Guitar chord basics

learn the A and D major chords and to introduce yourself to reading guitar

tablature. This first lesson is quite a big one, so I want you to really focus.

Following this, in lesson two, you’ll get into something called tablature and by lesson three

you’ll be able to play along with one of our jam tracks. Sounds hard, but it’s not. Let us start

with a tip concerning practising your guitar.

 Tunning 

Note that each string on the guitar is numbered. When you hold your guitar in the casual playing position, the 1st string is at the bottom and the 6th string is at the top.

Notice also the term ‘Tuning’ at the bottom of the above diagram. Tuning refers to the notes that the guitar strings are tuned to. In the previous diagram, I have given a very common tuning called standard E tuning that consists of the notes E, A, D, G and B. Strings 1 and 6 are both tuned to the note E. The open 6th string is called low E. The open 1st string is called high E as it is two octaves higher than the 6th string open E. I will explain notes and octaves to you later in this book, but for now, you only need to know the names of the notes in standard open E tuning.