MUSIC

BASICS

GUITAR BASICS

Here are some basics for guitar instrument

There are many types of guitars such as Classical guitar, Acoustic Guitar, Bass Guitar, ... The ways to play them all are similar. There are a few differences. We will mostly give information and instructions about the Classical Guitar. A classical guitar has six strings. The top three strings are called bass strings. There also nineteen frets on the neck of the guitar. Frets are used for the location of the notes.

The strings are numbered from bottom to top. So the first string is the bottom string which is the thinnest one with the highest sound and the sixth string is the top string which is the boldest one with a lowest sound. The open string notes on the guitar are as follows from bottom to top:
E, B, G, D, A, E.

As you see, one fret goes a half step of pitch. So C is just the next fret after B, and F is just the next fret after E. But From C to D you skip one fret and go to the next one.

To play a note on the guitar, we first need to find where the note is on the guitar. The notes for the open strings are shown below:

Here's a good chart for most of the notes:

Now let's see how we will use the chart and play the notes. To play a guitar we use both our right and left hands. For the left hand fingers we use numbers to represent the finger which we place on the string and fret. For the right hand fingers we use letters to represent the finger which we will use to pluck the string. The picture below shows the left hand - right hand notation and how to pluck the correct note on the strings. We use our right hand p finger (thumb) to pluck the bass strings, i finger (index) to pluck the 3rd string, m finger (middle) to pluck the 2nd string and a finger (ring) to pluck the 1st string. And we use our left hand 1st finger to play all the notes on the first fret, 2dn finger to play all the notes on the second fret, 3rd finger to play all the notes on the third fret and 4th finger to play all the notes on the fourth fret. As you may noticed, we don't use our right hand pinky finger and left hand thumb. Let's take a look at the example below.

So basically in the picture above, to play the C note shown, we first need to check the chart to find where this note is on the guitar. After that we decide which finger to press on the string and which finger to pluck. As you see, for this C note, we press our left hand 3rd finger on the 5th string 3rd fret and we pluck the string with our right hand p finger, thumb.

In the video below, you will see how the song "Yasasin Okulumuz" was played on the guitar:

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