Guitar for Beginners

How to Play Guitar for Beginners up to Intermediate Players

Gareth Evans

• Publisher: Intuition Publications
• Year: 2025
• eBook ISBN: 9781912135783
• Topic: Media & Performing Arts
• Subtopic: Guitar Music

Welcome to Guitar for Beginners. This book explains in a comprehensive yet simple way, the fundamentals of how to play the guitar. With over 180 photographic examples, illustrations and purpose made diagrams, the book also includes 42 downloadable mp3 tracks.

Subjects a beginner is better off knowing now, rather than later, are covered, such as technique for left and right hand, using a plectrum, alternate picking, scale and chord construction, fretboard layout and how to navigate around it, chord changes, strumming, basic theory and plenty more.

Melodies - Musical pieces for you to play are used to make the learning process practical and enjoyable. In various styles like Pop, Blues, Jazz, Country and Rock, each piece has a demonstration track and a backing track for you to play over. The standard and commonly used system for reading music for the guitar, known as tablature, is clearly explained and used throughout. To get you started and straight into playing music, numbers have been added underneath guitar tablature to assist you with understanding the rhythm.

Playing Chords - Changing between chords and strumming are approached separately at first, so you can develop coordination in each hand independently. They are then brought together, starting with easy exercises, getting gradually more advanced until there is a rhythm guitar musical piece to play.

Music Theory - The major scale, minor scale, pentatonic scales and basic chord construction are explained in terms of the fretboard and are re-inforced by being used in musical pieces in various styles, putting the theory into context.

ReadingRhythm - Musical notation almost always features with guitar tablature, so a chapter is dedicated to reading rhythm from notation. This will give you a fuller understanding of how it works alongside tablature, which on its own does not indicate rhythm.

Further Techniques - Further techniqes are explored including power chords, movable barre chords, palm muting, basic lead guitar techniques and improvising. All with musical pieces.

What Else? - Each chapter ends with a set of questions to revise your knowledge. All answers are at the back of the book, along with advice on how to practice guitar and a handy chart for all major scales and their note names.

Grab a copy today!

Table of contents

• Audio Tracks