Music Theory

Welcome to my guitar lesson page! This first page is intended for absolute beginners, and the links here are meant for those who have more experience playing the guitar.

Intro

First, the layout of the guitar:

If you were to lay your guitar on your lap with the body (the large part) of the guitar at your right hand, this is how the neck should look. The standard guitar has 6 strings. The thinnest string on the diagram is the string at the top of the image, this is also the first string. The thickest string is on the bottom of the image and is called the 6th string. Each string has a name which refers to the note that it plays while it is strummed without pressing down on any string. In order, they are:

e String
B String
G String
D String
A String
E String

You may notice that there are two 'e' strings. In standard guitar nomenclature, the lower case 'e' is represented by the 1st string, and the upper case 'E' is represented by the 6th string.

Frets And Reading Tab

The frets of a guitar are the spaces inbetween the horizontal bars. Each third fret has a circular dot on it up until you reach the 12th fret. In that case there are two circular dots instead of one. A lot of guitar lessons utilize tabulature (or tabs) to teach guitar. For example, in tab notation, the instructions for putting a finger from your left hand on the 3rd fret of the A string would look like this:

e|-----|-----|-----|
B|-----|-----|-----|
G|-----|-----|-----|
D|-----|-----|-----|
A|-----|--3--|-----|
E|-----|-----|-----|

The instructions for strumming an open note on the guitar (not holding down/fretting any of the strings) would look like this:

e|-----|-----|-----|
B|-----|-----|-----|
G|-----|-----|-----|
D|-----|-----|-----|
A|-----|--0--|-----|
E|-----|-----|-----|

This means to just strum the A string without fretting any notes on the A string. To get used to your guitar, you should practice this finger training exercise:

e|--------------|--------------|--------------|--------------|--------------|--1--2--3--4--|
B|--------------|--------------|--------------|--------------|--1--2--3--4--|--------------|
G|--------------|--------------|--------------|--1--2--3--4--|--------------|--------------|
D|--------------|--------------|--1--2--3--4--|--------------|--------------|--------------|
A|--------------|--1--2--3--4--|--------------|--------------|--------------|--------------|
E|--1--2--3--4--|--------------|--------------|--------------|--------------|--------------|

Chords

Chords on guitar, or in any music, are any three notes played together. On a guitar, many guitarists utilize every string on the guitar when strumming chords so that they can get a fuller sound. This is an "E minor" (Emin) chord:

e|--0--|
B|--0--|
G|--0--|
D|--2--|
A|--2--|
E|--0--|

Here, you would simply hold down the second frets on the A and D string and strum every string in unison. An arpeggio is a chord where the notes are played individually, like so:

e|------------0--|
B|----------0----|
G|--------0------|
D|------2--------|
A|----2----------|
E|--0------------|

The word arpeggio is Italian for "harp-like". Those two examples show the difference between harmony and melody, respectively. The first Emin chord is an example of harmony, while the second Emin chord is an example of melody. Here are some other basic chords:

  Emin   Emin7    E      E7   Emaj7   		  Bmin   Bmin7    B      B7   Bmaj7 
e|--0--||--0--||--0--||--0--||--0--|		e|--2--||--5--||--2--||--5--||--6--|
B|--0--||--3--||--0--||--3--||--0--|		B|--3--||--3--||--4--||--4--||--4--|
G|--0--||--0--||--1--||--1--||--1--|		G|--4--||--4--||--4--||--4--||--4--|
D|--2--||--2--||--2--||--2--||--1--|		D|--4--||--4--||--4--||--4--||--4--|
A|--2--||--2--||--2--||--2--||--2--|		A|--0--||--0--||--0--||--0--||--0--|
E|--0--||--0--||--0--||--0--||--0--|		E|--0--||--0--||--0--||--0--||--0--|

  Amin   Amin7    A      A7   Amaj7 		  Fmin   Fmin7    F      F7   Fmaj7 
e|--0--||--3--||--0--||--3--||--4--|		e|--1--||--1--||--1--||-----||--0--|
B|--1--||--1--||--2--||--2--||--2--|		B|--1--||--1--||--1--||--4--||--1--|
G|--2--||--2--||--2--||--2--||--2--|		G|--1--||--1--||--2--||--2--||--2--|
D|--2--||--2--||--2--||--2--||--2--|		D|--3--||--1--||--3--||--3--||--3--|
A|--0--||--0--||--0--||--0--||--0--|		A|--3--||--3--||--3--||--3--||--3--|
E|--0--||--0--||--0--||--0--||--0--|		E|--1--||--1--||--1--||-----||--1--|

  Dmin   Dmin7    D      D7   Dmaj7 		  Cmin   Cmin7    C      C7   Cmaj7 
e|--1--||--1--||--2--||--2--||--2--|		e|--3--||--6--||--0--||--0--||--0--|
B|--3--||--1--||--3--||--1--||--2--|		B|--4--||--4--||--1--||--1--||--0--|
G|--2--||--2--||--2--||--2--||--2--|		G|--5--||--5--||--0--||--3--||--4--|
D|--0--||--0--||--0--||--0--||--0--|		D|--5--||--5--||--2--||--2--||--2--|
A|--0--||--0--||--0--||--0--||--0--|		A|-----||-----||--3--||--3--||--3--|
E|--0--||--0--||--0--||--0--||--0--|		E|-----||-----||--0--||--0--||--0--|

  Gmin   Gmin7    G      G7   Gmaj7 
e|--3--||--3--||--3--||--1--||--2--|
B|--3--||--3--||--3--||--0--||--0--|
G|--3--||--3--||--0--||--0--||--0--|
D|--5--||--3--||--0--||--0--||--0--|
A|--5--||--5--||--2--||--2--||--2--|
E|--3--||--3--||--3--||--3--||--3--|

The beauty of the chords are that if you know one finger position, then you can move that finger position up or down a couple of frets and you've got yourself another chord! For instance, you might notice that Emin, Fmin, and Gmin have the same fingering, just in different positions (especially Fmin and Gmin)

Fretboard Logic

Even though there are 6 different strings on the guitar, many of the strings play the same notes. For instance, fret 6 on the E string is the same as fret 1 on the A string. For example:

A|--1----|
E|--6----|

These are the same note: Bb. You can also say that these two notes are enharmonic, which is also another fancy way of saying "the same note" This is different however, from octaves. Even though octaves are the same note, they're not enharmonic since they don't have the same frequency. Two enharmonic notes would both be vibrating at 440 hz. An octave is one note vibrating at 440 hz and another note vibrating at 880 hz or 220 hz or 110 hz. To find out which notes are enharmonic, select a random note on the fretboard and move down (lower sounding notes) 5 frets and then move to the next lower string; or move up (higher sounding) 5 frets and then move to the next higher string. In the example above, you would start on fret 6 on the E string, move down 5 frets, then go to that same fret but on the A string.