Learning Guitar
Learning Guitar
Intro
Most guitar players are self taught. They may get a bit of guidence from someone who already plays, but it is most often just explaining how to read chord charts and perhaps tablature. Other than that there is often not a lot of formal training. Most players start off with strumming and then advance to learn how to play melodic lines or play guitar solos.
Standard Tuning
There are many different tunings for guitar, but by far the most common is what is referred to as Standard Tuning. The standard tuning of a guitar, going from the low frequency strings to the high frequency strings, is E3, A3, D4, G4, B4, and E5. The space between the low E and the high E is two octaves. The above image shows where these notes are on a piano keyboard. Note that middle C is C4 and is boldened.
The illustration above shows where each string is tuned on the grand staff. It also shows which notes can be played on a 24 fret guitar. For example the open low E is E3. The note sounded when fretting the twelfth fret on the low E string (shown in green) is E4. The note sounded when fretting the twentyfourth fret on the low E string (shown in blue) is E5. So, on a 24 fret guitar, the complete range possible is from E3 to E7 or four octaves.
Open Chords
Open guitar chords are chords that use some of the open guitar strings along with fretted guitar strings. Most players learn to play open chords before moving on to Barre Chords which will be covered later.
There are other open chord voicings, but these are the most commonly used open chords. Most of the other voicings are various extended chords that will be covered later. It should be noted that there are no flat or sharp chords amongst the chords listed above. It should also be noted that playing C Minor and G Minor is not possible with open chords. The outlier chord B7 is included as it is more or less an open chord.
Open Chord Friendly Keys
We're omitting any sharp or flat keys since none of the key roots are included in the open chords list. The highlighted chords are chords in the open chord list. Friendly keys are the keys with the most open chords within them. From this chart it can be seen that the keys of C & G are the friendliest with five chords. The key of D comes in second with four chords. The keys of A & F come in third with three open chords in common.
| Key | I | ii | iii | IV | V | vi | vii° |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| A | A | Bm | C#m | D | E | F#m | G#° |
| B | B | C#m | D#m | E | F# | G#m | A#° |
| C | C | Dm | Em | F | G | Am | B° |
| D | D | Em | F#m | G | A | Bm | C#° |
| E | E | F#m | G#m | A | B | C#m | D#° |
| F | F | Gm | Am | Bb | C | Dm | E° |
| G | G | Am | Bm | C | D | Em | F#° |