Guitar Lessons for Beginners an Example

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An Example Beginner Practice Session, date: march 16, 2011

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An Example Beginner Practice Sessionauthor: scotland87 date: 03/16/2011 category: for beginners

The questions I always hear asked by beginner guitarists is Whatshould I practice? and How should I practice? These twoquestions are always met with similar responses like It dependson you as a player or It depends on what level your at orpractice all the things you need to practice etc. Theseresponses just leave the beginner disheartened and bewildered.

In this lesson I aim to answer the most commonly asked beginner question What/ howshould I practice? by actually delivering an example practice session. The session detailedwill be aimed toward a beginner with a month or two of practice under their belt. Itcertainly won't suit everyone's needs, but I can at least hope that it will give some

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LESSONS


beginners a basic idea of what they should be doing. So without further ado, lets dive in.(Before starting I should mention that this is suitable for both acoustic/ electric guitars).

Firstly you should make sure your guitar is in tune. (You should always do this beforestarting a practice session.). So go on, make sure your guitar is tuned up and is soundingsweet. (I have an electric guitar tuner which is great for quickly getting the guitar in tune.It's a pretty good investment for a beginner guitarist.)

That's better. Now, the next thing you want to do is warm up. A warm up is essential formaking sure that when you begin the actual practice you are performing to the best of yourability.

Warm Up Exercises (5 mins)

*If you find frets 1-4 too much of a stretch, just move to a higher position. It doesn'tmatter.

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----------------------------------------------------------

Just run up and down the strings. Start on the low E high going to high E. Then swap andgo from high E back to low E.

Here is another good exercise for getting your fretting hand moving position.

e|-------------------------------------------------------------3--2--1--0b|--------------------------------------------------7--6--5--4-----------g|--------------------------------------11--10--9--8---------------------d|------------------------9--10--11--12----------------------------------a|-------------5--6--7--8------------------------------------------------


e|--1--2--3--4-----------------------------------------------------------

Specific warm up exercises don't really matter. As long as you do something easy that getsthe blood going to your hands and getting you ready for the practice.

Chord Practice (10 - 15 mins)

Next I would like to practice chords and chord changes. This is obviously really importantwhen playing songs as you want your chord changes to be smooth.

When working on my chord changes I like to use specific songs as a basis to choose whichchords I change between. For example, House of the Rising Sun (by The Animals), was onechord progression I worked on quite a lot.

For the next few exercises I want you to find a metronome. Just Google Online Metronomeand you will find a variety of useable ones. If you have a smart phone you could alsodownload a metronome app (for free, just what I done!).

Set the metronome to a comfortable beat, say 60, then start moving between each ofthese chords. (You don't need to arppegiate them yet if you are just learning, but perhapsthis can be used as a little more advanced lesson later (after you master the chordchanges with a simple strum). Depending on your ability you may only want to strum eachchord once for every 4 beats of the metronome, or twice, or even the full four times. Itdepends on your level of ability.

*I know that an F chord is difficult as it requires you to mini-bar the smallest two strings.It's better to start practicing this sooner rather than later though. I wont post the chorddiagrams as a you can find them with a quick web search!

House Of the Rising Sun Chord Progression Am C F E

You can choose any chords you want to change between. It's up to you. A common chord


You can choose any chords you want to change between. It's up to you. A common chordchange that people struggle with is C to G, so you should practice this for a minute or two.

CG

Then you could maybe try some 7th chords. This has a blues feeling to it.

D7 E7A7

Or another favourite of mine when I was first starting was Bad Moon Rising; the chordprogression in this is;

Bad Moon Rising Chord Progression

D AG

Barre (or Bar) Chord Practice (5 -10 mins)

This subject is always the cause of a beginner's headache. At first they can seemimpossible, I know, as I was in the position myself. They can make you lose a lot ofmotivation and confidence, but you have to power through and keep practicing bar chords.

Start by practicing the 6th String Major chords, which look like an E major shape. Keep theshape and just move up the neck, strumming the chord once. This is great practice forgetting your hand used to the bar shape.

Go from F to G to A to B. Which would be as follows;

F G A B e|--1------3------5------7-----b|--1------3------5------7-----


g|--2------4------6------8-----d|--3------5------7------9-----a|--3------5------7------9-----e|--1------3------5------7-----

Just go up and down the fret board. F, G, A, B, A, G, F. This should build up the strength inyour bar finger and get you used to the E major bar shape. I know it's difficult but moveslowly and try to get all the strings ringing clearly. It won't be long before you are movingup and down these chords with ease if you practice them for 5-10 minutes each session!

Scale/ Theory Practice (10 - 15 mins)

To start this portion of your practice I want you do begin with some theory practice. Notmuch! Just read into the Major scale. How it's formed, the different patterns over the fretboard etc. There are umpteen lessons on this on the web already so I won't reinvent thewheel here. Make sure you are comfortable with how the scale is formed and how eachmajor scale has those specific notes attached to it.

After this you should start to practice the C Major scale. It's the first scale to learn as it ismade entirely of natural notes. (C D E F G A B).

e|----------------------------------------------0--1--3-------b|-------------------------------------0--1--3----------------g|-------------------------------0--2-------------------------d|---------------------0--2--3--------------------------------a|-----------0--2--3------------------------------------------e|--0--1--3---------------------------------------------------

This hits all the notes in the C major scale, starting on E. So it goes, E F G A B C D E F G AB C D E F G. You can quite easily start on C and stop on B for a one octave C Major scale ifyou wish. Run up and down this scale a good few times to get used to it. Move slowly andpractice with the metronome!

Song Practice (15 mins - whenever!)


You should always end a practice session on a high note. (No, I don't mean just pluck thehigh E string!). I mean, you should always end with a song, or something that sounds good.This can be whatever your musical tastes are.

I am learning a few songs at the minute and I always end with playing these songs andtrying to get them flawless. (Im still a long way away from that yet, but the point is, Ienjoy playing these pieces.)

As an example I have been trying to play 2-4-6-8 Motorway (by the Tom Robinson band).

2-4-6-8 Motorway Chords

*There are plenty tabs and chord charts for this on other Ultimate-guitar.com tabs. Justsearch for them if you want to play this.

AE

DE A

This concludes this example lesson. This lesson could last as long as you want it to. Youcan extend areas of the practice to last longer/ shorter as you wish. The point was tohighlight some specific things that you as a beginner guitarist should be practicing.

Your practice sessions will always change and evolve. As you get better and moreexperienced with certain techniques you should aim to create more challenging exercises,or attempt more challenging songs. You should always push yourself out of your comfortzone and try harder stuff. If you keep playing the same things, just because you can, youwill never improve as a player!

Hope this helps.

Good Luck, Scott


+ Beginner Practice Motivation Tips For Beginners 03/11/2011More scotland87 lessons:

comments policy 10 comments posted

this is great =Di never have any idea what to practice so i just play random songs (very badly). this will help times amillion :]

posted on Apr 23, 2011 12:56 pm # +1housemd

Thanks Scott, this gives me a better idea of how to structure my practise rather than just going at itrandomly depending on my mood.

posted on Apr 25, 2011 12:20 am # +1Henry Wilt

The very first excerize (1,2,3,4) Scott mentions, is by far the best thing any new guitarist can do. It helpsdevelop strength in your hands (particularly the pinky finger and the muscle between the 3 and 4thfingers) and it develops muscle memory in your hands! As you get comfortable with this exersize,learning scales, becomes much, much easier! Great deconstruction of a practise routine!

posted on May 05, 2011 08:26 pm #Decode Music

Thanks for this. Great info for someone that picked up the guitar for the first time last week!

posted on May 17, 2011 09:47 am #ragarm

Great job. This post is very clear and helpful. I'd like to know which fingers do you say it is best to usefor the second warm-up exercise. Should it be index for frets 1, 5, 9 then little finger for 11, 7, 3?Thanks!!

posted on May 21, 2011 11:29 am #popen_2

posted on May 23, 2011 08:15 am #scotland87


popen_2 wrote:

Great job. This post is very clear and helpful. I'd like to know which fingers do you say it is best to usefor the second warm-up exercise. Should it be index for frets 1, 5, 9 then little finger for 11, 7, 3?Thanks!!

I use the second warm-up exercise as a way to get my hand moving up and down the fretboard. Whatyou asked would work though, index for frets 1, 5 and 9 then little finger on the way back down thefretboard.

P.S. Thanks for the kind words to everyone who commented/ rated on my article.

Scott

As a beginner I'll try do this lesson a couple of times, it looks very good.

posted on May 28, 2011 05:56 am #5teensig

love the post man .I'm teaching a friend how to play and I didn't know how to set up a practice session4 her.This is awesome

posted on Jun 30, 2011 09:09 pm #edsirucha

Great lesson! But there probable should be something on learning songs.

posted on Jul 10, 2011 02:45 am #anunad

thanks man. ill definitely try this. my biggest problem is what to practice

posted on Jul 31, 2014 02:02 am #khaledahelmi

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Guitar Lessons for Beginners an Example