GH Update: I learned how to play the guitar...and it's harder than I thought!

        After watching a couple of videos from the GuitarLessons's youtube channel, I learned a few guitar fundamentals that are essential in the playing itself.

        First and foremost, I learned how to hold the guitar. I am left-handed, but it doesn't matter what your dominant hand is. You place the guitar on your right leg and hold the neck of it with your left hand, so that the fattest string is the closest to you. I learned some basic strumming techniques, such as pretending that the hand in which you are holding the pick has honey and a feather stuck to it and you're trying to get it off. Pretty nice imagery isn't it?

        I learned that there are numbering systems with the guitar: The first numbering system is the names of the notes/strings on the guitar in order. The from thinnest to thickest the names of the strings are E, B, G, D, A, and E and are numbered string 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6 respectively. The next numbered system is the frets. The frets are the metal lines that lay perpendicular along the length of the fretboard/fingerboard which is on the neck of the guitar (I will post a diagram of the parts on the guitar later). The last numbering system that I need to know is the numbers of your fingers. Your index finger is 1, middle 2, ring 3, and pinky 4. This took me a bit of time to wrap my mind around because in piano, the first instrument I learned to play, the numbers of fingers started with the thumb. In guitar, however, your thumb usually rests on the back of the neck and is not used in fingering notes.

        I did not do much research on how to tune the instrument, but I figured before I went on playing I would have to tune the strings first. When I was figuring out how to play the guitar, I found that on the model that I am playing with it has a built-in tuner! How convenient! One thing to keep in mind when tuning an instrument without the use of a tuner is that you need some sort of external reference pitch that is accurate. For example, if I were to tune a string by ear, I would have to play the note I want to tune it to on an instrument such as a piano (that is in tune) or I could use a device that can produce a digital note (these days, all sorts of specific pitch-producing devices are available on the internet and even in apps for your phone). With a tuner, however, I can play the string and it will tell me if it is sharp (#) or flat (♭). When the note is in tune, the green light will appear.

This is the tuner built into the guitar that I am currently learning to play on -- here, I know that the D string is in tune because the green light is apparent.

So, to tune, all you have to do is strum a string a couple of times while twisting the tuners (the knobs at the top of the neck) until the green light shows up on whatever tuning device you are using. If you are tuning by ear with a reference, you have to twist the tuners until the two sounds match up perfectly, where you hear no waves or buzzing noises (I will go more into depth of what this means in a later post about tuning). There may be a better way to tune guitars, but for know, this method suits my needs.

        The next thing that I learned was how to play a couple of basic cords, such as E major, G major, F major, and C major chords. The chords that you play is determined by the position of your fingers on the fretboard.

Chords and the fingerings can be found in charts such as these.

Some techniques that I learned while playing chords is to place the finger right behind the fret. To make sure that you got the chord right, play through each string independently. Then play it all at once and if it's clear, then it's good!
Now...the tricky part: Memorizing chords and being able to move through chords swiftly. This is extremely hard!