To learn to play guitar is difficult and easy at the same time. The guitar is a fascinating instrument. It is very difficult to master in some areas but you will also find wells of easy to play but nice sounding treasures among the strings.

In this learn to play guitar article I will give some examples of easy to play guitar chords and progressions. I will use guitar tab to help you find the notes on your guitar.

In this article i will only use the first four strings on the guitar. In the guitar tab staff notation I will also use only the first four lines. The first string is the thinnest string on the guitar or the E-string.

The first guitar tab progression will be in the key of D. The chords of the progression is Dmaj7 and Em7. Here is the guitar tab:

1. –2—0—
2. –2—0—
3. –2—0—
4. –0—0—

The guitar chord progression above can be used as a little intro in a song in the key of D. It can also end a song or be used as a break between verses in a song. You can repeat the progression to make it last longer.

The next example will use the first chord and a Gm6 as the second chord. This little passage can also be used as an intro in a song if you like it:

1. –2—0—
2. –2—3—
3. –2—3—
4. –0—0—

The following example will use just one chord, the D chord and it will be moved two frets up. When you move the chord up it will not be D anymore. It will change into a E7 or if you want E/D. This means that you play an E-chord with the note D as a bass note.

The chords in this guitar chord progression will be D and E7. Try it!

1. –2—4—
2. –3—5—
3. –2—4—
4. –0—0—

When you move the chord up the two frets you don’t need to lift you left hand fingers. Just release the pressure of your left hand fingers a bit and slide up to the new position.

This method of sliding to new positions can be used when you change between chords. Many times you can keep one or more of your fingers on your fingerboard and slide when you change to new chords. This will make it easier to find the chord and will speed up the chord change.

Our last little guitar chord progression will use the same progression with just a different way to play the E7 chord.

Remember that all these chord progressions can be repeated over and over as intros or something else in the key of D on your guitar.

1. –2—0—
2. –3—0—
3. –2—1—
4. –0—0—

Observe that you can slide with you first finger that you hoopefully have pressed down on the second fret of the third string when you play D. When you change to the second chord you can slide to the first fret.

The above progressions use the open D-string as a fundament so to speak and this bass note creates an illusion of peace in the chord progressions. In tonal music this bass note is called a pedal point.

If you like finger picking on your guitar I will give you a pattern that can be used with these chords. I will use the common classical guitar symbols for the right hand fingers. P denotes the thumb, i the first finger, m the middle finger and a the ring finger.

1. –a———–a—
2. ———-m——-
3. ——i———–
4. –p—————

I hope you will find this little learn to play guitar lesson helpful. There are a lot of chord progressions that sounds nice but are very easy to play. In other words, I will be back!

Peter Edvinsson is a musician, composer and music teacher. Visit his site Capotasto Music and download your free sheet music and learn to play guitar resources at http://www.capotastomusic.com

The guitar is one of the most popular musical instruments and the online guitar community probably the most popular of its kind. There are thousands of guitarists connected via online communities sharing guitar tabs, tips and stories and there are many of websites dedicated to sharing guitar music, tablature and even guitar lessons. Some you have to pay for, but there’s a lot out there for free.

Beginning guitarists and professionals alike can take advantage of what is available for free on the Internet. It’s true, you can really download guitar tablature for free on the Internet. There are literally thousands of pieces available for download, everything from classical and jazz music to rock and pop. Try typing guitar tablature, guitar tabs or guitar sheet music into your favorite search engine. This will bring up a plethora of websites which offer music for download. Some sites will charge a membership fee, but offer samples for free so that you can try them out. At first it is difficult to sift through all the sites and find one that is suitable for your needs, but stick with it, and you’ll find exactly what you want.

Some sites specialize in specific music genres, such as classical or rock. Some sites have audio samples of the sheet music so that you can actually listen to unknown pieces before you download. In the end you may choose to pay a membership fee to take advantage of added services that these sites provide.

But before you do that take advantage of everything that’s free. The Internet is such a great place for picking up guitar tricks and tips or even learning the instrument on your own.

Start by doing a Google search for Free guitar lessons (use quotation marks) and the top five search results will yield websites with archives full of free guitar lessons. These lessons are designed with the absolute beginner in mind. The advantage of learning the guitar on the Internet is that you can take your lesson whenever you have time or are in the mood and you never have to leave the comfort of your own home. You’ll start off with all the basics: learn about the parts of the guitar, learn how it works, learn scales, strumming patterns, chromatic scales, as well as many songs to play. Despite the relative ease of the Internet, lessons should be taken in the order that they are written.

And remember, your Internet lessons may be free, but they aren’t miracle workers, you still have to commit to a regular program of study and practice.

Dean Erickson – Journalist, and web site builder Dean Erickson lives in Texas. He is the owner and co-editor of http://www.guitar-tab-finder.com/ on which you will find a longer, more detailed version of this article.

In this ukulele lesson we will use the uke to play a melody. Not many people can play Beethoven on their ukulele but soon you will be one of them. Let’s start!

To Joy is an ode written in 1785 by the German poet Friedrich Schiller. It is commonly referred to as Ode To Joy. The musical setting is by Beethoven in the fourth and final movement of his Ninth Symphony.

I use my own form of ukulele tab for articles like this to be sure that the tabs are readable on article sites.

The more common ukulele tab staff notation can be found on my site with ukulele tab, guitar tablature and free sheet music.

The string with the highest pitch on the ukulele is usually an A and is called the first string. This is the string nearest your feet when you play.

The first number indicates the fret. The second number after the slash tells you which string to play. Here is the first part of the melody with ukulele tab:

0/1 0/1 1/1 3/1 3/1 1/1 0/1 3/2

0/1 indicates that you play the first string with your right hand without pressing down any left hand finger. It is called to play on the open third string.

We will not dicuss how to play with you right hand. I suggest that you play the notes with your right hand thumb but do as you like.

This type of ukulele tab doesn’t indicate the length of the notes. I leave it up to you to figure out the length of the notes.

Let’s play the next ukulele tab:

1/2 1/2 3/2 0/1 0/1 3/2 3/2

3/2 means that you press down a left hand finger on the third fret of the second string. I haven’t told you anything about which left hand finger to press down on the frets on your ukulele.

You can of course use your first finger for all the notes.

A more professional approach is to play the notes on the first fret with your first finger, the notes on the second fret with your long finger and the notes on your third fret with your ring finger.

It might be difficult at first but if you practice it will be easier for you to find the right notes. You don’t even have to look at your fingers to find the right fret if you get used to this way of playing.

The next part of the melody is a repetition of the first part:

0/1 0/1 1/1 3/1 3/1 1/1 0/1 3/2

You know what the ukulele tab above tells you by now.

The last ukulele tab in the first part comes now:

1/2 1/2 3/2 0/1 3/2 1/2 1/2

A new melody is introduced as a contrast:

3/2 3/2 0/1 1/2 3/2 0/1 1/1 0/1 1/2

3/2 0/1 1/1 0/1 3/2 1/2 3/2 0/3

This ukulele tab version of Ode To Joy will be completed when you play this part of the first melody:

0/1 0/1 1/1 3/1 3/1 1/1 0/1 3/2

1/2 1/2 3/2 0/1 3/2 1/2 1/2

Now you can play Ode To Joy by Beethoven on your ukulele with ukulele tab!

Actually you can play this melody with the use of the above ukulele tab notation on a guitar also. The first three strings on a guitar are tuned the same way but not in the same pitch.

I recommend you to learn the melody by heart rather than looking on the ukulele tab so you can play it anytime and anywhere!

Peter Edvinsson is a musician, composer and music teacher. Visit his site Capotasto Music and download your free sheet music and ukulele tab at http://www.capotastomusic.com

Even if you haven’t played guitar tablature before you can impress or maybe shock your friends by playing Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star. Let’s start playing guitar tab!

Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star is a popular English nursery rhyme with the French melody Ah! Vous dirais-je, Maman. You can play this song on the first three strings on the guitar.

The text is from a poem, The Star, by Jane Taylor. It was first published in 1806. Here you have the English lyrics:

Twinkle, twinkle, little star,
How I wonder what you are!
Up above the world so high,
Like a diamond in the sky.
Twinkle, twinkle, little star,
How I wonder what you are!

We will use guitar tablature so you will not need to read sheet music. You will only use the thinnest strings on the guitar. The string with the highest pitch is called the first string or E-string. Look at the following guitar tab:

1. 0-0-0-0—————–
2. ——–1-1-1-1———
3. —————-2-2-2-2-

This is a tablature staff and the four number 0 indicate that you play the first string four times without pressing down any finger on your right hand. This is called to play on an open string.

The four number 1 coming after is played on the second string pressing down your first finger on the first fret. Then you will play the third string four times pressing down the string on the second fret. This is what the previous guitar tablature notation is telling you.

Let’s play the first notes of Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star with guitar tablature:

1. ————0–0————————–
2. ——3–3——-3—-1–1–0–0———-
3. 0–0—————————–2–2–0–

If you want to use your left hand in a professional way you can play the guitar tab notes on the first fret with your first finger, notes on the second fret with your middle finger and the notes on the third fret with your ring finger.

Now it’s only one guitar tablature part left:

1. 3–3–1–1–0–0—–
2. ——————3–
3. ———————

After having played this part twice, go back and play the first guitar tablature part and the melody is complete.

Now when you understand guitar tablature notation you can find many songs written this way on the internet. Search for guitar tab or guitar tablature. A complete guitar tablature staff has six lines representing the six strings.

If you have an ukulele hanging somewhere you can use the previous tablature too. The first three strings on an ukulele is tuned the same way as on the guitar.

Just one more thing for you to do. Play the song for your friends! Good luck!

Peter Edvinsson is a musician, composer and music teacher. Visit his site Capotasto Music and download your free printable sheet music, guitar tab and learn to play resources at http://www.capotastomusic.com

I remember when I got my first guitar. My mother came strolling in to the house with a guitar case, smiled, and sat it down about 15 feet away from me. I instantly ran over to find my very first Washburn guitar. I quickly began to play my new baby…

Just for reference, my version of playing the guitar was laying the body flat on it’s back like a slide guitar so I could see what I was doing… Oh man those were the days!

My first adventure in to a song was Pink Floyd’s Wish You Were Here. I went to the search engine and had no idea what a tab was or even how to begin searching for one.

Finally I began to put two and two together and found a version of Pink Floyd’s Wish You Were here from MXTabs.net way back before they got shut down =(

To make a long story short, I broke a sweat out of frustration in less than 5 minutes, put my guitar back in it’s case and went back to playing my video games. That was back then…

This is now…

Guitar tabs look like perfect english to me now, but at the time when I was starting out I couldn’t make sense of anything. It looked like another foreign language to me! My friends laughed when they watched my fingers try to play a song in the most ridiculous way imaginable. I was just trying to do what the tab told me to do, but the tab didn’t tell me what finger position to play in, or if there were any helpful tricks to make it easier on my hands! I was getting tired of this dead end approach to improve my skills.

Here is my point: Guitar tab sucked then and it sucks now. I’m still waiting for the pioneer that fixes this problem for the masses…

Dane Maxwell & Paul Johnson produce guitar video tabs for popular songs and artists. Developed out of a need to help their students, the idea is still in its infancy and has yet to prove itself as a viable solution to guitar players around the world.

Tabs Cause Confusion.

Eliminate the guess work, welcome to the revolution of guitar lessons on your time

Visit guitargrind.com for a free sample

In my previous article I suggested ways to develop a command over the guitar fretboard. Usually when you are playing your first guitar sheet music melodies you will have to learn the notes in the first position on the guitar. To have a good grasp of these notes on the guitar I suggest that you learn them slowly and with concentration. I usually begin by teaching the notes on the first string like E on open string, F on fret 1 and G on fret 3. On string two you?ll find B on open string, C on fret 1 and D on fret 3. With these notes you can play the song Mary Had A Little Lamb.

Using the previous notes the melody can be played as follows:

E D C D E E E – D D D – E G G – E D C D E E E – E D D E D C

I hope you recognized the melody. This kind of music notation doesn?t give any hints as to how the rhythm is to be played but presupposes that you already know the melody. Traditional classical guitar sheet music notation shows both the notes and the way they are supposed to be played.

My dad was the only guitar tutor in the town where I lived and he taught mostly classical guitar playing. His young students, I was one of them, learned those first guitar pieces very fast because he used a system similar to tablature showing the frets and strings to play, along with the sheet music. Tablature wasn?t common back then when playing classical guitar sheet music. I remember somebody remarking that his system prevented the children from learning to sight read sheet music. His reply was that if somebody really wants to learn the notes they will anyway. I agree with that and I have found that if a pupil is not motivated learning guitar sheet music they will not advance in this area whether they play with or without tablature.

What has fingers to do with guitar playing? The answer is obvious. Quite a lot. A more important question is if the fingers you choose to use can have a bearing upon your guitar playing. Left hand fingerings are numbers on the sheet music indication which finger you are suggested to use when playing a specific note. Usually when playing the first pieces on the guitar on the first frets it can be a good idea for you to play the notes on the first fret with the index finger, notes on the second fret with the middle finger, notes on the third fret with the ring finger and notes on the fourth fret with your little finger.

What then are the left hand fingering advantages? Can?t you play every melody with your left index finger and forget about all this fingering stuff? Well, of course you can play melodies with your index finger but your progress will be very limited beyond just playing easy melodies. You?ll have to move your left hand all the time as you change frets and, most importantly, when reading sheet music, you?ll have to look at the guitar fretboard all the time instead of looking at the sheet music which means that it will be hard to sight read music.

To summarize this learn to play guitar sheet music article, I could say that the important thing when learning to play the notes on the guitar is to make a conscious effort to learn the notes and not to work on to many notes at the same time.

Peter Edvinsson is a guitarist, pianist, composer and educator. He is also the proud owner of the website capotastomusic.com with free printable sheet music, guitar tablature and bass tablature and learn to play guitar, piano and other instruments resources for musicians and music students.

Visit his website and download easy free guitar sheet music and guitar tablature sheet music! http://www.capotastomusic.com