Hello, my name is John Maier and I’ve been teaching guitar in Pleasantville, New York for almost 50 years. Several years ago I decided to do a free site to share what I do online. I’ve divided my website into 9 sections each discussing the most important tools a guitarist needs to learn. A lot of this is what a beginner would be introduced to in the first 15 or so weeks of lessons but the material gets harder as you proceed to the bottom of the list. All you need to start is a guitar that’s in tune then click on each link. Just about everyone who starts guitar lessons has the same goal – to play recognizable songs. A big stumbling block on the way to this goal is music reading as it can take many months to achieve the fundamental ability of read on all six strings. So what I’ve done differently here is verbally written out everything you need to play. You’ll be making music on all 6 strings of your guitar almost immediately (Click here for my quick bio).
First, before starting to play you need to know the Parts of Your Guitar, How to Hold It, Tune It and How to Hold Your Pick.
Second, any aspiring guitarist needs to be able to move their hands and fingers in predictable ways. This is called Technique and the way to develop it is by doing Repetitive Finger Exercises.
Third & fourth, guitarist’s need to know how to communicate with each other using TAB (Guitar Tablature) or communicate with other musicians using Conventional Note reading.
Fifth & Sixth, sounds are made on the guitar in 2 main ways. A guitarist is either playing Single Note Scales or Strumming Chords (groups of notes played together at the same time).
Seventh, you need to know how music is structured and how chords & notes fit together in order to create songs. This is Essential Music Theory.
Eighth, the end result is to apply all the above and make music by playing Recognizable Traditional Songs and Recognizable Rock Intros.
Ninth, I’ll show you how to go even further by tapping into your creativity and writing the music to Your Own Simple Song.