For those who've never played the guitar but have picked one up for 5 minutes, strummed it then put it down and thought i wish i could play.
Here's a quick guide to help understand the basics.
When you learn to drive the first lesson before starting the engine is a familiarisation of the controls. Once you know where the accelerator and break are and how to steer then you can start driving.
Firstly a brief mention of music and the notes it's made up of. You do not have to understand music to start playing the guitar at first. God designed our bodies to naturally hear how music should flow in any tune. You immediately recognise a 'bum' note that doesn't fit a tune as it sounds 'off' or 'out of scale'
Music is simple it has 7 tones A B C D E F G and 5 semi tones (or inbetween tones) referred to as sharps and flats.
The piano keyboard let's you visualise this perfectly.
The white keys are the A to G and the black keys are the sharp and flat semi tones. As there are 7 'whole notes' and 5 'half notes' then obviously there's 2 notes that don't have semi tones inbetween them
Going from A to G, you can see the first black key (semi tone) is inbetween A and B. This semi tone is known as both A# (sharp) or Bb (flat).
All semi tones are called either sharp or flat depending on the scale the melody is composed of. For example Adele's 'Someone like you' is written in the scale of 'A'
The scale of A like all scales is made up of 7 notes. When reaching A again going up scale or down scale it is called an Octive ie the number 8 as the scale repeats.
Any note played 'out of scale' is naturally heard as a bum note.
So back to the guitar. This is the guitar fretboard:
The six strings are tuned from the top down as the notes E A D G B E.
6 strings but only 5 notes as E is repeated (An Octive!)
Remember "Every Adult Dog Growls Barks & Eats.
The fretboard is made up of boxes divided by fret bars. The 13th fret box is identical to the 1st fret box as that is where the guitars 'Octive' starts.
So the note in the first fret box on the top E string is the same as the note in the thirteenth fret on the top E string.
The twelth fret being an octave up from the open strings.
If we start with the top E string and pluck it as 'open' ie with out touching it down on any fret you will hear the first tone in the scale of E and just like the pianno keyboard as you move up the frets on that string you're moving up the keyboard. Only fretboards don't have any black keys for the sharps and flats. For #'s and b's on a fretboard you simply skip a fret.
That's the basics.
The best thing to do next is lookup a guitar 'tab' of your favourite song and start playing.
TAB music is soooo easy to understand over traditional sheet music.