Hello everyone! This week of my learning journey, I focused on chords and working on reading guitar tabs! The chords I’ve been working on are G, C, D, and E minor, which was the first (and easiest) one I learned. My brother mentioned to me most songs played on guitar frequently use the three chords G, C, and D. I tried practicing the chords with the song “Here Comes The Sun” by The Beatles, but I need to practice the chords alone a bit more first. So far, playing has been going well! I’ve noticed I need to keep my fingernails shorter than I normally have, or else it’s difficult to hold down multiple strings at once.

Chords have been the most challenging to learn so far. My fingertips are not used to holding down the strings, so by the end of each time practicing, my fingers are numb. It has been better as my learning journey has progressed, but that was one thing I was unaware of happening. I was having some trouble keeping my fingers in place while holding the strings down; cutting my nails definitely helped, but my fingers just kind of hover above the string. I have been manually picking up each finger and setting it in position on the string (LOL!). Once I get the pattern and feel down and venture to other chords, my fingers will get the hang of it.

                         

The hardest part at this point is reading the guitar tabs. I was never able to read music in the past, so it’s a little bit of a challenge. I’ve been using an app called Tabs & Chords to learn and practice, and I’ve been liking it. The thicker black line is the nut, and the furthest left string is the top string of the guitar – I asked my brother for help figuring that out. You can pick and choose from many songs, as they have different categories, including based on chords and whatever songs use those same chords. It also tells you the difficulty level of the song, which I found very helpful. Once I start trying to play actual songs, I will probably continue to use this app, along with YouTube.