Guitar Anatomy

Holding the Guitar

Sit straight on a comfortable chair without an armrest preferably. Assuming that you are a right handed guitar player - Keep the guitar on your right thigh, with the body of the guitar touching your chest. Let your right hand be placed over the body of the guitar pressing it against your chest just enough to have it firmly placed in between. Place your left hand on the fretboard with the palm under the fretboard and the thumb touching the back of your fretboard.

Holding the pick

With your palm facing upwards place the pick on the index finger of your right hand with the pointed edge facing the outside. Then, place the thumb on top of the pick. Make sure not to hold it right at the edge on either sides, as this will cause it to slip and fall while playing. Hold it firm enough, not too tight not too loose.

Fig 1 - Fig 2 -

Right hand picking position

While picking, your wrist should rest on the bridge of your guitar. This acts as an anchor enabling you to pick the strings with precision, using the movement of your wrist. But keep in mind that you do not slide your wrist on to any of the strings as this will kill the note that you’re picking.

Left hand position

Make sure while fretting a note with your left hand to place the finger close to the fret to get the cleanest sound possible. Placing your finger on the fret will cause the note to buzz. Placing the finger in between the fret will not give you clarity of sound. Your thumb should act as the anchor here and should move up and down depending on the string you’re fretting. Remember, never to touch the palm of your hand to the back of the fretboard as this will increase the friction between your hand and the fretboard, causing a hindrance to the movement of your hand.

Fingering

The following is how fingering of your fretting hand is indicated…

Thumb – T

Index Finger – 1

Middle Finger – 2

Ring Finger– 3

Little Finger – 4

String names

There are six strings on a standard acoustic and electric guitar. Each string has a particular pitch or a name. Remember on the guitar you start counting strings from below. The thinnest one would be the first and so on. Following are the string names...

1^st – E

2^nd – B

3^rd – G

4^th – D

5^th – A

6^th - E

Fretboard

The fretboard or the fingerboard is where notes are fretted or pressed to sound a particular note or chord.Frets are the metal strips hammered into the neck of the guitar, which are placed at specific intervals so as to get specific notes when the strings are pressed against them.A standard guitar consists of 21 to 24 frets. The metal bar before the first fret is called the Nut.
Remember, you start counting the frets from the nut.So the 1st fret would be the closest to the nut and the 24th fret the furthest.Open string or (0) is when you do not fret a note or a note is sounded on any string without pressing any of the frets.

Tuning

There are several ways of tuning the guitar. However if you’re a beginner, the best possible solution is to use a chromatic tuner. For standard tuning make sure that your string corresponds to their respective pitches and you’re done!

There are different methods you can choose to tune if you do not have a tuner handy.

But, you will definitely need to have a good ear to do so.

Method 1 – Play the 5^th fret on your 6^th string and then the open 5^th string. If you feel the pitch of the open 5^th is lower then raise the pitch by tightening the tuning key and vice-versa. Eventually they should both sound the same. Repeat this for all groups that is the 5th & 4^th, 4^th & 3^rd, 2^nd & 1^st. For the 3^rd and 2^nd string, play the 4^th fret of the 3^rd string and tune the 2^nd string open to match the pitch.

Method 2 – Play the seventh fret on the 1^st string and tune the 12^th fret of the 2^nd string accordingly. Repeat this for all groups of strings except for the group 2^nd & 3^rd. For this, fret the 8^th fret of the 2^nd string and accordingly tune the pitch of the 12^th fret on the 3^rd string.

Reading Tablature

Tablature is the easiest way of reading and writing music for the Guitar! It might look complicated with the amount of lines and numbers written all over it but once you go through this explanation, you will be able to read it in no time.

A tab form generally consists of 6 lines. Each line indicates a particular string. The bottom line in the Tab indicates the sixth string and the top indicates the first. The numbers placed right in the middle of the lines indicate fret numbers, which means you need to fret that particular note on that particular string.As simple as that!!

Fingering is normally indicated by numbers in circles.

Numbers placed one above the other indicates that all notes need to be strummed together in one stroke - normally done while indicating chords.

These are the commonly used terms/symbols in the Tab form on our site.

^ - Downstroke – Strike with a pick using the down motion

V – Upstroke - Strike with a pick using the Up motion

h = hammer-on – Sound a note without picking, usually a note played higher than the previous note.  

p = pull-of – Sound a note without picking, usually played lower than the previous  one.

b = bend

r = reverse bend, or release bend

/ or s = slide

p.m. = palm mute

t = right hand tap

+ = right hand tap

x = muted string
 

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