A Quick How-To on Guitar Playing For Beginners By Mike Darwin

What you will find here is a guide to guitar playing for beginners - for the absolute beginner, that is. This is for those poor souls who have been wanting to learn how to play that guitar since forever but just don't know where to start.

• Learn guitar anatomy.

Before you even pluck that first string, you have to know the parts of the guitar and where they are located. This would include: the head, tuners, nut, fret, neck, finger or fretboard, position markers, body, soundhole, saddle, and bridge. Practice holding the guitar while sitting and standing. Comfort is the utmost importance here but you also need to maintain your posture, so find that comfort zone.

• Choose your pick.

A pick is what you would use to strum the guitar and the choice of this depends entirely on your taste. However, for beginners, the standard sized pick would be a good start. Choose a pick that has a bit of texture to it so you can hold on to it better. Glossy picks may slide from you fingers, especially if you have sweaty hands.

• Get the tuning right.

After having that down to pat, we move on to tuning. Tuning is probably the most basic but yet most important part of guitar playing. The standard tuning is to the tune of E-A-D-G-E. As a novice, it is highly recommended that you buy yourself a guitar tuner instead of having to manually tune your guitar.

• Learn your chords.

Chords are notes to the tune as lyrics are to the song. These are the individual pieces of melody that when played together creates the tune. At this point, it is also best that you learn a few first. Chord diagrams are used to illustrate how you should play specific chords. A diagram has six strings and dots or numbers to represent the proper placement of your fingers. The numbers represent the following fingers: 1 for index, 2 for middle, 3 for ring, and 4 for pinky. A letter O represents Open and that means you play that sting without placing any finger on it. An X, on the other hand, means that you do not play the string at all.

The key to master this skill, or any skill for the matter, is practice. Half an hour or so every day is enough. Master the basic chords and to play with them. Becoming a musical prodigy overnight is near impossible, but with a few weeks of solid practice, you will definitely be past that "guitar playing for beginners" phase and be well your way to playing true blue music.