Woody's Guitar Garage

Hey guys so this is sth i want to offer you! I rly love to play guitar and as i said in my "real life game", it was all
selfthaught!

i will post here what i've done!
cuz maybe someone gets interested in this instrument and might want to learn it too!

first of all you need some time!

when i started i played like 3 hours a day continously for 1 month!
if you force yourself to do that much, you will be able to play the basic chords in no time!
i just tell you that when you start with this instrument playing this much for the first time,
your fingers will hurt a lot or even get bloody.

first i will start with a lil tutorial on guitar!
if you have some corrections, wishes, or questions, pls write me a pm or answer in the other thread i opened!

add: this won't be a tutorial about how to learn the fingerpicking, and not about the electric guitar.
this is simply a tutorial on how to learn chords and use them to play the songs you like!

what we have here are the two guitargroups!

- Electric
- Accoustic

you see that an electric guitar does not have a soundhole because it's not needed,
you play an electric guitar with electricity and special features, that make another sound!
another difference we have with the strings.
an electric guitar has 6 steel strings, while the accoustic guitar has 3 steel and 3 nylon strings.

there are other types of guitars:

- Western
- Semi-Accoustic

A western guitar is basically an accoustic guitar but with 6 steel strings and not only 3! A western guitar has a soundhole too!
A Semi Accoustic guitar is a mix of an electric and a western guitar!
with only a very little soundhole (like a violin), 6 steel strings and the features of an electric guitar.
with a semi-accoustic guitar you can play without electricity or with! if you play without it's like a western guitar but less noisy, cuz
she has only a little soundhole! if you play with it's just like an electric guitar.

Now sth about the strings!

Every Guitar has 6 strings! (well there are exceptions but a normal guitar has 6 strings)



Here we have an accoustic guitar, you can see the 3 nylon strings! (on the right side)

Atm you don't need to know anything about the musical scale (=Tonleiter)
but what you need to know is which tone has which string on your guitar

if you start top down you have:

E - the biggest string on your guitar
A
D
G
H (in english this would be a B)
E - you start with an E and you end with an E (the thinnest string on your guitar)

in german theres a nice trick to learn this:
Ein Anfägner Der Gitarre Hat Ehrgeiz -> E A D G H E

if you have an accoustic guitar, the strings G H E or G B E are always nylon strings!

Ok now sth about the neck!

important for every chord is to know to which fret (=bund) and on which string (=saite) belongs which finger!

a classic guitar has a shorter neck than a western or an electric guitar!

most of the guitars have some dots, or patterns on the neck on certain frets. that's just to make it easier to find your notes
and frets on the guitar!
starting with the 1st, 3rd, 5th, 7th, 9th 12th (this one has usually two dots) 15th 17th 19th 21th...
for a beginner most important are the frets 1 to 3!
everything else is even barré (=all fingers across a whole fret) or some special chords for different kinds of music! (blues, funk, rock, etc.)

now just to make it easier for you to play many different songs, before we start,
i like to present you the musical scale (=Tonleiter).
Why?
Because: if you know which tone comes after another, you can overwrite a song yourself to
the chords you can play allready!

now first the scale and then an example!

ok now this is the musical scale! it starts with a C and ends with a C within a total of 8 notes! it's called an octave (=1 oktave)
the C at the end is the starting C for the next 8 notes!
So C D E F G A H / C D E F G A H C -> 2 octaves
if you look at a piano it should become more clearly!

from left to the write every note gets a lil higher, and on the other side from right to the left every note is a lil lower!

You should also know this sign # , which replaces an "is".
so a F# = Fis (Major)

F#m = fis (Minor)

add: an F sharp Minor = fis = F#m
an F sharp = Fis = F#

ok back to our musical scale!
some theory now!

C D E F G A H C

from C to D is one step, one tone
from D to E it's the same
but from E to F its only a half tone! why this is so i won't explain here, cuz you will only mess some things!
from H to C it's the same as from E to F.
and last but not least the tone between A and H is not called Ais it's called B (in englisch bb)

If I put in the musical scale all halftone-steps it's looking like this:

C Cis D Dis E F Fis G Gis A B H C

exactly this is what you need to overwrite/transpose a song!

i posted now very much of theorie, but in fact all you need to know now is this:
C Cis D Dis E F Fis G Gis A B H C

ok here comes an example how to use this scale
to overwrite a song!

G D e C
(=G Major / D Major / e Minor / C Major)
in german: Major = Dur / Minor = Moll

these 4 basic chords you should be able to play, how you do that i will explain later!
but let's pretend you can play these 4 chords, but you found a song you want to play with other chords,
let's say:

A E fis D

now you don't know how to play an A or a fis, but you can overwrite these 4 chords so that you can play the song
with the chords you know!
how does that work?
we use now the musical scale!

C Cis D Dis E F Fis G Gis A B H C

so you replace that A with a G
you see in our scale you have to go one step back from the A to reach the G
now you do the same for every other tone
A - 1 = G
E - 1 = D
fis - 1 = e (because fis is a Minor tone, e becomes a Minor tone too)
D - 1 = C

that's how it works, now you can play the same song but with the chords you know and you can play!

Ok now
let's start with the chords

when i started with playing guitar, i started with the chords A, E and e!
but i suggest to learn other chords first!

now to learn a chord the "easiest" way is to switch between 2 chords and repeat this over and
over again!

so now your work is beginning! i will post now how the 4 chords look like that i want you to learn, with an explenation which fingers
you should use to grab the chords, and then you just have to try this over and over again.
at the beginning it's rly hard and you have to make many strange moves with your fingers, but for me it was never boring
cuz at least you have some sound you produce and it's getting better =D


just two more tipps:
- try to move your finger to the end of the fret, otherwise it won't sound that much...
ex: if you play a tone in the first fret, move as close as you can near the second fret, it's easier to let the string sound!
- begin with a simple 4/4 takt, which means 1 2 3 4 , 1 2 3 4!
- stroke down every beat. means stroke down on 1 on 2 on 3 on 4 and now try to change the chord
ex: G chord on 1 on 2 on 3 on 4 C chord on 1 on 2 on 3 on 4 and so on!
use this metronome to stay in takt.
http://webmetronome.com/

For the numbers:
1= pointer/index finger (=zeigefinger)
2= middle finger (=mittelfinger)
3= ring finger (=ringfinger)
4= pinkie (=kleiner finger)

First Chord:

G-Major Chord

so your middle finger is in fret 2 and your pointer and pinkie in fret 3


an e Minor is just like an E Major but take your pointer finger off! so an E-Chord only with your middlefinger and pinkie

legend:
x = mute string = don't hit that string when you strum down!!!
o = open string = there's no finger on this string but you still have to hit that string when you strum!!!

now i give you the advice to begin with a G chord and then C, e, D

2 easy songs with only these chords
would be

- Take me home country roads - john denver

- let it be - the beatles

another one with only 2 of these chords (e/D)

- lady in black - uriah heep

i post you a site which has 1000 of chords for 1000 songs!

www.ultimate-guitar.com

here you can get the chords for every song you like, most of them transposed in G D e C cuz these are the basic chords!
otherwise try to learn the chords a = Am = A Minor = am / A = A Major / E = E Major too!!!

i give you the exact link too:
http://www.ultimate-guitar.com/tabs/b/beatles/let_it_be_ver4_crd.htm
- let it be
http://www.ultimate-guitar.com/tabs/j/john_denver/country_roads_crd.htm
- country roads
http://www.ultimate-guitar.com/tabs/u/uriah_heep/lady_in_black_ver2_crd.htm
- lady in black

the easiest way is if you open two windows!
- one with the chords on ultimate-guitar
- one with the original song in youtube or a tutorial video of the song!

like this you hear how the songs gonna be played and you just have to follow with your guitar!