The ONLY First Guitar Lesson You NEED To See - Beginner Guitar Lesson
Lauren Bateman teaches picking and fretting drills, five simplified chord shapes, and two strumming patterns. You'll learn finger independence exercises on frets 5-7, then combine them to play songs like "Horse with No Name" and "Eleanor Rigby" after practice.
Chapters
Hey, guitar enthusiast Lauren Bateman here. We're going to go over three ways to jumpstart your guitar playing, particularly if you're an absolute beginner to guitar.
Now, if you've been popping around on YouTube a little bit, you still might find this very helpful in jump starting your playing, because oftentimes I find most guitar teachers start students a little too far down the path, which causes a little bit more frustration in the beginning. So. So there's going to be four important elements that I'm actually going to teach you in this lesson to get you started right away with playing the guitar. The first is we're going to focus on your picking hand, a little exercise for that. Then we're going to focus on an exercise for your fretting hand and getting that together. Third, we're going to go over five very important chords that you should learn as a beginner, because these five chords alone will help you play hundreds, if not thousands of songs. And at the very end, I'm going to give you a couple really simple strumming patterns that you can start using so that you can play the song. So before we get into the actual lesson materials, I'm going to assume that your guitar is tuned, that you know how to hold it and hold your guitar pick. If not, I'm going to put a link up here to my guitar basics playlist. You can go through that and watch those videos and then come back here and watch the rest of this. Now, the very first exercise we're going to go over is for your picking hand. Whether you're righty or lefty, it's going to work out great. And what we want to do is start familiarizing ourselves with the strings on the guitar and the distance between those strings. So if you notice the top string is your fat string and on the bottom is the skinny string. We're going to start at the top string, and all I want you to do with your pick is we're going to do three down picks on the string. We're not doing anything with the fretting hand just yet. All right, so we're going to do three down picks. Ready? It's going to be 1, 2, 3. That's all I want you to do on that top string. OK? 1, 2, 3. And then we're going to do the same thing on the string below on that fifth string or the A string. One, two, three. We're going to do the same thing on the D string. One, two, three. We're going to do the same thing on the G string, 1, 2, 3. And then the B string 1, 2, 3. And finally the E string, 1, 2, 3. So basically just three downs on each of the strings and then we're going to come back up. 1, 2, 3 on the B string, 1, 2, 3 on the G string, 1, 2, 3 On the D string, 1, 2, 3On A and then back up to the fat string, three. Now you can see I can do this without looking at my guitar. Eventually that's the goal for you. But in the beginning you're going to want to watch your fretting hand. And all we're going to do, I'm going to play through this one more time very quickly. It's going to be 1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 1, 2, 3, 1st, 2, 3, 1, two, 3, 1, 2, 3, one, two, three, 1, two, three, one, two, three, One, two, three, one, 2, three. So here's a close up on this first exercise and what I'm doing. So we've got the top string, my pick. 1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3.
And that's your first exercise. That's all I want you to do is just keep doing that up and down so that you can get used to one how to use the pick, get comfortable holding it, but also start getting comfortable with the distances between these strings. Now, like I said, eventually you'll want to start taking your eyes away from the strings so that you don't have to look at them all the time. But in the beginning, it's perfectly fine to watch the strings. Hey guys, real quick, if you're really enjoying what I'm doing in this video, don't forget to subscribe so that you can see when I release other videos on my channel. So I. So let's get back into the lesson. So now that you've done your first exercise, what we're going to do is we're going to go through the second exercise which is going to combine both of these hands. But first, let's talk about our fretting hand. So when we're playing chords, and that's the ultimate goal that we're getting to, is that we want to be able to play chords. But in the beginning our fingers don't move as quickly. Especially if you're an older guitar player, you might find that your fingers don't move as fast, which is why the chords I'm going to show you towards the end of this video are going to fantastic for you. So what we're going to do is we're going to take our first finger. So fingers are numbered 1, 2, 3. And Pinky is number four. And we're going to take our first finger and we're going to put it on that top fat string at the fifth fret. Alright? And each finger is going to own its own fret, but we're just going to use the first three fingers. Okay? I just want to get you starting moving these three because they're going to be the most important in the beginning. And we're going to do fingers 1, 2, 3. Don't even use your picking hand. Just fret. 1, 2, 3. And if you hit the strings hard enough, they'll make a sound. 1, 2, 3. 1, 2, 3. One, two, three. So let's start with this exercise. First finger is going to own the fifth fret. Second finger is going to own the sixth fret. Third finger is going to own the third fret. And I will go in for a close up at the end so that you can see. So we got the first finger on the fifth, second finger on the sixth, third finger on the seventh fret. And the picking hand is just going to do exactly what we did in the last exercise. It's going to do three downs on the string.
So we got five, six, seven.
Alright. And we're just going to move the fingers down one string to the fifth string.
5, 6, 7.
Down again.
5, 6, 7.
Down again.
5, 6, 7.
Down again.
7, 5, 6, 7.
One more time.
5, 6, 7.
So all we did was we just went from the top string to the bottom string, doing five, six, seven. And now we're going to come back up. So we're going to go to the second string or the B string.
5, 6, 7.
Next one.
5, 6, 7.
Again.
5, 6, 7.
Again.
5, 6, 7.again. 5, 6, 7.
Alright, so that's the whole exercise. So from top to bottom it's going to sound like this. And you just go as slow as you need to in the beginning.
Five, six, seven. Five, six, seven. 5, six, seven. 5, 6, 7. 5, 6, 7, 5, 6, 7.
Now come back up.
5, 6, 7. Five, six, 7. 5, six, 7. Five, six, Seven. Five, six, Seven.
Now again, you can see I don't need to look at my guitar, but I've been playing for years. And in the beginning you're going to want to focus on this fretting hand. And when we fret, we want to make sure don't go too close to the front of the fret or you'll get like this buzzing sound. Try to be somewhere towards the front or the middle of the fret. Okay? And you can lift the fingers as you go and go as slow as you need to. This is not a race. Eventually we want to pick up the speed, but go as slow, slow as you need to to start building the flexibility in these fingers. And a very important tip, do not forget to breathe. Most people, they start the exercise, they breathe in, they go.
And then they get to the bottom and then they release. When you do that, you're just going to build up tension and that's not what we want. So tip for you guys, remember when you're doing this exercise to breathe. Alright, so here I am on a close up of my guitar. Now this hand is just going to be doing that last exercise. Three downs on each string and this finger is going to be five, six, seven. Okay, let me change my angle here so you can just see my fretting hand since you know what your picking hand is doing.
So you have 5, 6, 7, 5, 6, 7, 5%, 6, 7, 5, 6th, 7, 5, 6, seven, five, six, seven.
And then back up.
Now my first lesson with my students, we'll do these back and forth a few times until you start feeling comfortable. And then once we do that, we jump into learning our first two chords. So I'm going to show you these first two chords. They're very important because it's usually the song that I teach most of my students in their first lesson, which is a song called Horse with no Name. So when you learn these two chords, you'll be able to actually play a song at the end of your first lesson. So let's talk about our first chord which is going to be an E minor chord. And this is a very important chord because all the other chords we're going to learn in this video are built off of this one chord. Alright, so we're going to start, put a little chord diagram up here and we're going to start in the second fret. So these little spaces are called frets. And we're going to take our first finger and we're going to be on the second fret of the fifth string, which is our A string. So that's what it should sound like. You'll notice that my fingers a little towards the middle of the fret because I'm gonna shove my second finger right below it on the second fret. So, fourth string, second fret. And this is an E minor chord. So let's go about finding that again. So we're gonna take our first finger, go to the second fret on the top string, move it down to the Fifth string and then take your second finger, put it right below on the fourth string second fret. And then you get to strum all six strings. That's the great thing about this. So that is an E minor chord. The next chord we're going to make is a type of a D chord. And we're going to move from E minor. All we're going to do is we're going to take our first finger, move it up a string, take our second finger, move it down a string. That's all we're going to do. Okay? And that's how that chord sounds. Now to get back to E minor. First finger down a string, second finger upper string. We're back on E minor. Alright, we're just working in this second fret. Let's try that one more time and then I'll go in for a close up. So we got first finger up a string, second finger down a string.
D69. First finger down, second finger up, E minor. Here I am in close up for you guys. So we're going to find that E minor chord. So we're going to take our first finger. We have the top string second fret. We're going to move it down so that you're on the fifth string, second fret. And this second finger is going to go right below it. Okay. On the fourth string, second fret.
So that's our E minor chord. Let's find that one more time. First finger, top string, fifth string, second fret, second finger goes right below it on the fourth string, second fret. That's E minor. Okay, now to get to the D69 chord, we're just going to take the first finger, move it up one string. So now we're on the top string second fret. And we're going to take that second finger and move it down so that we're on the third string, second fret. Okay, back to E minor. First finger down one. Second finger up one.
Back to D 69. First finger up six. Second finger down. Last time, back to E minor. First finger down, second finger up.
If you guys are finding the content in this video helpful so far, I'd really appreciate a like make sure to like the video and let's move on to the next part of the lesson. So congratulations on learning your first two chords super easy. You can use those to play the song Horse with no Name. I'll put my tutorial up there if you guys want to go check that out afterwards. But what I'm going to do is show you a very Very simple strumming pattern that you can use with these two chords that you can go and learn that song. And it's basically just four down strums. So if we place our E minor chords, remember, first finger on the second fret of the fifth string, second finger on the second fret of the fourth string. And with your picking hand, we're just going to glide down the strings and do a strum. So it's 1, 2, 3, 4. Okay, 1, 2, 3, 4. And then you would switch to the D69, 1, 2, 3, four. Back to E minor, 1, 2, 3, Four. And then back to D69, 1, 2, three, four. And that's really the basics. And once you get used to it, you can pick up the speed.
So you can kind of hear a song in that now. So that's what I want you guys to practice once you get through this entire video. But that should be the first song that you guys start working on with the chords that we just learned. Now the next three chords I'm going to show you can be used and found in so many different songs. It's amazing. And again, like I said, we're going to be building these off of the easy E minor chord. Now before you guys yell at me or someone, you know, some snob watches this video and tells me that's not a real C chord. That's not a real G chord. Listen, this is a beginner lesson. And the reason I teach chords this way is because over the years I found that students made more progress and had more fun with the guitar. Learning chords this way versus starting them off with the full version of the chords. So let's start off with other each E minor, okay? This is a full chord. That is the full E minor chord. What we're going to do is we're going to start by playing a mini C chord. Alright? And what we're going to do is we're going to leave our second finger in place. And this is why I love teaching it this way because it gives us a pivot point. We're going to leave the second finger in place. First finger is going to come down to the first fret. Second string, okay? And that's going to be C. And as best you can, try to play only the bottom four strings. If you catch the fifth string, it happens. We're more worried about getting the fingers moving. So again, the second finger is staying here. First finger goes to the fifth string. Back to E minor. So hopefully you've gotten to know E minor very well at this point. All right, so we have E minor, first finger is going to come down to the second string, first fret. We have C major. Move that first finger back up to the fourth, fifth string, second fret, E minor. One more time. Move that first finger down to the second string, first fret, and you have a C chord.
Let me go in for a quick close up so that you can see the C chord. So here we are. Like I said, we're starting with E minor, which you hopefully know at this point. But just in case, one more time. First finger on the fifth string, second fret. Second finger on the fourth string, second fret. Okay, so we have E minor. What we're going to do is we're going to leave this second finger in place and this first finger is going to come down to the B string, the second string, first fret. So we kind of got this little diagonal and that's going to be our C chord. To go back to E minor, we just move the first finger back into place. We have E minor and we're going to move the first finger down. Now, something you might notice on this close up, my fingers are sliding around a little bit to make room for the chord. So when I come back to E minor, my second finger slides to make room. It also helps with the reach because doing this, that's quite a stretch. So move this finger back a little bit more to the middle, the second finger, you'll be able to reach that first finger much better. So again, E minor and C.
Now there's another great song that only uses two chords, E minor and C, called Eleanor Rigby by the Beatles. You might want to go check that out. So, see, you've only learned three chords and you've learned two songs, but Eleanor Rigby is all E minor and C. And you can use these two fingered versions for that. So the next chord I'm going to teach you is a G chord. This is technically like a G6. But we're just going to keep it simple and call it our G chord for now. So what we're going to do is we're going to start from that E minor again. All right? That's why that E minor is so important in the beginning. So we're starting from E minor and this time we're gonna leave the first finger in place and we're gonna move the second finger so it's gonna be. The first finger is gonna slide up in the fret a little bit and we're gonna move our second finger to the third fret of the top string.
And we've got kind of a G chord. You can strum all six strings on this. It's fine. Back to E minor.
And then second finger comes up to the top string, third fret, G. Okay, one more time, E minor, move the second finger.
Top string, third fret, and that is your G chord. So here's the close up. And again, hopefully you know your E minor chord by now. We're going to leave the first finger in place, maybe just slide it up a little bit in the fret. And we're going to take our second finger and put it in the middle of the third fret on the top string and we have a G chord. Okay? So E minor.
And second finger up to G. Bring that second finger down, go back to E minor one more time, second finger up to the top string, third fret. We have a G chord.
Back to E minor.
Alright? So so far we've learned how to go from E minor to C, E minor to G. And the last chord we're going to wrap up is we're going to play a D chord. It's really what we call a desusp too, but it's a type of D chord. And anytime you see D you can play that chord. Now the reason I'm teaching you these chords, the E minor, the C, the G and the D. The reason I'm teaching you these four chords is because they're very commonly used in a lot of songs. So think of something like Heart of Gold Perfect by Ed Sheeran. I mean, there's lots of them. There's lots of them. Brown Eyed Girl is another. So we can use these simplified versions in place to play some of these songs. So the last chord that we're going to learn, the simplified chord, is a dsus. Now this one, we're going to get the third finger involved. And that's why back earlier I had you do this exercise, because those are the three fingers we're going to work with the most. So again, this one doesn't have a pivot point, unfortunately, but we're going to start from E minor because that's a great starting point for a lot of chords. What we're going to do is we're going to lift up the second finger and we're going to move the first finger down one, two strings so we're on the third string, second fret, and then this third finger is going to come down on the third fret of the second string and again try and just hit the bottom four strings. It's a very open sounding D chord.
Very beautiful, beautiful sounding chord. Now to get back to E, we would lift up the third finger or the E minor, go up two strings with the first finger, second finger comes down and we have E minor. So again, let's lift up the second finger, move the first finger down two strings so we're on the third string, second fret, third finger comes down on the third fret, second string and we strum for beautiful sounding D sus two chords. Alright, so for the close up we have E minor.
Lift up the bottom finger, move the first finger down two strings, third finger comes to the third fret. On that second string we have disus. So lift up the third finger, come back up.
Second finger down for your E minor. One more time, lift the second finger up, move the first finger down one, two, third finger comes to the third fret on that second string and we have disus. So now that you've learned these four chords, E minor C, the D suspended chord and the G chord, the goal is to not be able to just do them from E minor. The goal is eventually to go from G to C, which is also an interesting one because it's the same shape. It's the second and first finger at an angle, moving to C, the second and first finger at an angle. Alright, so you're going to want to practice going in and out of all these chords because you can play a lot of songs with just these four chords. And then you might want to change up some of the strumming to give yourself more time. So I know I showed you that four strum pattern on the E minor. 1, 2, 3, 4. Well, you might want to do what we call a whole note strum, which is you just strum 1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4 to C, 1, 2, 3, four to D. Two back to G. And 1, 2, 3, 4 To be minor 2, 3, 4 to C', 2, 3, 4 to D, 2, 3, 4. So this is a great way for you to practice switching between chords without, you know, worrying about speed too much. So you'll be able to play along with songs and give yourself enough time to switch between the chords. So that is a whole note strumming pattern. And all I was doing there was just going G to E minor to C to D. Now this is my method for teaching beginners guitar. I always like to break things down and go step by step. If you'd like to learn more, I do have a full, full beginner guitar course. I'll put the link up here that you can go check that out. YouTube's gonna pop up a few more videos on the side here for you guys to go check out. I have lots of beginner tutorials. Some of the songs that you can use with these four chords. One of those might even pop up. So don't forget to comment, like and subscribe. And I hope to see you guys in another lesson video.
