Guitar Lesson 1: The High E String and Guitar Notations

Module by: Catherine Schmidt-Jones

Summary: Introduces the notes of the high E string and the three most common types of notation for the guitar: common notation, tablature, and chord diagrams.

These lessons are not intended for use by the self-taught guitarist; they do not have enough information to get you started. I use them with my students because I have not found a method book that exactly suits my needs as a teacher. I've made them available in Connexions so that replacement copies of the lessons are available to my students, and I can easily alter and copy them myself as needed and integrate them with the music theory modules in Connexions. Other teachers are welcome to use them, as is, or altered, under the terms of the Creative Commons license (see bottom of this page for link). Students who would like to use them are urged to find a teacher, at least for those critical first lessons.

The exercises are my own, as are the simple arrangements of public-domain tunes. You may use them as specified in the Creative Commons license.

These lessons are for beginning guitar players. They cover the basics, including reading common notation for guitar, reading guitar tablature, playing melodies and scales, fingering technique, picking patterns, chords, and strumming. The idea is to introduce the beginner to the basics of all notations and playing styles, as well as the music theory that a guitar player will find useful. A student who has worked through all of these lessons should be ready to begin serious study of any guitar style, including classical, folk, jazz, blues, and rock, and will also have a passing familiarity with some of the basics of the other styles. Or you may wish to use these lessons as a supplement to a beginners' book in a specific technique, to round out the student's knowledge. (Classical guitar players, in particular, should learn proper classical technique from the beginning.)

Highly-motivated students, adult beginners, and students who have already studied other instruments may be able to do these lessons at the rate of one per week, and may not need to study all the "extra practice" pages. Young or inexperienced students may need more time on some of the lessons. This should not be considered a failing; students should not go on to the next lesson until they are comfortable playing the lesson page, and the student should slow down and work on the "extra practice" pages at any time that the lessons seem to be going too quickly.

On the other hand, it is not necessary for the student to understand everything in each theory assignment before going on. As long as students have understood enough to do the theory exercises in the lesson and to answer their own questions on the subject, that is enough for the moment. They can always review the information later as they need to.

The Song Sheets may also be used as extra practice material, or they may be used when the student wants or needs a piece for performance. A student can start working on a song sheet piece any time after the lesson indicated near the song title.

Here are PDF files of the Lesson page and Home practice page. If you can't get the PDF files, you can use the figures below. The theory assignment for this lesson is Clef.

Figure 1

Figure 2

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This work is licensed by Catherine Schmidt-Jones under a Creative Commons Attribution License (CC-BY 2.0), and is an Open Educational Resource.

Last edited by Catherine Schmidt-Jones on Apr 6, 2006 11:36 am GMT-5.