Hi guys, my name is Andy Crowley.
Thank you for joining me for day one of this 10 day guitar challenge.
Where we are going to play guitar for 10 minutes a day for 10 days.
This day one is my absolute beginner's first lesson.
So if you were taking a one-to-one private lesson with me,
and you've never even held a guitar before, or you tried a few bits in the past, but it was a long time ago.
Then this is the guitar lesson that I would be showing you.
In this lesson, I'm going to show you how to play the easiest two chords on guitar,
and then get you playing your first song by the end of this video, in under 10 minutes.
So, If you've never even played a song before, this is the ideal place to start.
And let's get you straight in for a close up, and learn how to play these two easy chords.
So the first chord we're going to be learning, is the E major chord, also known as an E chord,
and this is where we need to place our fingers to be able to play it.
Now, if your guitar isn't in tune, it doesn't really matter where you put your fingers on the guitar,
it's not going to sound right.
There is a video of mine in the description below, where you will find a video showing you
exactly how to tune your guitar, with and without a guitar tuner.
So check out that video at first if you suspect that something isn't sounding right here.
But I'm going to talk you trough a couple of other bits of the guitar before we get fully started.
So, these metal strips going down the guitar here are your frets.
And going across are the strings.
We number the strings thinnest to thickest, so one, two, three, four, five, six.
And each fret, it's the area between the metal strips, that we'd call fret one,
fret two,
and fret three.
Any time we place a finger on a fret,
we really want it to be this side of the fret, so the side nearest to you,
up against the metal strip, but not on it.
So if I wanted to place my finger on first finger, first fret.
It would be placed here,
rather than in the middle.
And we also want to be right on the tip of your finger, like this.
For this first chord, the E major chord,
we need that first finger to be on the third string, at that first fret, so that's just here.
Right on the tip of our finger.
And we are pressing between our thumb and first finger.
My thumb is directly behind where my first finger is on the guitar, just here.
The middle finger needs to be at the second fret, of the fifth string, so string five.
One, two, three, four, five.
And the third finger, otherwise known as the ring finger, goes here.
Directly underneath, at the same fret, on the string below.
So just one recap.
These fingers are placed: finger number one, or the index finger
middle finger
And the third finger here.
The little finger, it's best to keep it as close to the third finger as possible,
rather than shooting off and doing its own thing.
This is where we want to place it, here.
For this particular chord, we do want to strum all six strings.
And make sure they're all heard, so let's do that now.
And strum our E major chord.
Now that sounds like it should sound, and hopefully yours sounds the same.
If not, your guitar may be out of tune, so check out that tuning video.
However, we also want to make sure that all six strings are ringing out.
By which we want to pick the thickest to the tinnest string, so string six to one.
And if they all sound like that, then we are doing it correctly.
Possibly,
one of the strings
sounds a little bit like this.
We've got a little bit of
either buzzing
or it's not ringing out at all, like this.
There are two common reasons that that can be the case.
The first thing is
you need to be at this side of the fret, as I said at the start of the video.
If they are in the middle of the fret, that may not ring out.
They all want to be at this side of the fret.
Not at the far side.
And then each finger also needs to be right on the tip, not flat.
Now this is common because whenever we hold things,
say if I was just holding this guitar neck to pick it up.
We'd grip it like this.
But this is not how we press down notes on a string instrument.
We need to be right on the tips of our fingers.
And make sure that this joint in our fingers is bent, and kind of curled over
so that each tip of the finger is at 90 degrees to the fret.
And when those two things are the case, when we're
at this side of the fret, and on the tips of our fingers.
It's just the case of getting that right amount of pressure down,
but with the right finger placement, it may be a little bit less than you think.
Now even I at this point have some lines at the end of my fingers.
This is normal, we do have to press down
you know, a decent amount to get the note ringing out.
But try not to press down any more than you need to.
Try and find that sweet spot.
The second chord we're going to cover in this video is the A major chord.
And with this chord, we can play anyone of 10 songs.
As I say there will be a song at the end of this particular video.
But there are a number of songs, 10 songs, that are played only using these two chords
on my website and the link to that is also in the description.
So to play the A major chord, it is best to start off on the E major chord that we already know.
Now we need to keep this first finger down, but lift the other two away.
And this is really important, this is going to be our anchor finger.
Because when we are learning chords, the hard thing isn't necessarily playing one chord,
it is the change between.
So what we're going to do is keep this first finger down,
but slide it over to the second fret.
And this time we want to be around in the middle of the fret.
Because we're going to place the middle finger above it at that same second fret.
And the third finger directly below it.
And this is the A major chord.
You may have seen this chord played like this.
However, if this is the first time you've ever picked up a guitar before,
it is going to be incredibly difficult to change between any chords, and these included.
So we're making this as easy as possible by keeping contact with the fretboard at all times.
And using that first finger as an anchor point.
So this is the A major chord that we're going for.
Let's place this first finger at the third string, second fret.
one, two
Middle finger goes directly above it,
and third finger below it.
And it's best to keep that first finger around in the middle of the fret this time, and this time only really.
So that we can fit the other two in.
And with this particular chord, we want to strum from string five.
And this is what the A major chord should sound like.
To check that all those strings are ringing out, we want to pick again from the thickest to the thinnest.
But we're going to start from string five.
There is more opportunity for strings not ringing out on this one.
So again, try and get them as far towards you as possible, and keep right on the tips.
That is the best way to get them ringing out.
But you may have to press on just a little bit harder on this chord to get those strings ringing out.
One more time, strum.
Pick each string.
And strum.
So to change between those chords, we need to keep that first finger down at all times.
And change between them.
So if we go back to the E major chord now.
And just give it one single strum of all six strings.
We keep the first finger down,
slide to the second fret.
Middle finger above, third finger below.
And strum.
And then to change back.
The first finger stays down
slide it back to that first fret.
Middle finger above, third finger below.
And strum
Again, so we're on that first chord that we looked at now, the E chord.
So we keep the first finger down,
we slide it to the second fret
for the second chord that we looked at.
Middle finger above.
Third finger below.
And strum
Try and strum from the fifth string,
so missing out the thickest string.
If you do accidentally catch that thickest string, it's ok for now, we're just learning.
First finger stays down, we move back to the first fret
for our first chord, which is the E major.
And strum, and that's our E major.
Now you may wish to pause the video here,
so that you can have a little bit longer practice between those two chords.
Changing between the E and the A chord.
Remember to keep your first finger down at all times.
And the first chord we looked at has your first finger on the first fret.
And then chord number two, the A chord
first finger second fret, middle finger above, third finger below.
And strum.
And you're wanting your fingers
to take around a second
to go to each chord.
To move on to the second part.
Which is basically going straight for our first song
Which is a song called 'For what it's worth' by Buffalo Springfield.
This song has just these two chords.
And we have to play each chord for a bar of each.
To do this, we need to understand about bars and beats.
The beat is whatever you would nod your head to when your favorite song comes on.
So when you're kind of grooving along to a song and tapping your foot and enjoying it.
You are tapping your feet, or nodding your head to the beat.
This is an even pulse throughout the song.
And it generally goes to a count of four.
So an even count of
one
two
three
four.
And that is repeated throughout an entire song evenly.
It's that count of four that we call a bar.
So the simplest strumming pattern we can do for any song is just strumming on the beat.
And we're going to strum each chord in this particular song four times.
So we strum the E chord four times.
One
two
three
four.
And keep that first finger down when we're going to change to the second chord, which is the A chord.
And then strum this four times.
One
two
three
four.
And then we need to change back to the E chord.
And do this in a loop for around a minute.
And if you've never heard that particular song that we're going for,
the link is in the description to a Youtube video of the song.
So you can have a quick listen to it, to hear what we're going for.
And you should pretty distinctly hear
this rhythm guitar part throughout the entire song.
Now keeping the strumming hand going, while changing chord
is undoubtedly the trickiest part of learning songs on guitar.
However, this anchor finger, keeping the first finger down, makes it a much easier task.
And helps us going forward to learn the other chords that we're going to be learning
in the coming days.
So drilling this change is so important, rather than learning more chords.
So many beginners get a book full of ten chords, or a hundred chords and try and learn them.
But it's mastering the change between them that is going to get you the end goal
of being able to play real songs as soon as possible.
And hopefully this will be one that you can play just in a few minutes now by following me.
So let's start with the E major chord, the first chord we covered in this video.
And we're going to strum this four times
And as soon as we've done that, as soon as we've strummed fourth strum,
we want to change immediately to the A chord, as swiftly as possible.
Now, if this takes a few attempts,
and that is totally fine, because this is the end goal of this first video,
of this day one of this ten day guitar course.
So if it's a little struggle at first,
that's understandable because it might be the first thing that you've ever done.
Go easy on yourself.
Allow this trickiest part of this, the chord changes,
to bed in and for you to get used to them before you put too much pressure on yourself.
So let's play along together really slowly now.
And let's have a go at our first song 'For what it's worth" by Buffalo Springfield.
So we get ready on our E chord.
We press down, and we begin strumming in
two
three
four
one
two
three
four
Then change to the A chord
And begin strumming again
one
two
three
back to the E
Changing back, and
one
two
three
four
first finger stays down, we change to the A
one
two
three
four
And pause there.
So now is the time to take stock with how you're doing.
If you need to pause the video just briefly one time again to just do some individual changes.
Which will drill that change a little more often, to help you get used to it more.
Maybe take a quick break to rest your fingers a little bit.
Because you might have big lines and you might be quite sore.
That's understandable and totally normal in the beginning.
And when you feel up for it, play this video from this point one more time,
And this time we're going to try and get those spaces between the chord changes
as quick as possible.
And the goal is just to keep our right hand strumming evenly.
No matter what chord we're playing.
However there is a change or not,
We're just going to try and keep this chord hand strumming, ok?
So from the E chord.
Play along with me one last time, in
one
two
three
four
E
two
three
then to A
A
two
three
four
E
two
three
four
And, A
two
three
four
E
two
three
four
A
two
three
One last time from E
E
two
three
four
And, A
two
three
finish on E
E
And that's how to play our first song,
and that is the end of day one of this ten day guitar challenge.
Thank you very much for making it this far.
Your homework now is to practice these two chords, the E major and the A major
the changes between them.
And then try and play them for four strums of the E chord and the four strums four the A chord.
And we want to keep that chord sequence going for around a minute.
And in total that should be around ten minutes worth of practice.
So if you do that straight away after watching this video,
you'll be in the perfect position to join me for day two tomorrow.
Where we'll learn a new guitar chord and a new song.
And this time the song will have a very easy lead guitar part,
which is a bit more of a melody, so we won't be just focusing on chords in this course.
We'll also focus on some single string playing aswell.
It's going to be really cool, it's just going to sound just like the song.
And be really, really, really recognisable, something great to show your friends.
And I hope you will join me there. Thank you very much for watching guys.
Please subscribe if you enjoy this course, and I'm sure I'll see you again in one of my videos.
Take care of yourselves and bye for now.