Learning Guitar - Lesson Two

By Dan Cross, About.com Guide

Practicing at least 15 minutes per day on the guitar is recommended. Playing every day, even for this small amount of time, will get you comfortable with the instrument, and you'll be amazed at your progress. Here's a schedule to follow.

• Make sure your guitar is in tune (how to tune)
• Go over material from lesson one. Concentrate on the chromatic scale and major chords.
• Review the open string names.
• Play the E phrygian scale several times. Play the scale forwards and backwards, slowly, in an even tempo. Concentrate on accuracy!
• Spend at least five minutes on strumming. Try these patterns with different chords. Try playing the strumming patterns with one chord, switching chords, and playing the pattern again.
• Play this week's minor chords. Say the name of the chord as you play it, to help with memorization. Practice switching from one minor chord to another, or from a minor to a major chord.
• Try playing some, or all of the songs listed. Review songs from lesson one.They will certainly not sound very good at first. Try only to think of the songs as a way in which to practice playing chords.

You can see that we are quickly building a large amount of material to practice. If you find it impossible to practice the above in one sitting, try playing them over several days. Be sure not to ignore any of the items on the list, even if they're not a ton of fun to practice.

You will undoubtedly sound pretty rough when you first start playing this new material. Everyone does... that is why we practice. If you can't seem to get something right even after a lot of practice, shrug your shoulders, and leave it for tomorrow.

We're done lesson two! When you're ready, move on to lesson three, we'll discuss even more about chords, more strumming patterns, the basics of reading music, plus new songs and more. Hope you're having fun!