The Ovation guitar was a revolution in the history of guitar making. Its innovations include the use of synthetic materials in guitar construction, the mathematically designed “bowl back”, the use of onboard preamps and piezoelectric pickups, and the offset soundholes of the Adamas series.

Charles Kaman, an aeronautical engineer and amateur guitar player, was born in 1917. He was raised in Washington, DC, and by his teenage years he had two main interests: guitar playing, and aviation design. These interests would later combine to produce the Ovation guitar.

As a teen, Kaman entered model airplane design contests held at his local playground. He also entered a national guitar competition sponsored by the makers of Kool and Chesterfield cigarettes. Kaman made it to the finals and won the opportunity to play guitar onstage with the Tommy Dorsey orchestra. Afterwards, Dorsey offered Kaman $75 per week to play guitar with the band, but Kaman turned it down.

Instead of taking the opportunity to play guitar professionally with Dorsey’s orchestra, Kaman had decided to pursue his interest in aeronautics. He attended Catholic University in Washington and graduated in 1940 with a Bachelor’s degree in aeronautical engineering.

Frustrated in his ambition to become a pilot because he was deaf in one ear, Kaman instead became a propeller designer in the helicopter division of United Aircraft, working for inventor Igor Sikorsky. By 1943, he was the head of aerodynamics. But when he developed a new propeller design that would dramatically increase helicopter stablility, he was told that the company had an inventor already (Sikorsky) and didn’t need another one.

So in 1945, Charlie founded his own helicopter design company, Kaman Aircraft. The company was quite successful and grew steadily until the early 1960s. However, the company relied heavily on defense contracts, and when a key government contract was cancelled after President Kennedy’s death, Kaman decided it was time to diversify outside of the aircraft and defense related business.

Naturally, Charlie became interested in designing and building guitars. His experience with helicopters had taught him, and his engineers, a lot about resonance and vibration, and he thought they could design a better acoustic guitar than those available at the time.

At around the same time, Charlie took his warped Martin guitar to the Martin factory for repair. He toured the plant, and was shocked that Martin was building guitars by hand with hammers, animal glue, and clothespins. He offered to buy the company and modernize their manufacturing, but C.F. Martin refused, wanting to keep Martin a family business.

So just as he had with the helicopter business 20 years earlier, Kaman decided to start his own guitar manufacturing business. He assembled a team of aeronautics engineers to design the ideal acoustic guitar, using their extensive knowledge of resonance and vibration. As Charlie would later tell Business Week, “In a helicopter, you take vibration out; in a guitar, you put it in.”

The result was the Ovation “bowlback”, a rounded back made of a fiberglass composite similar to materials used in aircraft construction. The unique shape of the back as designed to focus the soundwaves inside the guitar to maximize the sound transmission.

The first Ovation guitar, the Ovation Balladeer, was introduced in 1967. In 1971, Ovation pioneered the acoustic-electric guitar, adding piezo-electric pickups, onboard preamps, and equalizers to some of their guitars. By the 1980s, Ovations had caught on with professional guitar players and were used onstage extensively. Guitarists using Ovations onstage included Josh White, Glen Campbell, Al DiMeola, Jimmy Page, and many others.

If Charlie Kaman hadn’t played the guitar, or hadn’t studied aeronautics, or if his Martin hadn’t needed a repair at the same time that Kaman Industries needed to diversify, we might not have the Ovation guitar or the Applause guitar today.

As more and more people become comfortable with making purchases online, it’s inevitable that guitar stores have gone online as well. If you’re looking for great selection and price, shopping for a guitar online can be a great way to go. In today’s post I’ll list five of the best online guitar stores and some of the unique features of each one.

Music Specialty Stores

The first three are the big three of music specialty retailers. All three offer extensive inventory, a low price guarantee, used items, and some form of discount, on sale, or clearance section. With the exception of the used gear, all three can be expected to have roughly the same selection. So there aren’t a lot of differences between these stores, but we’ll take a quick look at each one:

Guitar Center

Guitar Center is hands down the largest offline music retailer, and despite the name, they, carry a lot more than just guitars. Probably because they have a nationwide network of brick-and-mortar stores, their used gear section is larger than either Musician’s Friend or Music 123, with over 30,000 used items for sale as I am writing this.

Guitar Center will also buy your used gear, and offer a discount on new gear that you buy when trading in. Of course, to trade in, you have to visit a store, so that’s not really shopping online, is it? Guitar Center will also ship items to the store nearest you instead of to your home, which could be useful if you don’t want your brand new guitar to be sitting on your front porch in the hot sun (or freezing cold) when it arrives.

Musician’s Friend

Musician’s Friend probably has the widest selection of all the online music stores. As the name implies, they carry a lot more than just guitars, but they carry lots of guitars, so you’re sure to find what you’re looking for here. Be sure to check out the Used Gear and Clearance sections, too, if you’re looking for deals.

The Musician’s Friend website also has a huge, well-organized “Knowledge Base” section, with articles, reviews, FAQs, buying guides, and more. Look for the “Articles” link on the home page to access this section.

Music 123

Like Guitar Center and Musician’s Friend, Music123 carries a wide range of music gear, not just guitars. They are a catalog and online only store that is owned by Guitar Center. The Music123 site seemed to me a bit easier to navigate than the other two sites, maybe because it’s a bit more of a no-frills site. No scrolling banners or pictures of famous artists on the home page. Just easy to navigate links and buttons to get you where you want to go.

The General Stores

The next two sites are not music specialty retailers, but any list of online guitar stores would be incomplete without them. They both offer unique features: one is the largest online auction site in the world, and the other has the best customer experience and customer service reputation in all of online retailing.

Ebay

Ebay isn’t exactly a guitar store, but the giant auction site can be a great place to buy a guitar. You can get some great deals here, especially if you’re buying used. Sellers all over the world are competing for your dollars, so there are definitely bargains to be had. You can also get new instruments here: many reputable brick-and-mortar guitar stores sell new guitars on eBay.

Amazon

Amazon is best known for selling books and cds, but they have a fairly good selection of guitars, plus lots of guitar equipment, accessories, and sheet music. And Amazon has a spotless reputation as a trusted online merchant selling high quality goods with excellent customer service.

That’s it for my round up of online guitar stores.

Drop by tomorrow for a look at one of the most unique and innovative acoustic guitars ever made.

Bookmark this page in your browser, or print it out if you prefer, and read it every couple of weeks, or every couple of months, as you learn to play the guitar.

Each time you read it, more of it will sink in, and it will probably help you to pull together some of the stuff you’re learning in your lessons.

Enjoy!

Bob

Here’s the article:

Learn to Play Guitar Fast – Get a Flying Start by Understanding Simple Theory

By Jez Rogers

When you first start learning guitar the first thing you think is “There’s too much!” Too many notes, too many chords, too many strings, too many frets, too many fingers! Added to that is the guitar tutor seeming to speak in a strange new language. Here is a short piece of vital information that will help it all to make sense and work better. You will learn how notes, chords and scales work, quickly be able to work out how to play most songs you hear and able to start creating your own. Use this and get a real flying start!

Take a look at the fretboard of your guitar – the first twelve fret spaces feature inlaid markers. These are at the 3rd, 5th, 7th, 9th and 12th frets and they are there to help you quickly find the right place – the right note. Each of the 6 strings can be fretted in one of twelve places (we’ll leave the upper regions of the fretboard, ‘upper’ meaning nearest the guitar body, for now) – that’s 72 notes but, you’ll be pleased to know, this isn’t a random ordering but very systematic. Understanding the system will accelerate your learning like nothing else. While you are looking at the fretboad, take these conventions on board too: ‘low’ and ‘high’ refer to pitch, as do ‘up’ and ‘down’ – the lowest string is the thickest one, producing the deepest note. The top string is the thinnest string, producing the highest note, the bottom string is the thickest and lowest. This carries over into numbers – the 1st string is the highest/thinnest, the lowest/thickest is the 6th string. Notes also rise in pitch as you fret them nearer to the body of the guitar so this direction is ‘up’ the fretboard whilst ‘down’ refers to fretting nearer the headstock – up towards the body, down towards the headstock.

Standard guitar tuning is, from lowest (and thickest) string to highest: E A D G B E – these are the notes that the open (unfretted) strings produce. Why not A B C D E F? Or E F G A B C? Shouldn’t the notes be in sequence? And why letters anyway? Why not 1 2 3 4 5 6? Well, the notes do run in sequence, and we do use numbers for them – from 1 to 7. First of all, the note sequence travels up the fretboard: The open 6th string produces an E, fret this string at the 12th fret and it produces another E, but an octave higher. There are 12 notes to the octave and the string produces each of these as you go from open then up a fret at a time. At the 12th fret, the octave begins over.

We use the numbers 1-7 for the notes in the octave but wait a moment – didn’t I say there were 12 notes? Indeed there are. First of all though you will be familiar with the major scale in the form of Do, Re, Mi, Fa, So, La, Ti, Do – but what notes are they? Well, you get to choose the first note and that determines the rest. The 7 notes in the octave are A B C D E F G and the 7 notes in the scale are represented by Do, Re, Mi, Fa, So, La, Ti – and then back to Do again, but an octave higher. ‘Do’, note 1, is any note you choose – if you choose C as note 1 that is the key. The scale is then the scale of C. Choose G and it would be the scale of G etc. The difference between the 7 notes that are in the octave and the 12 notes that produce an octave lies in the intervals. Intervals are how we measure out the scale, an interval is the distance between notes and we refer to them as steps – the distance from any note to the nearest one higher, or lower, is a half-step (sometimes referred to as a half-tone or semitone). On your guitar, each fret represents a half-step.

Lets return to your guitar and it’s 6th string – the thickest, lowest one. Played ‘open’ – unfretted, it is an E. Fretting at the 1st fret, a half-step up, gives an F, then, at the 2nd fret, the note produced is F# – F Sharp. Moving on, a fret at a time, we get G at the 3rd fret, then G# A (at the 5th fret) A#, B (7th fret), C, C# ( 9th fret), D, D# and then E again (at the 12th fret). ‘Sharp’ simply means ‘above the note’ – so A# is the note a half-step (or semitone) above A. We could equally call it Bb – which is B Flat – ‘Flat’ means ‘below the note’ – Bb is a half-step (semitone) below B. So A Sharp and B Flat are one and the same (as are G Sharp and A Flat, C Sharp and B Flat etc) – there is a convention used in musical notation that determines when a note is termed sharp or flat but don’t worry about that for a long time yet!

Not all the scale notes (A B C D E F G) are a whole-step apart and separated by a semi-tone (sharp or flat) – B & C, and E & F are each just a half-step from each other, giving us an octave (using flats) of A Bb B C Db D Eb E F Gb G Ab (which could also be shown as A A# B C C# D D# E F F# G G# if we use sharps).

You’re 6th string then gives the following notes: Open is E, then – a fret at a time, F, F# (or Gb), G, G# (Ab), A, A# (Bb), B, C, C# (Db), D, D# (Eb), E (at the 12th fret), then starting over F, F# (Gb), G,G# (Ab) etc as you go on upwards. Take some time to let this sink in by fretting the 6th string at each fret, picking and calling out each note as you go. You can then repeat the exercise for the 5th string (don’t worry, it isn’t necessary to do all six!) – starting, this time from that strings open ‘A’. What you are learning are the key root notes which will open up the fretboard for you in terms of both chord playing and lead solo playing. This knowledge will enable you to quickly work out the chords for any song you listen to on the radio, and to help you start writing your own songs while still learning the basics.

For now, I’ll leave you with a final word on scales. If you try picking a melody from the nots produced on one string you’ll find that some work together and some don’t. Why would take a book, at least, to explain! Suffice to say, there is a major scale for every note and a formula for each one. The good news is that the formula (thanks to what we have learned above) is the same for each one. Remember – the major scale (Do, re, mi etc) identifies notes 1 to 7 then starts again an octave higher. We now know that some of these notes could be ‘sharps’ (or ‘flats’) but lets look first at the scale of C Major. The formula we apply is WWHWWWH – where ‘W’ means ‘a whole step to’ and ‘H’ means ‘a half-step to’. From C this gives us a seven note scale (in bold) of: C C# D D# E F F# G G# A A# B – that’s C, whole step to D, whole step to E, half step to F, whole step to G, whole step to A, whole step to B and a final half step to C for the scale repeating an octave higher. Find and pick these notes using the 6th or the 5th strings, or a mixture of the two. On the 6th string you’ll find yourself starting up at the 8th fret whilst the 5th string lets you start from the 3rd but don’t feel you have to play the scale notes in order – try mixing them up and see what happens.

Repeat the exercise for the key of G – that’s choosing G as your 1 note in the do re mi – and you find the scale of G Major is G, A, B, C, D, E, F#, and a final half step back to G to begin over again.

Scales tell you what notes work in a particular way with your chosen starting note or key note – there are different scales producing different tonal variations but for now concentrate on the basics here. Next time we’ll see how chords are constructed – using the knowledge you just gained here – and I’ll show you how easy it is to work out the chords for most of the songs you hear, plus you’ll learn to play barre chords and start writing your own songs. Not for nothing do I call my method a flying start!

Jez Rogers is a guitarist/singer performing both solo and with several groups. His Sea Company project promotes local music with training and advice on setting up bands sound systems for live performance. Jez writes from hard earned experience, his free newsletter for news, reviews, guitar tuition and advice on equipment for live performance and home recording is available now at http://sea-company.heart-shapedworld.com/index.html

(c) Jez Rogers 2009

Article Source: Learn to Play Guitar Fast – Get a Flying Start by Understanding Simple Theory

If you’re just learning how to play a guitar, and you want to take lessons, you may be wondering if you should take electric guitar lessons or acoustic guitar lessons? Which is best? Well, a lot of it depends on personal preference, but there are some pros and cons either way. In today’s post, I’ll talk about some of the pros and cons about starting out electric.

This may be too obvious to mention, but if you already have a guitar, and you like it, and don’t want to buy another right now, then the choice is made for you. If you have an electric guitar, you’ll want to take electric guitar lessons, and if you have an acoustic, you’ll start out on acoustic.

And really, does it make a big difference? For just starting out, either kind of guitar will be fine. All the same basics apply whether you’re playing an acoustic or an electric guitar. Your teacher may specialize in one or the other (though many teachers will be proficient on both kinds of instrument), and the content of your beginning lessons should be about the same either way.

You may also have in mind the kind of guitarist you aspire to be. If your goal is to just play for yourself, in your room, then you should play whatever kind of guitar you like to listen to. If you want to play folk songs, or acoustic rock, then an acoustic guitar will suit you best. But if you’re planning to play in a rock or metal band, then you may as well start right out with an electric guitar.

When I was a kid, starting out on guitar, I wanted to be like George Harrison. He was probably my very first guitar hero. I started out on an acoustic guitar, because my sister had one I could use. Then I saved up $13.00 (hey, it was 1966) and bought my own acoustic, not because I wanted an acoustic guitar, but because it was cheap. But as soon as I could, I got hold of an electric guitar and an amplifier. I still have that first electric guitar today (but it’s pretty beat up — see for yourself).

So in my case, my first two guitars were determined by what was available to me and what was cheapest. It wasn’t until I got my third guitar that I got what I really wanted. You may make your choices the same way.

But you may be in a different situation. Here’s another story from my life to illustrate the point. I stopped playing for many years and came back to it as an adult. By now I had a wide range of musical tastes, and I had a one year old baby in the house. First I borrowed a friend’s acoustic guitar, then bought my own, because as a middle aged father of a toddler, I knew I wasn’t going to be playing loud rock, even though I liked to listen to it. I also wasn’t really sure what kind of music I wanted to play, and I tried a lot of different styles before settling on acoustic blues, country, and folk music. Along the way, I did buy an electric guitar, but I sold it after a year or so because I hardly ever played it.

The point is, you may not know what kind of music you want to play just yet, or you may have other constraints, like a new baby, or roommates, or the elderly lady in the next apartment, that will determine your choice.

If you really don’t know what kind of music you’ll want to play, I’d suggest starting out with an acoustic guitar. It’s a little harder on the hands at first, but it’s more versatile, you’ll build better hand strength, and all the skills you learn will be transferable to electric guitar if you make that transition later.

On the other hand, an electric guitar can be a bit easier on the fingers at first, and offers the ability to play through headphones (so you really won’t disturb the neighbors. But if you want to play for friends, or take your guitar to the park or a picnic, you’ll have to lug along your amplifier and find a place to plug in. And if you later want to move to an acoustic guitar, you may find the transition a little more difficult at first.

I hope this post has helped to give you a little perspective on whether or not to start out with electric guitar lessons. Thanks for reading.

In this article and the following video I’m going to show you how to find the right chords to play together for any key. After reading you should feel confident that you could go out and find the information to determine what chords belong in any key.

Finding the Right Chords

A musical key is made up of notes from a given scale. So if music is being played in the key of C then the main note is going to be C major but there will also be other notes taken from the C major scale. Which notes you might ask? Well it varies, but for popular music and most songs you will be learning there’s a pattern.

One-Four-Five

If you know what key you are or want to play in you can quickly find the right chords to play together by using a natural pattern known as one-four-five, also written as I-IV-V.

This pattern takes the corresponding scale to the key you want to play in and picks out the first, fourth and fifth degrees of the scale to form the best sounding progression.

Example in the Key of A

Let’s say we want to play a progression that sounds nice in the Key of A. First we would look at the A major scale. We already know that A major is going to be one of our notes. In fact, it will be the one since it’s the root note of the scale.

Here is the rest of the A major scale:

A B C# D E F# G# A

So if A is the one then D and E are the four and five respectively.

Taking these three notes you can formulate a nice progression. This same pattern holds true for all scales in any key.

Take a few minutes to watch the video below. It will explain in more detail exactly what one-four-five means and also provide you with another example.

Like this lesson video, but you ready for more guitar lessons and musical theory? Why not try an acoustic guitar lessons dvd. DVD lessons are becoming the quickest and easiest method of learning to play guitar from home, and for less money then private instruction.

This post gives five beginner level tips that will help you succeed in learning how to play guitar chords. If you follow these tips, and practice every day, you’ll be playing chords and songs in no time.

Before You Start

To learn to play guitar chords, you’ll first need to learn to read chord diagrams. Chord diagrams are pictures that show which strings to press down at which frets in order to make a chord. The most useful chord diagrams even show which fingers you should use to press down the strings. Here’s a quick lesson in how to read them: How to Read Guitar Chord Diagrams

1. Start With The CAGED Chords

You should start by learning the so-called CAGED chords, also known as the cowboy chords. These are the chords whose names spell the word CAGED. That is, the C, A, G, E, and D chords. By learning these five easy chords, you will be able to play many songs in the keys of G, A, and D, and some songs in the keys of C and E.

After you’ve mastered the CAGED chords, the next chords you should learn are F (which will let you play many more songs in the key of C) and B7 (which will do the same for the key of E).

2. Learn Chords By Key

For this tip, you’ll need to understand just a tiny bit of music theory. In each key, there are certain chords that work best to accompany songs in the key. The most commonly used chords in any key are the major chords based on the first, fourth, and fifth notes in the scale for the key. These chords are sometimes called the one, four, and five chords for the key.

For example, in the key of C, the notes in the scale are C, D, E, F, G, A, B, and C. So the most common chords in the key are the C Major, F Major, and G Major chords. If you learn those chords, you’ll be able to play lots of songs in the key of C.

The following table lists the one, four, and five chords in the keys of C, A, G, E, and D.

Table of Common Chords

So to play songs in the key of C, practice the C, F, and G chords together. To play songs in the key of A, practice the A, D, and E chords together, and so on.

3. Practice Changing Chords In Each Key

Instead of practicing chords in isolation, or just practicing how to play the chords in a key, you should practice changing between the chords in a key. For example, if you’re working on the key of A, you should not only practice playing the A, D, and E chords, but practice changing from A to D and back, A to E and back, and D tp E and back. This will helpyou get ready to play songs much more quickly than if you just practice the chords by themselves.

4. Use Anchor Fingers When Changing Chords

Sometimes, you’ll find that you can leave one finger in the same place when you change from one chord to another. Noticing this, and practicing it, can make it easier to change chords.
For example, if you finger an A chord using your index finger on the second fret of the third string (and your second and third fingers on the second fret of the fourth and second strings) you can leave your index finger there when changing to the D chord.

If you can’t find a finger that’s in the same place, sometimes there’s a finger that only needs to move a short distance. Staying in the key of A, but changing from the A chord to the E chord, the index finger moves from the second fret of the third string to the first fret of the third string.

5. Add Minor Chords and Seventh Chords Next For Tonal Variation

When you’ve mastered the CAGED chords, plus F and B7 (note: in the key of E, use B7 instead of B for the Five chord – it’s easier and sounds fine), then learn some 7th chords and some minor chords. These will let you introduce different sounds and moods into your playing, and will let you play more songs. Start by learning the 7th chord for each of the CAGED chords (i.e. C7, A7, G7, E7, and D7), and substitute a 7th chord for the five chord in whatever key you’re playing. Then learn E minor, A minor, and D minor.

If you follow these tips, and practice every day, you’ll be well on your way to learning how to play guitar chords and achieving your musical goals.

The Guitar articles on this site use standard graphical chord diagrams. You may already know how to read chord diagrams like this, but just in case you don’t, here’s a quick course in how to read them:

How To Read The Chord Diagram Grid

The grid in the diagram represents part of the guitar neck. A number next to the top left corner indicates the position of the first fret in the diagram. In all of these diagrams, the number is 1, so the first fret shown in the diagram represents the first fret on the guitar.

The vertical lines in the grid represent the guitar strings, from low E (the thickest string) on the left to high E (the thinnest string) on the right. The horizontal lines represent the frets. Black dots represent places where you put your fingers. Above the diagram, an X indicates a string that you don’t play, and an O represents a string that you play “open” or without fretting.

Which Fingers To Use

These diagrams don’t show which fingers to use to fret the strings. It’s usually pretty easy to figure it out, though. Start from the first fret. For any notes fretted at the first fret, use your first available finger to fret the note on the lowest (thickest) string, then use the next available finger to fret the note on the next highest (thinner) string, ans so on until you’ve fretted all the notes that need to be fretted at the first fret. Move to the second fret, and again, fret the note on the lowest (thickest string) with your next available finger, and so on.

An Example

For example, look at the C7 chord (at left). You want to fret one string (the second, or B string) at the first fret, so you use your first finger. One string (the fourth, or D string) needs to be fretted at the second fret, so you use your next available, or second finger. Two strings need to be fretted at the third fret, so you use your third finger for the lower note (the fifth, or A string) and your fourth finger for the higher note (the third, or G string). You don’t play the sixth string at all, and you play the first string open.

This sytem for figuring out which fingers to use is just a rule of thumb (no pun intended); it won’t work for every chord you ever encounter, but it’s a good place to start. An additional rule of thumb that will work in many, but not all instances, is that if there are no notes fretted at the first fret, don’t use the first finger — fret the lowest second fret string with the second finger, and go from there just as with the first rule.

STOP! Before you go any further, make sure that you understand how to read the chord diagrams. Read the previous section again if you need to, and make sure you understand it.

1. Choose a guitar that you like and can play comfortably.

Spend some time to pick out the guitar you are going to use. You’ll be happier if you like the way your guitar looks and the way it sounds, and the more you like the guitar, the more you’ll want to play it. It’s also important that you be able to play the guitar comfortably. This means it should not be too large or too small for your body.

Also, it shouldn’t be too hard to press down the strings on the fretboard. The distance between the strings and the fretboard is called the “action” of the guitar. The action should not be too high, or it will be hard to press down the strings (or “fret” the strings). On the other hand, the action should not be too low, or the strings will buzz.

2. Create a Practice Space in your Home

Create a place in your home that will be your guitar practice space. It should have a comfortable chair, preferably without arms, where you can sit while you play. It should have good lighting and either a music stand or a small table where you can put music that you are playing. It should have a place where you can put your guitar when you’re not playing it, and a place for your other guitar equipment (tuner, picks, tape recorder, etc.). It should be in a place where your playing won’t disturb other people you live with.

3. Find a Teacher

If you can afford it, you should find a good guitar teacher and take some lessons. Getting started with a teacher will make sure that you don’t form any bad habits. After a few lessons, you might decide to continue on your own, or to continue taking lessons. Some teachers will let you take a lesson every once in a while instead of being on a fixed schedule. This can be a good way to save money while still getting the benefit of working with a teacher. Depending on where you live, you might also be able to find group classes at a local community college or adult education program. Group classes are a great value, since you get the benefit of learning from a teacher at a much lower cost than private lessons.

4. Practice Every Day

Practice every day. Even if it’s only for ten minutes. You will get much more improvement in your playing by practicing for ten minutes every day than you will by practicing for 70 minutes once a week. Try to practice at the same time every day. If you can set up a routine and practice in the same place at the same time every day, it will make it easier to be consistent. Consistent daily practice is what will bring the best results.

5. Play For Other People

As soon as you feel ready (better yet, before you feel ready), start playing for other people. You might start out by just playing a song for a friend or family member. As your confidence and skill improves, try to find places where you can play for more people. You might be able to play at your place of worship, or at an open mike at a local coffeehouse. Playing in front of people will help you build confidence and learn to keep going even when you make a mistake.

6. Play With Other People

Find a friend who plays the guitar or the piano or another instrument. Pick a song or two that you can both learn, and schedule a time once or twice a week to play together. Playing with another person will help your sense of rhythm and your ability to keep playing when you make a mistake, both important skills that are easier to learn with another person than when playing by yourself.

7. Learn Some Music Theory

Learn how to construct a major scale and the chords in a key. You can learn this from a teacher, from a book, or even online. Learning a little bit of music theory will help you understand why certain notes and chords sound right and why others don’t.

This article has presented seven tips for how to play a guitar. If you follow these tips, you should be well on your way to meeting your musical goals.

Today I’m going to share with you how to play an E major and G major chord. These are two of the seven major chords you’ll learn as you progress. There’s a video at the end of this lesson you can watch to get a better understanding of the correct hand positioning for these two chords, it’s worth taking a couple of minutes to watch it after reading the article.

E major Chord

E – 0 –
B – 0 –
G – 1 –
D – 2 –
A – 2 –
E – 0 –

To play an E chord you strum all six strings and use your first three fingers. The position of those fingers is described in the Tab above as: 2nd finger 2nd fret on the A string, 4rd finger 2nd fret on the D string and 1st finger 1st fret on the G string.

It’s important when playing chords that you’re only using the tip of your finger to press on the fret. This ensures you won’t muffle or blunt any of the other strings when you strum.

G major Chord

E – 3 –
B – 0 –
G – 0 –
D – 0 –
A – 2 –
E – 3 –

The G major chord is also played on all six strings and you use the same first three fingers as we used in the E chord. The positioning for your fingers is: 2nd finger on the 3rd fret of the E string, 1st finger on the 2nd fret of the A string and 3rd finger on the 3rd fret of the high E string.

This chord will feel a little more awkward then the E because you’re really stretching that 3rd finger down to the high E string. It will feel better with time, just keep practicing making the shape.

Below is a video that will explain the shapes of each chord and also show you up close how your fingers should look on the strings. It’s worth a watch to ensure you’re using proper technique.

Interested in learning more beginner guitar chords? Why not consider taking some guitar lessons on dvd? DVD and online video lessons are becoming the most popular way to learn guitar at home on your own time.

In this article, you’ll learn how to play the twelve bar blues. The twelve-bar blues is the foundation for many blues songs.

Blues Guitar Chords You’ll Need For This Lesson

If you don’t know how to play the guitar chords listed above, see my article Basics of Blues Guitar Chords: 7 Essential Blues Guitar Chords.

How to read the chord diagrams

The Guitar articles on this site use standard graphical chord diagrams. You may already know how to read chord diagrams like this, but just in case you don’t, here’s a quick course in how to read them: How To Read Guitar Chord Diagrams

Basic Structure of the Twelve Bar Blues

The twelve bar blues progression is the foundation of blues guitar playing. There are other blues guitar progressions, but the majority of blues songs are based on the twelve bar blues. It’s called “twelve bar blues” because the chord progression contains twelve measures, or bars. Each bar contains four beats. A twelve bar blues, then, has twelve four-beat measures.

One-Four-Five

The twelve bar blues is a “One-Four-Five” progression. No matter what key you play it in, the twelve bar blues uses three chords from that key: the One chord, the Four chord, and the Five chord. These chords are also sometimes identified with numbers or roman numerals. For example, the One chord may also be designated the 1 chord or the I chord. I’ll use the roman numerals from now on.

So, what are the I, IV, and V chords? In any key, the I chord is the major chord with the same name as the key. It’s called the I because the root note in the chord is the first note in the major scale in that key. So in the key of C, the C chord is the I. To find the IV and V chords, just count up the scale, starting at I. In C, where C is the I chord, I=C, II=D, III=E, IV=F, V=G. Therfore, in C, C is the I chord, F is the IV, and G is the V.

Back to the Twelve Bar Blues

Now that you know the meaning of the I, IV, and V chords, you’re ready to learn the structure of the twelve bar blues progression. There are three sections of four bars each. The first section is four bars of the I chord. In C, this would be written as follows:

C / / / C / / / C / / / C / / /

In this notation, each chord name (i.e., C) or slash mark (i.e., /) is a beat. You play the named chord once for every beat. The slash marks just indicate that you stay on the same chord. The chord name (i.e., C) appears again at the start of each measure.

The second section of the progression has two bars of the IV chord followed by two bars of the I chord. Again, in C:

F / / / F / / / C / / / C / / /

The final section has a bar of the V chord, a bar of the IV chord, a bar of the I chord, and a final bar of the V chord. Again, in C:

G / / / F / / / C / / / G / / /

So to put it all together, one version of the twelve bar blues in C looks like this:

C / / / C / / / C / / / C / / /
F / / / F / / / C / / / C / / /
G / / / F / / / C / / / G / / /

The Seventh Chord Gives it “That Sound”
To get an authentic blues sound, you can add the 7th chord in some places. A seventh, or 7 chord is a chord that contains the note that is seventh in the scale. This is different from the I, IV, V numbering system; the Seventh in this case is part of the chord’s letter name (like C7, D7, or G7). In the blues, you almost always will want to substitute a seventh chord for the V, and sometimes for the I. This just means, for example, that in C, where the V chord is G, you play G7 instead of G major. To keep it simple, just use 7th chords throughout the 12 bar progression:

C7 / / / C7 / / / C7 / / / C7 / / /
F7 / / / F7 / / / C7 / / / C7 / / /
G7 / / / F7 / / / C7 / / / G7 / / /

For a more authentic sounding blues, substitute the 7th chord for the V, and for the I and IV in certain places as well. We’ll also go to the IV chord in the second measure to add variety (some players call this a ‘quick IV’ progression).

C / / / F / / / C / / / C7 / / /
F / / / F7 / / / C / / / C7 / / /
G7 / / / F / / / C / / / G7 / / /

Now that you can play the twelve bar blues in C, you can use your knowledge of essential blues guitar chords and the I, IV, V progression to play the blues in several keys. For more information, see my article Blues Guitar Chords Tutorial: 7 Essential Blues Guitar Chords.