Common Beginner Guitar Questions Answered!

Question one - keep the strings straight!

This is a great question to start with, as it is a problem that every beginner player faces, and it's important to be aware of it with every note you fret on the guitar! It comes down to a fundamental way the guitar works - it creates notes with a vibrating string. The pitch of these notes is affected by (among other things) the length and tension of the string. Now, the length is changed with the frets, and usually the tension is set when we tune the guitar, however if we move the string as we fret it this also increases the tension on the string, and so if we do this unintentionally as we fret we can put the note out of tune. This often happens if we grasp the string too hard. For example in this exercise:

This is a very common exercise for beginner and advanced players, but for beginners the intention to to help develop finger independence and general control. Something that often happens however is this idea of 'grasping' where we're trying so hard to fret the string that we end up pulling it out of line and in doing so change the tension and tuning of the note. It also means our fingers crash into the other strings - an all round bad situation!

How do we work on this?

First of all, make sure that you are aware of what the problem is, and if you are grasping the strings and pulling them out of line try having your thumb at the back of the neck, which allows your hand to reach all the way around, and so use every joint in your hand and fingers. Then, once you're in position take some time to realise how hard you actually need to press down on the strings to get a note. Remember, fretting just behind the fret (as shown in the video) allows you to push with the minimum possible force. From there, experiment with really light pressure, gradually increasing until the note rings out. At that point you're there - you don't need any more force than that to play!

There could be other issues affecting this, including your guitar setup, so if you're unsure please get in touch and we can help you!

Question two - which fingers can I use?

This question arose when a student tried playing a B7 chord. In our 30 Day Beginner Challenge course this chord comes in a little later, and uses more fingers that other previous chords. So it can really feel like a jump up in difficulty! Here's that chord box:

As you can see in the diagram we need to use our pinky finger to play this chord. **It's very much worth noting that the finger you fret with won't change the note**, when we suggest a certain finger for a note it's usually because it's the most common, or practical way, or because it makes sense when we consider the notes we need to move to for the next chord.

Now, on to notes in chords - you need to have some theory understanding to fully grasp this concept, but if we are doubling up notes in chord boxes (as is very often the case on guitar) then we can leave a note out and still get the chord. This won't work every time as it very much depends on the function of the note we're leaving out, but in the case of the B7 shape above, leaving out that E string note doesn't affect the chord being a B7! For the theory curious, we're leaving out the 5th by doing this, so technically it should be in there, but it's not adding anything functional to the chord, just thickening up the sound. So, if you are currently struggling with that shape and just want to play through a song, you can absolutely leave the pinky finger out! It's not a bad thing at all to just focus on getting through a whole song in time even if you have to change a few bits.

But... since we only have 4 fingers to use it would be a shame to limit our playing by not at least practicing with the pinky to try to get it working for us! You can do this with the 1234 exercise above, or with a D Major to Dsus4 exercise like this:

Question three - develop that reach!

Another difficulty that every single player encounters on their journey is being able to stretch the fingers out to span 3,4,5 or more frets.

It's very common to want to play with your thumb over the top - and this is a fine way to play for many things including open chords and bends. But when you need to make a stretch you need to have your thumb behind the neck, as this allows you to bring your wrist under the neck, and use all the joints in your hands and fingers - don't lock any out!!

As an example you can try this with the A minor pentatonic scale. Keep your thumb behind the neck, in the same position relative to your fingertips. So as you play the thin strings your thumb will be near the bottom of the neck. As you play the thick strings your thumb will be nearer the middle or top of the neck. Here's that pentatonic shape for you to try:

Question four - pain!

Learning guitar can be a painful process, emotionally and physically! However it would be a bad idea to just say to ourselves "it's supposed to hurt, I'll play through the pain".

The most common place to hurt is the tips of your fingers. They simply won't be used to pressing down on thin pieces of metal and it hurts! Luckily, this is only temporary as your fingers will develop calluses which is what we call the tougher skin on the tips of the fingers. It takes a while for this to develop, but if you practice a little every day it will happen! Don't overdo it though, You don't want bleeding fingers (unless you're writing a song about a certain titular summer). Also, please don't use superglue on your fingertips (but feel free to read about SRV doing so!)

So, we know to expect pain in the fingertips, but what about the rest of the arm? Unfortunately yes it won't be totally comfortable to begin with, but it certainly shouldn't be excruciating. RSI is something to be aware of so take plenty of breaks, and if something really hurts every time you play then it might be worth looking at your technique. In this case we highly recommend getting in touch with us to book a lesson with a professional guitar tutor who can make sure you're not going down the wrong path technique-wise!

Question five - muted strings

Once again, these questions have been chosen as they affect every guitar player, and are a huge source of frustration! Don't give up, these issues can be overcome with a little help! The final question in the video is about having muted strings on the E minor chord. A very very annoying situation to be in! To resolve this we need to think about what can make strings mute on the guitar. In the simplest way, a string will sound muted when it's prevented from ringing out in some way. Let us count the ways:

1. Not fretting hard enough or not fretting in the right place. If you're not pressing down hard enough the string will bounce and rattle off the fret instead of ringing cleanly. Try to fret as close as possible to the fret to minimise this.

2. Guitar setup. If the action is too low, or there's a high fret, backbowed neck or numerous other issues then strings can't ring cleanly. This is easy to test - instead of trying to play a full chord just play one note cleanly and with enough pressure. If it rings out like that then the guitar isn't causing the buzz.

3. Picking hand muting. If your picking hand, or a loose sleeve is touching the strings then they won't be able to ring out.

4. Fretting hand muting. This is probable the most common cause of muted notes. If your fretting hand fingers are touching the other strings this will impede them. You can remedy this by fretting with your thumb behind the neck and using each finger joint to accurately place your fingertip (not fingerprint) on the note. It really should be the tip of your finger fretting, so if you had long nails they would be digging right into the fretboard!

There can of course be other things that might cause muted strings, but a very important point I want to make here is that you shouldn't get too bogged down in perfectionism at this point. If you spend all of your time stopping and adjusting to get every single string ringing out you'll never finish a song (or even a chord progression!). Having every string ringing out perfectly cleanly is just one aspect of playing guitar. You also have to consider playing in time, changing chords, remembering progressions (and much more besides). If you spend all of your time focused on having perfect chords you will prevent yourself from practicing these other equally (actually more) important aspects of music! So, if a chord is 'good enough' then I highly recommend sticking with it. As you become a more proficient player you'll almost certainly see improvements in the chord without having thought about it at all! Sometimes all it takes is for your calluses to develop and suddenly everything just works! You can of course always go back and work on any specific areas later too, and in the meantime you've been able to actually enjoy playing guitar!