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Before you can play a guitar, you need to make sure it's in tune! This is incredibly important. Eventually you will need to understand how the strings are tuned in relation to each other. For now, just use a guitar tuner (right). You can find one in any music store, or order one online.
If you don't have a tuner handy, you can use our online tuner. When you press the button for each string, you will hear a tone. Tune each string to match the tone.
If you're having trouble figuring this out, see if you can get some help from the store where you bought your guitar, or from someone you know who plays guitar. Once they show you how, it'll be a lot easier.
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What's a chord? A chord is a group of notes played together. To get started on guitar, you'll only need to master a few at first. As you progress, you can add more and more to your vocabulary.
To play a chord, you place your fingers on the fretboard in the correct pattern, and then strum. Place each finger just above the correct fret. Frets are those metal strips that go across the neck.
When you play a song, you'll strum chords, switching back and forth between them. This is the part that may be hard at first! Keep at it, and you'll get better and better.
A chord progression is a series of chords. Here are some good chord progressions for you to practice (An "m" means "minor"):
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G-C-D
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D-G-A
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Am-C-D
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A-D-E
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G-Am-C
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D-Em-G
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To show you how to play a chord, we use chord diagrams. The diagram shows all six strings, with dots (or numbers) to show where to place your fingers.
If the diagram has numbers, it's to indicate your fingers:
1=index, 2=middle, 3=ring, 4=pinky. If there's an "O" above a string, that means play it "Open" - with no finger on it. If there's an "X," that means don't play that string.
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 Here's an illustration of what some power chords look like in tab.
The numbers stand for frets, and the staff lines stand for the guitar strings, with the low E string on the bottom.
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Tablature, or "tab," is a way of writing down music for guitar. Basically it's just a diagram of six lines that represent the six strings of a guitar. Then you write numbers that indicate which fret you play. So if it says "7" on the second lowest line, that means you play the A string on the 7th fret.
Click here for an article on how to read tab.
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 You gotta practice! It's going to be hard at first -- that's normal. You WILL get frustrated. Don't give up! Practicing is a fact of life for guitarists, even the greatest ones. So make it a part of your routine. Try to practice at least a little every day. Half an hour to an hour is great. It's okay to skip a day once a week. Leave your guitar out where you can just grab it and start playing. Even a few minutes of playing helps!
When you first start practicing, your hand may hurt and your fingers may get sore. This is normal. You need to build up strength in muscles you've never used like this until now, and build up callouses on your fingertips. But if it starts to really hurt, that means it's time to take a break, or you may injure your hand or wrist.
What to practice? Start off by learning to play the basic chords, and then practice switching between them until you can do it smoothly. This may take a while! Once you feel comfortable changing between chords, you can start learning some easy songs.
Where do you go from here?
There are a lot of other things to learn, too, which we won't have time to cover here. But you can get a book or video that will help you learn them, or you can find a guitar teacher to give you lessons. For instance, you'll really need to learn the names of the notes on the guitar neck. Depending on what style of music you want to play, and how advanced you want to get, you may want to learn scales, too. You'll also need to work on your strumming and picking -- otherwise, how are you going to play those cool chords and riffs you learn?
We have a whole range of lessons here on the Fender Players Club website, in different styles, different skill levels, and different aspects of playing. As you get better you might want to learn fingerpicking, or playing solos, or classical, or jazz. There are a lot of different ways to play a guitar!
But remember, as a beginner, you don't have to worry about that stuff yet! And some of the greatest rock music of all time was played by guitarists who only knew the basics. It's up to you how far you want to go. Do you just want to crank out punk power chords, or explore advanced music theory? The more you learn about playing guitar, the more you'll be able to answer that.
Here are some more lessons we have for beginning guitarists:
Here are some more parts of the website you might enjoy:
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Sheet music (first page) Mp3 file (intro and verse)
Let's take a look at another important aspect of playing guitar - riffs - and learn the cool riff from the song "Just a Girl" by No Doubt.
A riff is a repeated series of notes in a song. In "Just a Girl," the riff is played all through the intro and verses.
Click and take a look at the first page of the sheet music for this song: "Just a Girl". (Sorry we can't show the whole song, but it's copyrighted!) What do you see? Well, there are three parts: the musical notation, the tablature beneath it, and then the lyrics after the intro. The tablature, or "tab," shows you where to play the notes on the guitar. So you start off on the A string on the 5th fret, then the D string on the 7th fret, and so on.
We've also included an mp3 file (click here) for you to listen to (a saxophone plays the melody instead of Gwen Stefani's voice).
Try playing the riff slowly, one note at a time. If it's too difficult, try this simplified version (below), where you don't double up those notes on the E string on the 7th and 6th frets:
Keep practicing the riff over and over, slowly at first, and then getting faster as you get better at it.
When you first start playing guitar riffs, you'll probably want to play all downstrokes - that is, picking in a downward motion for each note. As you get better, try what's called alternate picking: picking down, then up, then down, then up, etc. Listen to the mp3 and you'll hear the guitarist doing alternate picking on the 7-7 and 6-6 frets on the E string on this riff.
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What's a bass? A bass guitar is like a guitar, but with only the lowest four strings: E A D G. The strings are bigger and give you a lower sound than a guitar. The other difference with a bass is how it's played. The bass player's job is (usually) to "hold down the bottom end" and provide a "groove". What's that mean? Well, first, it means your part in the sound mix is the low range -- you're giving it the deep sounds. Second, you're part of the rhythm section! That's right, if you play bass you stick with the drummer. Together with the drummer, you provide a rhythmic base for the other instruments to play with: a groove. The groove you try to achieve is going to be much different depending on whether you're playing jazz, punk, country, pop, metal, or any other style!
You don't strum a bass like a guitar -- you pluck, pick, pop, tap or slap the strings. Many bassists play strictly with their fingers, while others use a pick. This is not only a personal preference, but also affects what kinds of sounds you can get from your bass. For example, most punkers use a pick, while most jazzers use their fingers. Plucking with the fingers is probably most common. And if you're looking to get funky, you're going to want to learn how to slap and pop!
How to get started! Here's a lesson for beginning bass players that shows you the basics of placing your fingers and plucking the strings. That's the technique; now, what to play? Bassists play what's called a bass line. That means they follow the chord progression of the song. Start by playing the root note. That's the note that the song is based on. If the key of the song is E, the root is E. It's usually (but not always) the first chord in the song. Try finding the root and playing it along with the song. Try to match the rhythm of the song. You'll notice that at some point, the song changes to a different chord -- try changing to that note when it does. If you have the sheet music, you can follow along with the chords.
When you're getting accustomed to following the chord progressions of songs, you can start learning some real bass lines. You'll notice that certain styles of music have commonly used bass lines that give them their characteristic sound. Blues might use a boogie woogie sound, while country might have a twangy "walking" bass line, and punk and thrash metal use more fast, aggressive bass lines.
We have a selection of other bass lessons to help you learn the bass: click here to go to our Bass Home Page. Try the easier ones and you'll learn about different styles of bass playing (blues, jazz, rock, funk) and learn some important techniques. Here are some good lessons for beginners:
And when you're ready to have some fun... we have an easy bass lesson on Blink-182's "What's My Age Again?" Click here for the lesson or you can also click here to go to our Blink-182 artist page!
Also be sure to check out our Bass Guitar section in the Club Store for a variety of books and videos to help you learn the bass.
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Fender Players Club Home Page
Let's start with the E and A power chords in the diagrams. You'll notice that all you're playing is one open string and one string with your index finger. Now, here's something cool to learn: instead of playing that note with your index finger, play it with your ring (3rd) finger. Then slide it up a couple frets and add your index (1st) finger to form the chord shapes in the G or B power chords. You can slide this chord shape up and down the neck, and jump back and forth between strings. Try it!
