Making Music With a Guitar: Understanding the Basics.
As the descendant of innumerable instruments developed over thousands of years, the modern guitar has become an ubiquitous symbol of musical creativity and expression. From expressive blues to dynamic punk and metal, the guitar has been a timeless tool of communication throughout musical history. But to truly understand and appreciate the potential of the guitar, it’s important to learn the basics of how it works. So, if you’re just starting out, here’s a beginner’s guide to making the most of your instrument.
First and foremost, let’s talk hardware: the anatomy of the guitar. There are many different types of guitar — acoustic, electric, or even ukulele — but all share a common set of aesthetic features. A standard electric or acoustic six-string guitar will have a rigid wooden body often with a sound board on the bottom, two strings running across the fret board, and a tuning peg that can be adjusted to change the pitch of the strings. The strings are usually made out of metal, typically steel or nickel-plated steel, and the fret board is usually made from ebony or rosewood depending on the type of guitar.
In order to make sound vibrate from the strings, the strings must be held down onto the fret board. This is done with fingers on the left hand, called fretting, and with the pick on the right hand, called picking. With either of these methods, you have a range of dynamic possibilities to play around with. So let’s start with the basics.
Fretting is the action of pressing a string down onto the fret board with one or more fingers of your left hand. This changes the length of the string, causing it to vibrate at a different frequency and creates a different note. To make this process simpler, the fret board is marked with small metal bars, called frets, placed at specific intervals that divide the string into a series of notes. To play a note, you simply place one of your fingers between two frets and press down firmly until the string is held down and vibrates. The farther down you fret the strings, the higher the pitch of the note.
Now, let’s talk about picking. The pick is a thin, flat piece of plastic or metal that you use to strike the strings and cause them to vibrate. Picking is done with the right hand by lightly strumming the strings or flicking them to produce a short, sharp sound. It can be used to play both single notes and chords, so it’s an important technique that you’ll need to master if you want to play the guitar with any level of skill.
Once you understand how the guitar works and you’ve got the basics of fretting and picking down, you’re ready to move onto playing chords. Chords are a combination of notes played together at the same time, and they provide a framework for you to add a melody, verses, and other elements of song writing. To make chords, you fret down multiple strings at specific intervals, usually two or more at a time. This is usually done with your left hand fingers, although you can also use a barre chord, which uses one finger to fret down multiple strings at once, making it easier to create complex chords.
Now it’s time to move on to plucking. Plucking is essentially the opposite of picking and is done by lightly pushing the string with the right hand finger (or thumb) of your right hand and then quickly letting it go. This produces a softer, more subtle sound than the sharp attack of picking and is often used to add texture to a song. It’s a bit more complicated than simply strumming and picking, but it can add an extra element of expression and dynamics to your music.
Lastly, let’s talk about strumming. Strumming is similar to picking, but rather than quickly flicking the strings with a pick, you use a whole strumming hand and a pick to move from one string to the other, producing multiple notes in one movement. It’s the basis of many popular guitar riffs and an incredibly important technique for the modern player.
By combining the basics of fretting, picking, plucking, and strumming, you can begin to create your own sound and start to develop your songwriting skills. But to really make the most of your guitar, why not learn more? There are all sorts of chord progressions and strumming patterns, effects, and improvisation techniques that can expand your musical toolkit and give you the potential to create unique, exciting music.
Guitar may seem like a complex instrument, but understanding the basics gives you all the power you need to get creative, express yourself, and make music. With the right attitude and a bit of practice, anyone can learn the fundamentals and start playing beautiful music. Don’t be afraid to experiment and explore the possibilities — it’s what the guitar was made for!