My First Attempt at Guitar: The Basics- Tuning, Strumming, Playing Notes

Music has always been a huge part of my life. Whether it's listening to music or actually making music, I enjoy it all. Since the age of 8, I've enjoyed playing instruments like the piano and drums. However, it was not until I reached age 13 when I decided I wanted to give guitar a try, partly because of the influence that guitar players like Niall Horan of One Direction or Ed Sheeran had on me. This led to me pitching all the money I had at the time to buy a fairly nice guitar. Two years later, I still have not come close to mastering the guitar. That is why I decided for this project to focus on trying my best at playing guitar, using the book How to Play Guitar: Everything You Need to Know To Play The Guitar by Roger Evans.

My Fender acoustic guitar

First of all, I had to start off by tuning my guitar. I had a bit of an advantage because I own a digital tuner, so it will tell me right away whether I've tuned the strings to the right notes or not. However, tuning proved to be harder than i thought. I would focus on one of the strings and turn the tuning peg back and forth, trying to get the right note but I would have no luck. Luckily, the book had some helpful hints of how to tune correctly. "If the string you are tuning seems to be more and more out of tune, you are going the wrong way. Turn the tuning peg the other way and see if the string gets closer to being in tune. If in doubt, always slacken rather than tighten strings to avoid straining them or the guitar" (Evans, 30). After applying these tips, I found that I could tune the guitar strings with ease if I just took the time to figure out if I was very close to the note or far off. I was then able to tune all six of the guitar strings quickly and easily.

My guitar has six tuning pegs that you twist in order to tune the strings to the correct notes.

The digital tuner I use lets me know if I have tuned a string to the right note by turning green.

Next, I attempted to properly strum the guitar before playing any notes. I had previously thought that to strum a guitar, all you needed to do was to basically just stroke the strings with your fingers. I couldn't have been more wrong, as strumming a guitar requires the right technique. To start off, your thumb needs to be relaxed on the 6th (the very top) string. "The fingers should be slightly curved and hang at right-angles to the strings, just behind the soundhole" (Evans, 20). It may sound unnecessary to make sure your fingers are at the proper angles and position, but I found that it made it one thousand times easier to strum the guitar if I followed what the book explained. Once I had my hand positioned correctly, I practiced strumming each string a few times so that I was comfortable with the guitar.

When strumming, your fingers should be just behind the soundhole (the location of the soundhole is pretty self-explanatory).

My thumb is straight while the rest of my fingers stayed away from the strings.

 To end my first proper attempt at guitar, I decided to try and play a couple notes. It is easier to start of playing basic notes because they only require you to put one finger on a fret at a time, unlike playing chords, where you need multiple fingers on frets at a time. I chose to play a song that I knew so that I could tell if I was playing it correctly. That song ended up being Ode to Joy by Beethoven. In my opinion, I think I did pretty well playing this song, considering this was basically the first time I had actually played a full guitar song.

The basic notes I learned on the first (thinnest) string and second (second thinnest) string.

Overall, I think I did great at my first official try at playing guitar. I'm looking forward to moving on to more complicated things like playing chords and playing more songs. Although this is only the beginning, I'm proud of how much I have learned and mastered so far. Don't expect me to be strumming out Thinking Out Loud for a couple more years though...

Question:
If you were to try out guitar like I am, what do you think would be the most difficult thing to attempt based on the three things I tried (tuning, strumming, or playing notes) and why?
Let me know in the comments below!