So you want to be a guitar guy,uh? Well, it’s a long way to the top of you want to rock and roll. Maybe you’re a bored teen and want to play heavy metal to vent your frustration, or maybe you’re middle age, have a great IRA and want to retire to become a hippie playing 60s folk songs, regardless of your reason for picking up a guitar, you made a great choice in expanding your horizons in musicality.

Remember, learning is always a positive and it’s never too late to start a musical journey. The rewards along the way are endless. From the joy of playing your first chord, to the joy of playing your first full song;the first time you’ve played a chord progression or note progression and felt the natural high of creating something more than yourself and that will give you the drive to continue.

You’ll meet some interesting people along the way as well. Some you meet may stay a while and others a short time, but it will hopefully help you grow as a musician as well.

This isn’t an entire guide to play guitar, but will it assist you in the beginning to become more than just a four chord, “baby baby baby” player. Unless you want to be Justin Beiber, nothing wrong with that. I’ll even help you,

A, D, E and G make up a backbone of a lot of music. Pick any one or more and you’ll be Bob Dylan in no time.

Place your index finger on all three, informally referred to as the rock star A or place you index (1) on the D string (third string down from the thickest string, AKA the “High E String”) middle finger (2) on G string and then your ring (3) on the B string. APEGIATE(pluck each string starting with just the string above the one your index, this is the A string. Once each note comes out clear, no muting, strum down. If that rings out clear, congratulations! You’ll have panties in your face in no time! *Claims of panty throwing, unsubstantiated*)

The E shape. This is going to play an important role when we look at barre chords. So your index goes where the single red highlight is. Then your middle and ring where the double red highlight is. Arpeggiate from the high string (thicc est one) down to the thinnest. All clear? Strum down on all strings. If that sounds clear, congratulations! You’re now two chords in. Justin Bieber will be running scared of your musical prowess and Zombie Elvis will come back from the dead to reclaim his throne.

By now, your hands are feeling the burn! Unlike the 27 club you can’t burn out now. You got two more chords to learn!

It sounds heavenly and makes chord progressions in these 4 more rounded. It’s a tad bit awkward but once you get it down, you’ll be good. I put the numbers above. Once you place them and arpeggiate them for clarity and then strum down. Everything sound clear? Congrats! That’s three chords? *Richard Simmons Voice* Don’t you just feel like a pop star when you three chord?

The D chord! It’s bigger than Justin Bebier. More hit songs use the D even more than the G chord. At least the internet tells me. See the string with the redl line and use the numbers for your fingers to depress them. Arpeggiate from the string just above the index to the final. All clear? Now strum. If that’s clear, than you completed our first level of lessons. Like the Real Men of Genius song, here’s to you Mr 4 chord pop star. For giving us all, a slew of trite hits. This is also a moveable cord. Go up one, you get the D7. Keep going down and you get a plethora of others.

What we learned!

A, D, G and E chord. ✅

Arpeggiation ✅

How to strum ✅

The notes of the strings (E-thicc est, A, second thicc est, D, third thicc est, G, first thinnest, B second thinnest and the last one, E again. Good to remember it as E ddie A te D ynamite G pod B ye E ddie! ) ✅

Any questions?

*Raise hand*

What if we don’t want to be Justin Bebier and just pick up girls at the local bar?

KAGE: learn those for chords, then see INDEX (future link when full version releases)

Psst…now that the pop star posers are gone, we can have a real chat. You’re not like the Beiber guys, wanting to pick up chicks. You love guitar and you want to learn more, but you want to your rhythm to have a pair of balls? Well, you might not be a rock star, but at least it’s more than jeans and a top hat to get people to notice you. Not that there’s anything thing wrong with jeans and top hats, they practically built the 1980s. So buckle up and hey hey, you’re gonna be a rock star!

Right now you’re going to be having more 5th’s than 90 % of 1970s-1980s rockstars. Don’t drink to victory yet! We need to be more precise in playing.

So a 5th is any two notes you depress like the above. You can move this shape pretty much everywhere and it sounds powerful. When you strum, only hit the two strings that you depressed the notes on. Although not the full gambit of power chords, this will surely allow you to cut the line to clubs you never get in and maybe, maybe, even that person at the bar that everyone knows, will compliment you. That’s almost a celebrity!!!!! A 5th of a celebrity, if you will. (KAGE NOTE: This is why I didn’t excel in comedy. Also the fact I hate entertaining people, but, yet, I still like to be clever. 🤔)

The reason I point out the E minor, is two fold. 1st, phrasing is everything and telling you how to put your hands on minors will probably red flag you. The second is they don’t sound great on electric guitar and that’s why you’re here, to be a Jukebox Hero, with stars in their eyes…hopefully they’re stars, otherwise I might recommend a doctor.

If you made it this far you have learned

The A, D, G, E chords. ✅

You have learned to Arpeggiate ✅

You have learned to strum ✅

You have learned 5ths ✅

You have learned playing guitar hurts your fingers ✅

You have learned patience, my young padawan ✅

But most importantly, you learned the most 1980s hero movie lesson of all time, to believe in yourself and never give up til the freeze frame. ✅

Only shit, you’re still here? Woha! Here I taught you enough to have parties and sex with practically nobody worthwhile, but you want to learn more? You rebel you! That obviously because you’re unpretentious. You must be some, well, punk. Your music is going to end aprtihid. Save the whales and even make Micheal Jackson hold hands with random celebrities without gloves. damn!

So here is your sobering lesson. It’s the F chord and no, I won’t teach you the hacks. You’re already proved momma didn’t raise no quitters. Get your index finger ready, cause it’s going to be used more than a lesbians.

So essentially the chord is the E shape, down one fret to put us away from the nut. place your index near the fret. Find what’s most comfortable to you. Your finger is acting as a sorta capo/nut thing. You’re really going to feel this one, but no pain, no gain. Other basic barre chords follow similar shapes to the open chords. just get the index part down now, it’s the most necessary part of these chords.

Arpeggiate and check that each one rings out clear. Unless your like me, where one is almost always muted and gives it a percussion like sound, you show them strum from

If you find yourself getting the percussion fx, try laying down with the guitar. I’ve gotten perfect bar chords by doing this. Then try to adapt it to sitting up and then finally standing.

Once it’s clear playing consistently, move up a fret and get it perfect again until you run out of frets to move up. Hint, that’s fret 12, unless you want really cramped fingers.

And unlike Bieber fanboy, still playing What’s on OnlyTabs….er, UltimateGuitar, you can try this list of songs

Cult of personality -In Living Color

Strawberry Fields Forever-The Beatles

Smells like Teen Spirit-Nirvana

Shenna is a punk rocker by the Ramones

As a few examples.

So here’s what you learned.

A, D. G, E chord ✅

5th chords ✅

If you’re just a pretentious dick or a real guitarist ✅

Indexing technique, plus using open chord shapes with it to make new chords. ✅

Dealing with an insufferable sarcastic bastard like myself. ✔️ ☑️ ✅

Congrats! thank God, that much like YouTube, guitar playing has no real formal authority like real organizations that give credentials to relevant people. Closest we got is a music theory degree, but that has less to do with an instrument. So you’re getting what you pay for.

However, since you have stuck with it this far, you are now a guitarist. Sticking with it or any instrument is what matters. Here’s to show the world you officially made it, ma.

Now some unsourced, internet words of encouragement that may or may not have actually been said by the musician.

“Some days playing guitar is going to suck, but if you stick with it, you’ll be rewarded”-Jimi Hendrix

And now that you made it this far and are officially a guitarist, I guess ima have to teach you what Biber boy forgot, which is, tuning. Ugh! Probably should’ve put this in the beginning. Besides, some ass clown out there is saying “but Jimi Hendrix didn’t tune!” He did, in fact, tune, and made a rousing joke of having Clapton doing it for him too. That said, you’re not Jimi Hendrix and neither am I!

So we need to 1. Buy a tuner from a place like Sweetwater, Guitar center or Amazon, which would the recommended way to tune or 2. Go to the App Store and find the fender or another free version you are comfortable with.

There is a 3rd way, until you develop the ear for it (note, been playing since I was 12 and I’m 39 now and still not great at ear tuning.) use a piano, find the notes and tune the pitch to the piano. This will help develop your ear.

And now, here’s what you won! A free link to Google looking for videos on how to restring!!! Harley Quinn Voice: Woha! Ain’t you the lucky one, eh?

Search

Search

Psst, go to Google and type it in like the picture. Stay away from those other types of sites though.

Now that we got that out of the way, let’s talk the last piece of the learning puzzle. Pedals! They used to be expensive and now they’re affordable. So affordable in fact, that I’m contemplating quitting the cigs just to get more, especially if certain people aren’t mad though.

It’s not necessarily to use them, but they are kinda like stimulants. They can enhance the mood of your guitar playing if you will. However, you don’t need to buy them to get good at guitar. Just play ”from your fuckin heart“-Bill Hicks

Thanks for coming to my Kage talk. Hopefully you learned something. If not, well 🖕you too!