These are all valid questions because how you learn to play the guitar is just as important as what you learn to play. Teaching yourself how to play might work just fine if you’ve got a good ear and some previous exposure to music theory or proficiency on another instrument.

If you’re totally new to playing any instrument at all, though, it would be a good idea to get a teacher — or — join an online program where you can interact with multiple teachers as well as fellow students. In fact, I would recommend finding at least one ‘mentor’ or a ‘study buddy’ to learn with even if you lean towards teaching yourself.

Why?

In short, you learn more and make more progress faster than you would in isolation because you’ll be exposed to alternative ways of thinking about your approach to the guitar. Other players can share tips and techniques you haven’t seen before, as well as help you conquer a problem area that they’ve already mastered.

Ultimately, though, the question of how to learn guitar is up to you and your choice should be guided by consideration of your own unique situation. The following list of questions should help you make a solid decision:

1. How much can I afford to spend on lessons, books, etc, and how much am I willing to invest to get started?

2. How do I learn best? For example, can you pick up concepts easily just by reading about them, or do you prefer to have audio and video demonstrations you can follow along with?

3. Am I looking to learn a specific style of guitar such as Classical, Blues or Jazz? You’ll still need to learn basic music theory for any style of music, but you might want to look for instruction that focuses on teaching the theory in one of these contexts.

4. How much time can I devote to practice? This is really important if you’re thinking of hiring a guitar teacher. Most teachers will require you to master a lesson before moving on to the next one.

You’ll still be paying for those lessons even when you aren’t making much progress. So, if you’re strapped for time, I recommend investing in a home-study or online couse. This will give you 24/7 access to the information you need outside of your regular guitar lessons.

5. How ‘good’ of a player do I want to be? If guitar is just a hobby for you, then you’ll likely do well with just about any method of instruction. If you want to go pro or start a band, though, you should learn from as many different sources as possible.

This sonic variety provides you with a unique opportunity to create a ‘signature sound’. Sadly, most of the current music curriculum for guitarists ignores these issues. The truth is that learning to play electric guitar is process which continues well beyond achieving proficiency in music theory, much less the rote motor skills necessary to manipulate the strings.

For that reason alone, I decided to create this quick tutorial about the use of effects pedals in the hopes of helping you break free from the “three chords and some distortion” rut so many guitarists find themselves stuck in.

The long and short of this tutorial is: You must learn how to ‘chain’ your effects pedals

I am aware that some guitarists prefer ‘all-in-one’, multi-effect pedal units (e.g. Digitech RP series) for their ease, convenience and versatility, and they are wonderful devices in theory. There are plenty of situations where a multi-effect pedal is the appropriate tool for the job.

The problem comes when you tire of the limitations of whichever multi-effects unit you’re using.

You might think “an effect is an effect”, but this simply isn’t true. The electronic circuitry of any effect pedal can add to/subtract from your overall tone in the same way that the type of wood your guitar is made of, or the pickups it uses, will influence your tone.

This is why you’ll see many professional players use a variety of effect pedals, and they’ll often have a favorite model for a particular type of effect.

In order to ‘tweak’ your sound, you must understand the ‘proper’ chaining of effects pedals from guitar to amp. There exists a loose set of rules regarding the placement of different types of effects in a chain for the best ‘signal to noise’ ratio.

While these rules are not absolute, you’ll find that they hold true from a general standpoint a majority of the time. Like the saying goes, though, you have to know the rules before you can break them.

A Good Effects Chain

Guitar -> Wah -> Distortion -> Chorus -> Amp + Delay (sent separately through the amp’s effect loop)

or

Guitar -> Wah -> Distortion -> Chorus -> Delay -Amp
As you may notice above, Delay is typically the last effect in any chain. You will have to plug from the Delay (at the end of the whole chain) into your amp’s input jack if you are using a one-channel amp.

For two-channel amps, it is generally recommended to plug your Guitar-Wah-Distortion-Chorus chain into the input jack, while plugging your Delay (separate from the chain) into the amp’s “effects send/return” loop.

Doing so gives you a more ‘natural’ feeling sound because the Delay will modulate the amplified signal, rather than adding noise (and potentially over-driving the amp) as it happens when you allow the delay signal to be amplified.

Now, in order to ‘break’ the rules, you need to learn more about what each of your effects actually does to the signal put into it. This gets easier once you realize that there are just a handful of ways to shape a signal.

In general, you will find that the effect of your is doing one (and sometimes more than one) of the following things to your signal:

1. Adding to it

2. Subtracting (or ‘clipping) from it

3. Modulating it

A distortion pedal, for example, creates noise (‘distortion’) by clipping the signal. If you look at the waveform shape of a guitar signal, it is pretty close to a Sine wave. The smoother the wave, the smoother and clearer the signal.

Imagine if you clipped off the tops of the ‘curves’, creating something closer to square wave? It’s going to sound harsher and ‘buzzier’. In other words, it’s going to sound distorted!

Likewise, imagine if you could modulate a signal so that the peaks and valleys (amplitude) were more extreme, their spacing (phase) less regular or the peak frequency response (tone) filtered in or out?

In the first case, you would affect volume. In the second case, you would affect the timing or regularity of of the signal. In the third case, you would affect the clarity (as interpreted by the human ear) of the signal. All of these are modulations.

Now, think about this: Would it sound better to modulate a distorted signal, or to distort a modulated signal?

In general practice, the answer is that it depends on whether the modulation has a less than negligible impact on volume. Remember that distortion is created by clipping the peak amplitude of a signal, which also effects volume.

So, you have to look at which effects cause the most significant attenuation in volume, and then chain them in order of most to least. You take the ‘hit’, so to speak, up front rather than allowing the entire processed signal to take a drastic cut at the end of the chain.

Keep in mind, too, that you must also balance the location of volume cuts (as well as boosts) against the amount of noise introduced into the signal.

Again, this isn’t all cut-and-dry. Placement of effects is very much dependent not just on their type, but how many are involved. Figuring out what works so you can shape your sound is one of the most exciting stages of learning to play electric guitar.

My hope is that this tutorial has given you enough basic information to start experimenting with effects placement for yourself, so you can find the exact sound you’re looking for!

For that reason alone, I believe that electric guitar-centered music instruction should be revised to include lessons on how to shape your sound. Sadly, most of the current music curriculum for guitarists ignores these issues.

If you want to move beyond the basics and truly master your instrument, there are two things you absolutely must do:

1. Memorize the fretboard.

2. Develop a solid understanding of the relationship between scales, modes
and chords.

The reason for memorizing the fretboard should be obvious. Knowing where all the notes are will make you a faster, more intuitive player. The reasons (there are many) behind learning the relationship between scales, modes and chords require a little more explanation.

The first thing to understand is that chords are constructed from scales.

Let’s say you want to know which notes make up the G-major chord You’d first need to know is that Major chords are built from the root, third and fifth tones of their corresponding Major scale. Then, you’d need to know the G Major scale, which is: G-A-B-C-D-E-F#-G.

If you count up from G to the 3rd note you arrive at B. If you count up from G to the 5th note you have D. Play these notes simultaneously as GBD, and you have a G Major chord!

The second to understand is that scales (and,therefore, chords) can begin on any note within the key

Here’s where modes and chord inversions (‘voicings’) come in. Let’s say that you decide to play that G Major chord at the 7th fret on the first three strings of the guitar. If you strum the chord from the inside out, you will play DGB. In other words, your ‘root’ is no longer the bottom/first note of the chord. This is what’s known as an inversion.

Now, let’s say you are playing a song in G Major, and you decide to play the scale starting from a root other than G. For instance, you might begin playing the scale at D. Is this a ‘new’ scale or just the same scale from a different position? It’s actually both!

A G Major scale played from any point while in the key of G is considered “Ionian Mode”. It will always sound ‘Major’.

However, if you play the G Major scale pattern from D while you’re in a different key, you’ll be in one of the following, alternative modes: Aeolian, Dorian, Phrygian, Mixolydian, or Locrian.

These modes will sound something other than ‘Major’. The Aeolian mode, for example, is actually considered the Minor scale (Ionian = Major scale for all keys, and Aeolian = Minor scale for all keys).

The other modes fall in between, creating interesting harmonizations and are often used in Jazz music for soloing over the more complex, dissonant-feeling chords such as the Major and Minor 7ths and 9ths.

When you learn these relationships, you’ll start to notice something akin to an ‘interlocking’ pattern on your fretboard. For example, when you know all of the inversions for a given chord, then you’ll also know that beginning a scale on the root of that inversion can lead you into whichever modal scale you want to play over the current key.

The more relationships you see and understand, the more your fretboard opens up to you for creative soloing and songwriting. The end result is learning and mastering your guitar faster than you ever imagined!

Lesson #1: Fretboard Facts

Did you know that your fretboard is ‘doubled’ at the 12^th fret position? What I mean by ‘doubled’ is that all of the open-string notes repeat in the same order (as octaves) at the 12^th fret.

If you just strum your guitar without fretting (holding down) any notes, you have the following pattern in ‘standard’ tuning: E-A-D-G-B-E. Then, if you were to place your index finger across all six strings at the 12^th fret, you get: E-A-D-G-B-E again!

Why is this useful?

It is useful because it means that all of the chord shapes and scale patterns you learn below the 12^th fret are repeated and in the same relative positions. So, once you’ve learned how things work from the open position and 1^st fret onwards, you’ve automatically got everything at the 12^th fret and beyond mastered, too!

Lesson #2: Two-Note ‘Drones’

Here’s an experiment for you to try: Play an open ‘D’ note simultaneously with a fretted ‘A’ note on your third string. Now, keep hitting that open ‘D’ as you move up the D-major scale on the third string. In other words, keep hitting that ‘D’ as you slide your finger up the fretboard from A to B to D to E and so on.

Sounds pretty cool, right? You can do this for the E and A string below as well.

If you want a song to follow along with and practice this technique, check out the early U2 song called “Electric Co.” The Edge is a big fan of these two-note ‘drones’ and used the technique in that song.

If memory serves, ‘Electric Co.’ is in the key of D-major, and the riff progresses like so:

D/A – D/C – D/B – D/E – D/F# – D/D (that second D is played at the 7^th fret position) -

D/A -D/C – D/B - D/G (open G on 3^rd string) – D/E – D/F#

Hint: You may need to tune down a half-step to get in key with the album version of the song.

Lesson #3: Easy ‘Thirds’ in G-Major

The Beatles’ song, ‘Blackbird’, popularized this sound. The progression of intervals of ‘thirds’ creates a very cool sounding harmony that feels both ‘major’ and ‘minor’ at the same time.

In case you aren’t familiar with the concept of intervals, the basic definition of an interval is that it is the difference in pitch between two notes. What you do is count up from the root note of the major scale to find the interval number.

In the key of G-major, for example, the distance from from G to C is an interval of a fourth because C is the fourth note in the scale.

In this example, however, what we’re actually doing is taking the thirds relative to the chords being played. Let’s go from G-major to A-minor to B-minor. The intervals of thirds for each of these chords is: G/B, A/C and B/D, respectively.

Now, trying plucking these intervals with your thumb and index finger. Start with G on the sixth string and B on the second string, open position. Move to A on the fifth string, open position, with C played on the second string, first fret. Finally, play B on the fifth string, second fret, with D on the second string, third fret.

In ‘pseudo-tab’, the notation would look like this: (6/3 – 2/0) – (5/0 – 2/1) – (5/2 – 2/3). The first number in the ‘fraction’ represents which string to play on, while the second number represents which fret on that string to hold down.

The parenthesis indicate that you should play both strings simultaneously, rather than one after the other.

So, (6/3 – 2/0) means play the note on the 3^rd fret of the sixth string at the same time as you play the second string (0= open position).

That’s it for this round of beginner’s guitar lessons. I hope you enjoyed them and try experimenting with them to come up with new sounds of your own!