Guitar Exercises For Dummies - Jon Chappell

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anxious to get started, but before you lock and load, bear down, and start drilling away on the hundreds of exercises that await you in this book, take just a moment to first ensure that you’re properly set up to do the job. In this chapter, we offer a few gentle reminders regarding some guitar basics. We also provide a refresher on guitar notation. Even if you play guitar often and understand notation, you should check out the “Brushing Up on Guitar Notation” section so you understand how the written music examples in this book work.

      You probably think we’re going to tell you that you must practice guitar sitting on the edge of a sturdy (or, in other words, hard) chair with your back straight and your feet flat on the floor. While this posture is proper, the truth is that you can practice guitar in whatever position feels natural to you. After you’ve figured out your favorite posture, you next have to focus on holding the guitar and the pick properly. We give you pointers in this section.

      Truth be told, you won’t find any benefit to either sitting or standing when you practice. But it usually is more comfortable to sit if you plan to spend a long time practicing. (Most people can sit for longer periods of time than they can stand.) However, you usually stand when you perform, so it’s a good idea to practice while standing some of the time.

      

You should hold the guitar slightly differently depending on whether you’re sitting or standing. Here are the general guidelines:

       Sitting with the guitar: Most guitarists, when sitting, prop the guitar on their right leg and hold it in place with their right upper arm, which dangles over the side and allows the right hand to sweep the strings roughly in front of the soundhole (or the pickups if you’re playing an electric guitar). You should pull the guitar against your body so that it’s snug but not uncomfortably constricting. Make sure your right arm can swing freely from the elbow. If you place your guitar on your left leg, as many classical guitarists do, you may want to elevate your left leg 4 to 6 inches on a small stand, foot stool, or your hard guitar case so you can bring the neck of the guitar even closer to the center of your body. (Another approach is to use a device called a support, which lifts the guitar up while allowing you to keep both feet flat on the floor.)

       Standing with the guitar: To play the guitar in a standing position, you use an adjustable strap that positions the guitar to your body size and taste of playing. Some people like to have the guitar up high (above the belt), because this position makes playing easier. But it looks less cool. So many players like to lower the guitar to a position that doesn’t seem quite so geeky. In some styles, such as bluegrass, it’s okay to have the guitar up high. But rock ’n’ rollers like it way down low. Of course, you should always base your guitar-positioning strategy on what feels most comfortable to you, not what’s fashionable. After all, when has fashion ever involved your personal comfort?

      Whether you practice while sitting or standing — or do both in equal measure — the key is to be consistent in the way you hold the guitar in each position. If you want a more thorough explanation of holding the guitar and sitting and standing with the guitar (including photographs), check out Guitar For Dummies, 2nd Edition.

      In this book, we use several notation methods for presenting the music examples and exercises. Keep in mind that you don’t have to read music well to get some guidance from the notation. In fact, you don’t really have to be able to read music at all if you just use your ears and listen to the audio tracks that accompany this book. You can get pretty far this way, but you could do better by having at least a passing familiarity with the notation conventions we use. The following sections cover all the notation systems you encounter in this book.

      Decoding tablature

      

Tablature, or just tab for short, is a notation system that graphically represents the frets and strings of the guitar. For all the musical examples in this book that have a standard music notation staff (the one with the treble clef), you see a tab staff just beneath it. The tab staff aligns with and reflects exactly what’s going on in the regular musical staff above it, but it’s in guitar language. Tab is guitar specific, and it tells you what string and fret to play. Use the tab if you’re ever unsure as to which fret or string a note falls on.

       The lines of the tab staff represent guitar strings, from the 1st string on top (high E) to the 6th string on bottom (low E).

       A numeral appearing on any given line tells you to press, or fret, that string at that numbered fret. For example, if you see the numeral 2 on the second line from the top, you need to press down the 2nd string at the 2nd fret (actually, the space between the 1st and 2nd fret, closer to the 2nd metal fret wire).

       A 0 on a line means that you play the open string — that is, unfretted, with no left-hand finger touching the string.

       When you see stacked notes, as in bar 3 of Figure 1-1, that notation tells you to play the fretted strings all at the same time, which produces a chord. The fretted strings in the figure form a D major chord.

      Comprehending chord diagrams

       The capital letter above the diagram indicates the name of the chord. Additional letters or numbers that follow define the chord’s quality (minor, seventh, and so on).

       The grid of vertical and horizontal lines represents the fretboard, as if you held the guitar upright and faced the headstock.

       The six vertical lines represent the guitar strings, with the leftmost line as the 6th (low E) string. The five horizontal lines represent the frets. The thick horizontal line at the top is the nut, so the 1st fret (where you can place your finger) is actually between the nut and the next horizontal line.

       Dots on vertical lines between horizontal fret lines show you which notes to fret.

       An X above a string means that you don’t play it. An O above a string means that you play it open (unfretted by a left-hand finger).

       The numbers below the diagram indicate the left-hand fingering.

      FIGURE 1-2: The anatomy of a chord diagram.

      

Chords appearing on frets above the first four have the starting fret indicated to the right of the diagram. For example, if a chord’s starting note is at the 5th fret, you see 5fr.

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