Play the Guitar: Lesson 20

   In the previous part we've talked about our first songs and revisited them, a little. Now we will talk about an usual guitar practice session.

   A normal guitar practice session

   What do we do, exactly, when we practice?

   When I first started out, a normal practice session for me went something like this:

   - washed hands thoroughly. Very important
   - stretched my body, my hands, arms and fingers. Not too much but... enough
   - adjusted my environment: lighting, chair, positioning in the room, positioning of the guitar, clothing and so on. I didn't do that at first, of course, but later I became very particular about these things
   - tuned the guitar
   - practiced all the chords I knew, a few times each, by hitting each string and making sure it sounded good, and there were no fingers out of place (or not too much out of place). Then practiced the chords by hitting all the strings at once
   - practiced all the strumming patterns I knew, one chord at a time or using one of the sequences:  G-Em-C-D or C-Am-F-G. Only one of them or both, if I felt like it
   - tuned the guitar again, every now and then
   - played a song or two
   - cleaned out my guitar with a suitable piece of cloth and put it back in it's place
   - checked the strings and evaluated if they needed replacing, every one, two or three months

   Later, as I begun to venture into playing in position and barre chords, things changed a little, but they stayed the same, more or less. There is a little more classical guitar playing involved, now and then.

   Next time we will talk about barre chords - B and B minor, specifically - and a little about musical notes, in general.

Add picture here...

To be continued...