Rock Guitar Lessons: Teach Yourself to Play

Get a beginner's guide to rock guitar. Learn how to start immediately playing riffs and licks, reading music, playing chords, and learning guitar at your own pace.

Rock Guitar: Teach Yourself to Play provides a completely new approach to learning guitar, for students who want to play in the rock style. By starting on the 6th string, you are immediately able to play riffs and licks—the kind of progress that inspires you to continue learning. The videos feature clear well-paced instruction along with close-up examples of fingering and strumming. Find out how to hold your guitar, read music and tablature, play simple and advanced chords, and play different strings and notes together. Instructor and guitar virtuoso Jared Meeker also demos some popular rock and blues licks and tricks, and introduces the E minor and A minor pentatonic scales—5-note scales that are critical to playing rock guitar. Learning guitar has never been easier or more fun. This course is a great choice for today's beginning guitar students.

Introduction

• Welcome

1. Getting Started

• The parts of your guitar
• The acoustic guitar
• The electric guitar
• Which guitar is best for me?
• How to hold your guitar
• The amp
• The right hand
• The left hand
• How to tune your guitar

2. Basics of Reading Guitar Music

• Getting acquainted with music
• Getting acquainted with tablature
• Left-hand finger numbers

3. The Sixth String and Counting Time

• The sixth string E
• Sound-off: How to count time

4. The Fifth String

• The fifth string A
• Repeat signs

5. The Fourth String

• The fourth string D
• Playing two notes together

6. The Third String and Power Chords

• The third string G
• The quarter rest
• Power chords

7. The Second String and the First String

• The second string B
• The first string E
• Review

8. Scales and Chords

• The major scale
• Six-string E minor (Em) chord
• Quarter-note slash
• Five-string A7 chord
• Introducing high A
• Ties
• Eighth notes

9. Advanced Chords

• Four-string D7 chord
• Six-string E chord
• Introducing the eighth-note slash
• Five-string A chord

10. Strumming Patterns and More Scales

• 11 classic rock strumming patterns
• Sharps, flats, and naturals
• Signs of silence

11. Playing Two Notes Together and Moving Up the Neck

• Playing two notes together: Blues patterns
• Move up the neck on the 6th string
• Moving up the neck on the 5th string
• Moving up the neck on the 4th string
• Moving up the neck on the 3rd string

12. Advanced Chords and Licks

• More on power chords
• Six-string G chord
• Chords in standard notation
• Rock and blues licks and tricks
• The bend

13. Pentatonic Scales

• The E minor pentatonic scale
• The A minor pentatonic scale
• Incomplete measures or pickup

Conclusion

• Conclusion and credits