This lesson is aimed at helping the beginning guitar student get started off on the right foot by covering all the fundamentals of the electric guitar. By the end of this hour lesson, you're going to know your instrument, and you're going to be making music ... guaranteed!

Chapter 2: Strings and Basic Chords 

In this chapter, we will learn about the strings, how to tune them, and how to form basic chord positions. I'll show you how many strings you should play for each different chord, and will even address left hand dampening of the strings as a means of playing some of the chords more cleanly. I'll also take a look at how to properly hold the pick.

When you're all done, you're going to walk away with basic knowledge about the following key components of beginning electric guitar:

• The parts of the electric guitar
• Learning the strings
• Tuning up properly
• Basic chord positions
• Shortcut chord positions, such as partial barres and power chords
• Left-hand dampening
• Basic blues shuffles
• Alternate up-down picking as well as all-downstroke picking
• Making the right hand the “drummer”
• Hammer-ons, pull-offs, and slides

Go back to Chapter 1 or move onto Chapter 3