A Review of Everything So Far

Okay it's a new year & I've been away for a while. Happy 2014! I hope this is the year that all of your dreams come true... and that includes learning how to play guitar. Let's have a review of everything we covered last year.

We learned all of the natural notes across all six strings in the open position. What does that mean? Well, it means that we learned all the notes, without any sharps & flats, that you can reach from the open strings without stretching beyond the first 3 frets. Here's a diagram of these 17 notes:

Remember when you look at diagrams like this one, the open strings are to the left & big E string is at the bottom. Anyway, there they are. Play through them, started with the lowest note - E - and going up to the highest - G. Use your 1st finger for the 1st fret, your 2nd finger for the 2nd fret & your 3rd finger for the 3rd fret. The notation for this exercise looks like this:

We'll play these notes in some more exercises in the next lesson. What chords did we learn last year? We learned the following major chords: C, A, G, E & D. And the following minor chords: Am, Em & Dm. Here is a chart of the chords we learned:

You should be able to play all 8 of these chords before we move on. Try playing through them all. Strum the chord first, then pick each individual string, then strum the chord again. Every note should sound clearly & distinctly. And remember, when you see an "X" on the chart above, you don't play that string.

So welcome to the new year! I'm looking forward to showing you everything you need to know to play the guitar proficiently this year. Until next time, keep practicing!