Module 0: Before You Begin - Guitar Basics

All beginners need these skills! Learn how to tune your guitar, read chord boxes, hold a pick, finger strum, the correct finger placement, and more! All lessons here.

:rotating_light: Don’t post specific questions here, but in the topics below. They correspond with each lesson in this module!

As a sixty three year old who has never played a musical instrument in his life, Justin may be facing his greatest challenge yet!

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bro Justin i actually love you you pretty much saved my life

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Hope your guitar journey is going great! Enjoy. :slight_smile:

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Haha! :rofl:

where can i find the practice assistant?

Thank you so much for these lessons. You’re an amazing teacher.

As a leftie beginner, do I start here or with the Nistnuj stuff, please? I don’t want to miss anything.

Definitely start with the course. The Nitsuj videos do compliment the course though, so also check those out at the end of each module :ok_hand:

The Nitsuj videos are of Justin working through his own course left-handed. It’s kind of like going back to the beginner level for him.

Have fun :blush:

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Thank you!

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Can I do this course with my classical guitar?

Absolutely. Check out Stephen Wilson Jr. He played contemporary music on a classical guitar with a pick-up installed :slightly_smiling_face:

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ps, You don’t need a pickup though…

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Thank you! The website mentions classical guitar written (under “ABOVE THIS COURSE” section) but on every video when he talks about the course and guitar he says only acoustic and electric guitar.

About the guitar position, can I do the classical position? It’s way better to reach the higher frets and do barre chords. It also let the shoulder (right shoulder, I’m right-handed) to relax in a more natural way (specially if the guitar’s body is too big).

If you have a Classical guitar (rather than a steel string acoustic or electric guitar), and enjoy playing contemporary styles on it, there is no reason to not go through Justin’s course with it in my opinion. Your guitar will have a chunkier neck, softer feeling strings and a different tone, but that’s fine.

One thing the course won’t teach you is Classical guitar songs/techniques/sight reading etc. Classical guitar is very different.

Jump in dude. Have some fun :blush:

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If it’s way more comfortable and easier for you to play like this, I don’t see why not. In the course Justin does teach you how to sit and hold the guitar in a contemporary style, so explore that lesson for sure. But if you feel way more comfortable sitting in a Classical position, go for it. There are plenty of contemporary players who sit like this, including electric guitar players. :blush:

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Thanks :+1:

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You’re wearing a Steve McQueen t-shirt! I’m glad to be here already.

I’ve had guitars for 25+ years now and played a bit in high school. I never learned any real skills though since I was fully self taught (before the days of youtube). So I picked up a BUNCH of bad habits.

The problem I have now is when I go through lessons and I’m like “oh yeah I know the G chord, SKIP lesson”, however my hands are like “ummm you know the shape but it sounds like crap”.

It finally clicked today that I am a beginner that has way too much knowledge at this stage. I’m going to try going through the lessons again and actually practice the amount of time he says for each one and then progress.

I can finally for the most part keep time when listening to a song, playing with a metronome is a different story.

So if you are a beginner, take it from me and learn how to keep time first with the metronome and how to get the note sounding correct before moving on.