Learning to play your guitar can be a whole lot of fun this Christmas, so why don't you give yourself a break and have some fun with a guitar playing skill.

1. Discover Your Guitar Skills and Be The Pro This Christmas

2. Its Time You Realize That You Can Be The Pro At Playing The Guitar The guitar is a classic instrument that covers a wide genre of music from rock, blues, jazz to classical. It is also relatively easy to learn to play. But as with any other skill, it requires a lot of patience and practice as well as the desire to teach yourself to play guitar.

3. Left Handed or Right Handed When starting to teach yourself to play guitar you’re going to have to figure out whether you’re left or right handed. To do this you will need to find out which hand you use to play the guitar. Most people assume that just because you are left or right handed, you will also play the guitar the same way. While playing guitar you will have to use two hands; one for strumming and one for depressing the strings onto the fret board. Consequently it is important to know which hand is to be used for each purpose. The reason for this is a guitar’s strings are usually aligned with the thickest string (E string) on top when the guitar is held, with the remainder of the strings gradually thinning down as it reaches the bottom. With this setup, the left hand is used to tap the frets forming chords, and the right hand is used to strum the strings. If you feel that your left hand is much suited to handle the strumming and that the right hand for pushing down the string onto the fret board, then the strings need to be attached the opposite way; starting with the thinnest string on top, and the thickest one at the bottom. A very famous guitarist who plays the guitar this way is Jimi Hendrix. Kurt Cobain was also known for this.

4. Playing Positions One of the fundamentals when starting to teach yourself to play guitar is the playing position. This can be done either seated or standing. In general you will probably practice sitting down.

5. Sitting Positions: There are basically two sitting positions when holding a guitar; casual and classical. The casual is generally the easiest to teach yourself to play guitar. To get into the correct position follow the next steps: Lift up the guitar and ensure the guitar body is supported by your leg – you will find that the shape of the guitar body naturally positions the guitar into place. Make sure you position yourself on the edge of the chair. Ensure that you have a good posture with your back being straight but relaxed. Slightly tilt the guitar back towards you.

7. Standing Position: The standing position is generally used when playing to an audience but there is no reason you can’t practice standing up. It is a good idea to try both standing and sitting to find out what suits you best when starting to teach yourself to play guitar. Remember that when you stand you will need a strap for your guitar. To get into the correct position follow the next steps: Lift up the guitar and put the strap over your shoulder. Make sure you adjust the strap so that your guitar is positioned mid-body and that you feel comfortable. Use your left hand to support the neck of the guitar if you are right handed. The opposite applies if left handed. Let your right hand rest over the bridge of the guitar if you are right handed ready to strum the strings.

9. Hand Positions The next stage to teach yourself how to play guitar is ensuring that you have the correct hand position so you are able to form chords properly. You need to make sure that you relax your hands and wrists. If you don’t do this it’s possible to strain them and injure yourself. I’ve included some examples below of exactly how to hold your hand and how to not hold your hands.

10. This is how you should position your hand: Make sure that you never position your hand in the following way: Make sure you don’t place your thumb as low as this on the neck of the guitar. Doing this will put needless strain on your wrist and thumb.

11. Fretting Right, now we are getting to the technicalities of playing the guitar. The next stage to teach yourself how to play guitar is to get a broad feel for the instrument. The definition of fretting is using your fingers to push down the strings on to the fret board. Sound is created through vibrations from a guitar’s string, and each note you play is completely dependent on the way you use your finger on the guitar. You should try to only use the tips of your fingers when pressing on the strings because using too much of your fingers can create a muted or muffled sound when the notes come out. The same principle applies to strumming. The broad idea of music is to play the correct notes at the correct time. This can only happen when you can hit the strings at the correct place and at the correct time. When you are first start learning and you don’t yet have the technical skill to play advanced pieces, you should make this your main focus when trying to teach yourself how to play guitar. Don’t worry too much about your hands and fingers. Competence in those areas can only be achieved over time by lots of practice.

12. When you play the guitar, your left hand fingers (if you are right handed) will be used to push down the strings on the fret board and your right hand will be used to strum or pluck the stings at the bridge end of the guitar. Try the following things when teaching yourself how to play guitar to make things a bit simpler: Ensure that your fingernails are cut short Ensure that only the tips of your fingers are used to press down on the strings. Ensure that each string sounds clearly and that the sound is not buzzing or muted. When forming a chord, make sure that each fingertip is placed exactly behind the fret. Don’t worry about what chords are at this moment in time as this will be covered further on.

13. You will notice that when you initially begin your fingers will hurt. You don’t need to worry about this or let it upset you as this is usual. When first starting to teach yourself how to play guitar this will carry on for the first few weeks and then as you practice more, you will develop calluses of hard skin on your fingertips , often called “guitar fingers” .

14. Holding the Pick You can either strum the strings with your thumb or you can use a pick (sometimes called a plectrum). There are different types of pick. Some are more flexible and there are different shapes. To find out what you’re most comfortable with buy a number of different types and test them out – they are cheap.

15. Follow the diagram below holding the pick between thumb and index finger:

16. Right, you should now hopefully be in a position where you are comfortable with your guitar and understand the basics of how to play. The next stage to teach yourself how to play guitar will be to move onto learning guitar chords.

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