Electric guitar lessons with Andrew Webber - How to play guitar

The electric guitar lesson on how to use a plectrum

Learning how to use a plectrum is slightly different for an electric guitar player. An electric guitar is capable of more than just the sound of a guitar string vibrating.
Pick it differently, you get a different effect.

The guitar lesson video on this page also shows a bit about palm muting, which is an important part of learning how to play guitar, as well as how to get pinch harmonics and some general strumming technique.

If you're just starting on guitar, you may want to focus on the strumming for now and holding the plectrum properly, without worrying about pinch harmonics. You can always go back and work on that later. Here's that page - Guitar plectrum technique

Beginner guitar chords, for electric or acoustic guitar

The page - Beginner guitar chords has more than the usual beginner chords most people teach on guitar. The reason for this is that beginner chords alone aren't enough when it comes to playing songs on the guitar.

What I've done is put a star next to each chord that is easy, so learn those guitar chords first, and when you've got the hang of it then try play the others as well.

Whether you play electric or acoustic makes little difference here, although as an electric guitar player you have a definite advantage. The Open chords are the foundation for what comes next

Guitar Chords that are a little more advanced

Bar chords - Barre chords guitar lesson

Most guitarists struggle at first with Barre Chords. On this page I called them Bar Chords because a lot of people hear the name and assume that's how you spell it.

The word "Barre" means pole, so I guess the idea here is that your first finger is the pole that acts as a substitute for the nut when playing guitar chords further along the neck.

The reality is a little different, seeing as your finger won't be as straight as a pole.
There's no video yet on the barre chords page, but it's coming - How to play Bar Chords | Barre Chords

Rock guitar chords - The Power Chords guitar lesson

Power Chords are the foundation of that classic rock guitar sound, and you may be tempted, like I was, to ignore most other electric guitar lessons and focus on power chords. It's fine if you want to do that, but it's better to get all the other guitar chords under your belt first.

The natural and easy progression from learning barre chords to playing power chords is what we're aiming at here. Anyway, no-one is saying you can't dabble a bit.

Power chords sound best played with a distortion pedal or through an overdriven guitar amp, but if there's ever a horrible sound, it's an out of tune electric guitar playing power chords. Page - How to Play Power Chords - A Rock Guitar Lesson

Beginner Lead guitar lessons

My first Lead Guitar Lesson - The Major Scale

Want to learn to play lead guitar solos with confidence, Knowing that your fingers will always land on the right notes?

When I got the job as lead guitarist in my school band, I knew nothing, but this little first position guitar scale in the key of C major was my ticket to unlocking the rest of the fretboard.

Do what it says on this page and all the major scale patterns will be firmly embedded in your mind. Practice those patterns and moving between them, and eventually your fingers will know what they're doing before you do.

This is a key lead guitar lesson - First Lead Guitar Lesson - C major scale first position

Lead Guitar Lesson - The C Major Scale full fretboard

You should only use this page to check up on what you did with the lead guitar lesson - C major scale first position.

C Major Scale - Full Guitar Fretboard

Of course you can always just go straight here and memorize it in full, but the idea was to really get you to work it out yourself. Either way, keep practicing the scale patterns and working out your own little lead runs to join the patterns together, it should sink in.

The key to playing lead guitar successfully is confidence. You don't want to have to think too much during a solo. To play guitar solos with feeling and passion you need to first get as much technique as possible, and then forget it.

There are more lead guitar lessons to come from Play-Electric-Guitar.net, but if you really want to develop your own style of lead guitar, try making up things and practice playing along to other peoples music.

Just recently added the Pentatonic guitar scales page, so you might want to have a look at that as an easier start to playing lead guitar solos.

The Electric Guitar Blog

My own blog on electric guitar topics, simply titled Electric Guitar, which has, amongst other things, a few more electric guitar lessons. Here are some of the specific pages.
Beginner electric guitars - What to look for    Rock guitars for beginners    Learn to play electric guitar, a better choice    lead guitar lessons which notes to play
Lead guitar lessons - The advantage of backing tracks    Is it easy to learn to play eletric guitar online?    A beginner electric guitar lesson that doesn’t hurt so much    The Power Chord - A Rock Guitar Lesson and the latest Boss GT Pro review so you know how I get my guitar sound
Free electric guitar lessons online from Play-Electric-Guitar.net
Now you definitely can learn how to play electric guitar
Play-Electric-Guitar.net music resources

Privacy policy
The electric guitar
How to tune a guitar
How to use a plectrum
Beginner guitar chords
Barre chords - Bar chords
How to play Power chords
First lead guitar scale - C major
The major scale across the entire fretboard
How to play guitar - Electric guitar lessons
How to play guitar - Electric guitar lessons
Welcome to play-electric-guitar.net

These electric guitar lessons are for those wanting to learn how to play guitar, whether it's how to play electric guitar or acoustic guitar, I'm sure you'll find something to start with.

I play both acoustic and electric guitar, yet I learned to play guitar almost totally on an electric guitar.
They're easier to play and set up properly, as well as the most versatile.

The guitar lessons here are a good representation of what I had to get started with on electric guitar. I have plenty more planned for this website, but there's still quite a lot here to keep your fingers busy.

These are some essential guitar lessons every beginner needs when learning how to play guitar. Later on I'll add more, like strumming patterns and understanding music bars, but for now... Just make your own rhythms like I did when I started.

Basic beginner guitar lessons


The first thing to learn is how to tune the guitar.
I feel a little silly writing that, because it's so obvious, but there's more to tuning a guitar than just turning the tuning machines till they're at the correct pitch.

Two pages here deal with tuning the guitar. The first page: How to tune a guitar deals mainly with tuning the guitar to itself, seeing as using a digital guitar tuner is kind of self explanatory.

There are a few things needed to make sure the guitar stays in tune for as long as possible, so I've tried to give a short guitar lesson on that as well.
There is a page on my blog - Beginner electric guitars, what to look for that'll give you a good idea of what to do to an electric guitar so it plays like a million bucks.

Take your guitar to a luthier, or guitar technician for a thorough setup and you'll be surprised how good it can get.
Recommended guitar lessons on DVD
In all my 30+ years of playing guitar, I have never seen anything this complete or thorough in guitar instruction.
If you're really serious about learning guitar, no matter what style, this is it.

Just so you know: I earn money from the adverts on my website. Despite that, please know that when I recommend guitar lessons like Learn and Master guitar
I own a copy, and truly consider it to be one of, if not the best guitar course around.
Pentatonic guitar scales
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