• One of the most exciting feelings as a beginner is playing a familiar riff or strum some chords of a familiar song. Its a nice feeling to recognize the sound and know that you are doing it right.

• A word of warning here though, a Stratocaster and a Gibson sound different and you may be playing a Stratocaster with a”bright sound” and the riff you are trying to copy was played on the recording with a more mellow bass sounding guitar. Don’t worry just enjoy your playing.

• You don’t need to know how to read music all though it is a great advantage if you can read music.

• You also get a choice of using picks (plectrum) or not. The whole journey of learning to play the guitar, like any other instrument, is exciting and you will form your own sound and style.

• One not is a note, two notes are harmony as they are plays together, and three notes are a chord.

• I have always been a huge fan of electric guitar note picking and not so much a strummer.
I have made a long music file of many riffs joined together and I play it when cycling or driving the car around.

• So my journey was picking a song and learning it, or a particular riff and then learning it.

• If you play around on the guitar enough you will hear parts of songs in your playing, or riffs (licks) and thats just part of the excitement. Its like finding some treasure and wondering where the rest of it is and looking for it.
Try to keep playing them until you hear more of the songs or riffs, experiment, go up the fret board, then go down, try different strings until you find what you are looking for.

• Have fun, and try to play daily. I sometimes don’t play for a month or so and find it easy to remember songs.

I was told by many people that I am Tone Deaf and that I could never play guitar, so it is a delight to write my own tunes. If I do struggle to remember a part of a tune I have a lot of fun playing it over and over again until I get all the notes right.

•  A surprise for me was the discovery that a tune can be played on many places on a fret board, and also a song.

I know two versions of George Bensons Breezin in two different parts of the fret board played in different ways. So don’t be surprised if you have learned a tune and then find it elsewhere on the fret board while you are just playing around and having fun.

• There are many “tricks” to get a certain sound and just playing the note wont do, because some “special effects” could be played by the original guitarist on a recording. You may need to “Slide” into the note, or slide  out of the note, or bend the string to get that particular sound and then the music starts to sound the way it is on the recording or how you imagined it in your mind. All of these terms you will learn in time.

• I suggest that you get some soft strings. The first electric guitar I had, had hard strings and my fingers used to hurt a lot of the fret board, but the current strings I use, Ernie Ball Regular Slinky Custom Gage Nickel Wound Strings 2221 are soft and easier to bend. I read that the Eagles, Jeff Beck, Paul McCartney,  Phillip Phillips, use Ernie Ball strings.

• I got my Stratocaster and did a lot of practising while sitting down, a woman visited me and she and her hubby are in a rock band. She asked me to play, she played as well and then she suggested that I stand up and play. To my surprise standing up is different to sitting down and playing and its like you have to learn how to get comfortable that way as well. So if you want to play in a band remember to practice playing while standing up.

• Yes, you can go busking with an electric guitar. There are amplifiers that you can put on your belt or on the ground and they are powered by batteries. My Yamaha THR5 Amplifier can do that.

• What I do when I know a part of a song, say an intro on guitar, I play the notes slowly until I get that down perfect. Then I speed it up more and more until it sounds good to me, like it seems up to speed. Now play the song and try to keep up with the song. Often trying to keep up with the song for the first few times can be a real challenge, but keep at it and you will get it.