About

The guitar is one of the most accessible, versatile, and easy to learn instruments you can play. Get lessons and tips from expert, such as how a simple group of four guitar chords enables you to play hundreds of songs. Even if you already play the guitar, this course will broaden your knowledge by applying music theory, history, and expanding your repertoire of songs and styles.

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Episodes

1. Guitar Basics

30m

Discover how you can play a simple song on the guitar in just one minute. Then study the parts of the guitar, and how to hold the instrument. Play G and C major chords, and review the classic bass line from the song you learned. Finally, practice your song, combining your bass line with a four-note melody.

2. Tuning Up, Reading Music, and Dexterity

30m

Consider important principles of musical learning, the essence of practice, and the importance of performance. Investigate how to tune your guitar, and learn a useful warmup. Observe how pitch and rhythm are notated (written), practice E and A minor chords, and work with a musical number using the chords you've learned so far.

3. Classical Guitar Position and Posture

30m

Explore body posture with the instrument; then, practice your warmup using alternating fingers. Grasp how written music is divided into "measures" and "beats". Learn fuller versions of G and C major chords, see how they are written in the tablature form of notation, and add a melody to the song from the last lesson.

4. Learning How to Practice the Guitar

30m

Look deeper into how to practice and master each element in the learning process. Explore "shifting" - moving the left hand position in guitar playing. Then grasp how the lower three strings are notated, and practice moving between chords on the instrument. Play a major scale, and use it in the song "Shifting Sands".

5. Playing Fingerstyle Guitar

30m

Learn about three legends of "fingerstyle" guitar - the technique of playing with the right-hand thumb and fingers. Practice the basics of right-hand fingerstyle technique, with alternating fingers. Study the notation of open strings; then extend your fingerstyle to "fingering" chords. Play a G major scale across three strings, and use your fingerstyle in a song.

6. Playing Rhythm Guitar

30m

Discover the leading lights of "rhythm guitar", a playing style where the guitarist provides the rhythmic foundation for a band. Review your fingerstyle technique, and play arpeggios (broken chords). Learn to play eighth-notes, and "¾" or waltz-like rhythms. Practice a two-octave scale, some melodic patterns or "licks", and put these elements together in today's song.

7. The Pentatonic Scale

30m

Look into the remarkable guitar-playing of Eric Johnson, and his use of the pentatonic (five-tone) scale. Learn a left-hand exercise for "walking" across the fretboard; then study half-step intervals on the guitar and how to read them. Investigate syncopated strumming patterns, the two-octave pentatonic scale, and how to use them in improvising.

8. The Blues Scale and Lateral Stretching

30m

Enter the world of the blues, and learn about some pioneering pre-war blues players. For left hand technique, practice a "lateral stretching" exercise for flexibility. Add the A7 chord, along with syncopated blues strumming patterns and the A blues scale. Last, play "Blues for Art", incorporating your new strumming patterns and the blues scale.

9. Planting for Control and Accuracy

30m

First, contemplate the principles of tonal beauty, as taught by the great Romero brothers. Study the technique of "planting", an aid for technical accuracy. Learn the D and A major chords, and how to read key signatures. Then play a new melody in D major, and accompany it in fingerstyle using your new chords.

10. Guitar Tremolo

30m

Here, encounter two classical guitar titans, Agustín Barrios and Andrés Segovia, and grasp their contributions to the instrument. Study tremolo, which gives the illusion of a sustained note. Learn to read sixteenth-notes, add the E major chord, the major pentatonic scale, and use your tremolo and finger technique in the "Raindrop Etude".

Extended Details

SeriesGreat Courses

Closed CaptionsEnglish

Artists

Colin McAllisterWriter

Colin McAllisterActor

Learning to Play Guitar: Chords, Scales, and Solos

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Extended Details

Artists