Guitar Uni

The purpose of this series of lessons is to learn the notes in the open position (first 4 frets including the open strings) and to get some basic sight-reading skills happening. We’ll start with two strings and slowly add more and more notes to the equation.

Let’s start with 5 notes: C, D, E, F and G. Here’s what they look like in both standard notation and TAB:

And here’s what they should sound like:

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Now play the notes going up and then back down, like this:

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Once you’ve done that a few times, you can try playing the first melody. It’s made up entirely of quarter-notes and half-notes.

Quarter-notes last 1 beat and look like this:

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In this lesson we’ll learn two more chords: E minor and D minor.

Here is E Minor:

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And here’s D Minor:

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OK, so let’s start with a simple chord. Here’s what an E chord should look like:

Strum all the strings with your thumb or a pick, and you should get something like this:

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Now let’s try an A Minor chord. All you have to do is take the same shape and move it down one string, like this:

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