necessary sound of the pick hitting the strings—and you may lose your pick. Too little of the pick exposed will make it harder to play and you will likely brush the pads of your fingers on the strings and deaden the sound. This is how your pick should look like before you start playing:
Easy Songs for Beginners Guitar / How to Properly Hold a Pick
Pick or strum with your right hand and choose notes with your left hand. Try to keep your left thumb behind the guitar fretboard whenever you can and maintain posture. Most people at first have to play around with it before they find something rhythmically interesting. Try counting 1-2-3-4 to your favorite song at first, and then spice it up with more rhythms when you start to feel confident.
Tuning
Tuning is everything. You could have the best guitar in the world and could be an amazing guitar player, but if your tuning is not right, you’re not going to sound good at all. If you haven’t already tuned your guitar, chances are it probably needs to be tuned as it doesn’t take much to de-tune a guitar.
The best way to tune, whether you’re playing an electric guitar or an acoustic guitar, is to tune with a stand-alone tuner. Special guitar tuners can be found at any music store or online. This is a pretty good starter tuner that I used when I was a beginner guitarist. If you don’t want to purchase a tuner and you have an iPhone, I believe there is an application for the iPhone that acts as a tuner.
Let’s start with the highest and skinniest of the strings. Turn on your tuner (you will know it is on if any lights turn on or if any sound makes a line move on the screen). Make sure the room is completely quiet so that the tuner does not pick up any sounds other than the guitar. Pick the string and let it ring. If it is saying it is sharp, (the pitch is too high), then you will need to loosen the string by turning the tuning peg. If it is saying that it is “flat” (the pitch is too low), then you will need to tighten the string. Depending on your guitar and how the guitar was strung, you will need to play with the tuning peg to figure out if you will need to turn the peg clockwise or counterclockwise to make the note lower or higher as needed.
Once you think you’ve got the green light saying it is tuned (or close to tuned) or the line on the screen seems to stay around the middle, then you have tuned that string. Compare the note to the note on this page to make sure that you tuned it to the right note.
The highest and lowest note string should be an “E” in standard tuning, and this is what you’re aiming for. Order of the strings from highest to lowest is as follows:
Highest note —> E B G D A E <—Lowest Note
(By highest, I mean highest in terms of sound, not in terms of position on the guitar.)
Tune the rest of the strings using the same steps as before and you’re tuned and ready to play!
