Beginner Guitar Lessons

So far with our guitar lessons, you have learned how to play guitar with good right hand guitar picking technique, your articulate voice.  This next series of beginner guitar lessons will help you learn to play guitar with proper left hand technique, which will be the words your right hand speaks.

Guitar for Beginners: Left hand positioning

Before we actually get to the exercise in these beginner guitar lessons, we’re going to look at proper left hand placement.

For learning to play guitar solos, your thumb plays a key role. So in these beginner guitar lessons, you’ll place you thumb on the center of the back of the guitar neck. With the proper thumb placement in these guitar lessons for beginners, your thumb helps supply the pressure so your fingers don’t have to work as hard.

Also when you learn how to play electric guitar with proper left hand technique, you palm won’t hug the neck of the guitar.  For these free beginner guitar lessons, with your thumb on the center of the neck and fingers on the fingerboard of the guitar, the curvature on the outline on your hand between your thumb and first finger should make a “U” shape drooping down from the neck of the guitar.

Also in this beginner guitar lessons, with your fingers on the first string at frets five, six, seven and eight, your fingers should be parallel with the frets (not slanted towards the headstock), and you knuckles parallel with the neck. This technique in these guitar lessons for beginners might seem slightly uncomfortable at first, but you’ll be able to execute riffs and licks that are not possible with poor technique. Your fourth finger is already the weakest finger in both of your hands, so this hand alignment taught in these beginner guitar lessons will position your picky for optimum performance and help build its strength.

Also with the right hand techniques in these guitar lessons for beginners, as with your left hand, you’ll want to practice economy of movement. By not lifting your fingers too far of the fretboard when learning to play guitar solos, you’ll be able to play faster passages. Distance = time: that is the greater distance your fingers have to move, the longer it’ll take for you to get there. Use these beginner guitar lessons to learn and practice proper right hand technique.