Never held a guitar? Start here. In about ten minutes of reading you’ll know how to hold it, tune it, read chord diagrams and tab, and play your first chord. Tap any underlined word to see what it means.
Step 1
What you need
A guitar. Acoustic, electric or classical all work for your first months. An electric guitar also needs a small practice amp and a cable (or headphones that plug into the guitar). Buying your first guitar explains what matters.
A . A thin or medium one (about 0.5–0.7 mm) is easiest for strumming.
A chair without armrests, and 10–20 quiet minutes a day.
Short fingernails on the hand that presses the strings.
The parts of the guitar you’ll hear about in every lesson. Electric guitars have the same parts, with pickups instead of a sound hole.Step 3
How to sit and hold it
Sit on a chair without armrests, back straight. Rest the guitar’s waist (the narrow middle of the body) on your right leg, with the neck pointing slightly up. Your strumming forearm rests on the top edge of the body. Left-handed guitars are a mirror image of this.Hold the pick between the pad of your thumb and the side of your curled index finger, pointing at the strings. Grip firmly enough that it doesn’t slip, but keep your hand relaxed.Step 4
Your hands
If you’re right-handed, your left hand goes on the neck and presses the strings (your ), and your right hand strums (your ). Left-handed players usually do the opposite, on a left-handed guitar. Tell us you strum with your left hand when you sign up, and every chord diagram in the lessons flips to match.
Your fretting hand is the one on the neck. Fingers are numbered 1 to 4, starting from the index finger, and the thumb (T) stays behind the neck. Chord diagrams use these numbers. Left-handed players: it’s your right hand, numbered the same way.Step 5
The strings and tuning
The six strings are E A D G B E (“Eddie Ate Dynamite, Good Bye Eddie”), numbered 6 (thickest) to 1 (thinnest). Tab and the fretboards on this site draw the thinnest string on top. When you hold the guitar it’s the other way round: the thick low E string is nearest your face.Follow each string from the nut up to its peg. Tighten a peg and the note goes up; loosen it and the note goes down. Turn slowly while you pluck the string, and if the note moves the wrong way, turn the other way. Many electric guitars have all six pegs on one side.
Tune every time you play. Pluck a string, check it on the tuner, and turn its peg slowly until it’s right. Always finish by tuning up to the note.
Step 6
Pressing a string
To play “fret 2”, press in the space just before the 2nd fret wire, as close to it as you can without being on top of it.Looking along the neck: arch your finger so only the very tip touches the string, and keep your thumb behind the neck. A flat finger rests on the strings next to it and stops them ringing.Step 7
Reading chord diagrams and tab
A chord diagram is the neck standing upright, as if the guitar were hanging on a wall facing you: thickest string on the left, the nut at the top. Dots show where to press and which finger to use.Tab is the easiest way to read guitar music. Each line is a string, thinnest on top. Each number tells you which fret to press on that string. You play the numbers in order from left to right.
Tab tells you which string and which fret, but not how long each note lasts. Music is counted in steady , usually in groups of four called : “1 2 3 4, 1 2 3 4”. In the lessons, every piece of tab has a Play button so you can hear the rhythm first and then copy it.
Step 8
Your first chord and strum
E minor (Em) is the easiest full chord: two fingers, all six strings. Make the shape, then do the ring test below, string by string.
E minor
Numbers are fingers: 1 index, 2 middle, 3 ring, 4 little finger. o = play the open string, x = don't play it. Tap a chord to hear it.
Ring test: Em
Make the Em chord. Pick each string below one at a time, slowly, and say how it sounded. Tap “Hear it” to hear what it should sound like.
low E (6th) stringOpen: no finger
A (5th) stringFret 2, middle finger (2)
D (4th) stringFret 2, ring finger (3)
G (3rd) stringOpen: no finger
B (2nd) stringOpen: no finger
high e (1st) stringOpen: no finger
Seen as you look down at the guitar while playing, the thick string is on top. Down-strums fall through all the strings towards the floor; up-strums come back and catch just the thin ones. Keep your wrist loose, like shaking water off your hand.
Click track
Hold Em and strum down once on every click. Count “1, 2, 3, 4” out loud.
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60 clicks a minute
60 = exactly one click per second.
Step 9
What to expect in your first weeks
Sore fingertips. Completely normal for the first two or three weeks. Short daily sessions get you through it fastest.
Buzzing notes. Everyone’s chords buzz at first. Press just behind the fret, with your fingertips.
Slow chord changes. When you reach chords, your first changes might take a few seconds. A minute of daily practice gets them under a second within a few weeks.
Your first song in about 6 weeks at 30 minutes a day, if you follow the lessons in order.
Words you don’t know? The guitar glossary explains them all in plain English.
Ready for lesson 1?
The free lessons take you through all of this step by step, with a check at the end of each one.