Making Your First Sounds on the Instrument

Let's take a look at making our first sounds on the instrument.

Playing the Thick E String

• Let's play the thick E string, the big E string closest to our head.
• We're going to start with it just open, meaning we're not pushing down any frets.

First Finger Exercise

Now, using our first finger, let's try to play the fifth fret.

1. Count with me: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5.
2. Push down on top of that string into the wood behind the fret.

As we said, we're applying a good amount of pressure, but we're not pushing down too hard. You can hear how the pitch changes of that string‚ low to high. Take some time now to practice that and move around to different frets. The higher you go, the higher the sound will become.

Understanding Pressure

If you're wondering how hard we should be pushing down the string, let's go through that together.

• Personally, I play quite softly. That's just because I've had a lot of time with the instrument and have memorized how much pressure I need to apply.
• When you're starting off, gripping the guitar and pushing down quite hard is normal, but it's something to watch out for.

Identifying the Right Pressure

You can hear my note ringing out clearly, and you can see my finger. There's a tiny little line in there.

• If I play too hard, not only does the pitch change, but the line gets really deep and really long. That's not what we're looking for.
• Similarly, if we play too soft, the note doesn't ring out at all.

So we're looking for that balance.

Practicing Pressure Control

We can practice this by starting off really soft and gradually applying the pressure until your note rings out clearly.

• This would look something like this: It didn't take much effort for that note to ring out.
• Only four plucks while gradually pushing down.

You can hear if I push down too hard, the note's going to change, and that's not what we want.

Finding the Right Balance

So, we're making sure we're just starting off really soft. As soon as you hear that note ringing out clearly, that's when you stop. Get used to that feeling; that's the amount of pressure you need.

Labeling Our Fingers

We're also going to label our fingers now:

• First Finger - First finger (index)
• Second Finger - Middle finger
• Third Finger - Ring finger
• Fourth Finger - Pinky finger

We'll be using these fingers to play frets. The method we'll be using in this course is one finger per fret.

• Play the first fret with your first finger.
• The second fret with your second finger.
• The third fret with your third finger.
• The fourth fret with your fourth finger.

We're going to build up to that gradually. If you can't play that just yet, don't worry‚ it's just the method we're going to use. So if you hear me saying "third finger," it means the ring finger.