It used to be difficult trying to find beginner electric guitar lessons because of how hard it was to find a good instructor, or affordable lessons. Thanks to the internet it has become a lot easier to find quality lessons at a reasonable price.

In this guitar lesson online I will cover a few of the things you need to know if you wish to start playing the electric guitar. Deciding on the amplifier you’re going to use is one of the first things you need to do. The amplifier and electric guitar works together to produce the final sound you get from the instrument. One amplifier you can use with your electric guitar is a tube amplifier. These amplifiers need a lot of maintenance and constantly need to be adjusted.

However, they are popular because they generate a very rich sound that a lot of electric guitarists love. Another kind of amplifier you can use is the solid state amp. These amps don’t need a whole lot of maintenance and are cheaper than the tube amps. However, they don’t produce  the same rich sound that’s so popular with the tube amplifiers.

The biggest difference between an acoustic guitar and an electric model is the construction of the body. A solid body is the most typical body type for the modern electric guitars.

Solid body guitars were created by Les Paul back in the 1950s. These models have a punchy tone that won’t feed back under typical situations. Some of these guitars are made with numerous layers of various types of solid wood.

You also have some guitars constructed with one piece of wood. These electric models are less desirable because the the solid body doesn’t allow a lot of amplifier feedback. The most expensive electric guitars are the semi-hollow ones because they create a sound that still has some acoustic depth.

Your guitar will have either  a single coil or humbucker pickup. A pickup was created to deliver the sound of the guitar’s strings to an amplifier.  The single coil pickup is great for playing rock, blues, and country. If you have a traditional fender style guitar you most likely have single coil pickups.

The humbucker has a much broader sound and will help cancel out any noise that the single coil pickup cannot. This is what makes these pickups great for playing rock, jazz, or even heavy blues.

If you’re serious about learning how to play the electric guitar you need learn and practice scales. Scales are identified as a group of notes that can be used to make melodies, chords, and songs. This group of notes normally has 7 notes and the first note in the group is known as the root note. The first note called the “Root” note is known as the C major scale. The C Major scale has a much different sound than it’s Minor scale counterpart.

In order to create this scale you must go 2frets, 2frets, 1fret, 2frets, 2frets, 2frets, 1fret. For most people it’s a lot easier to memorize the fretboard than it is to memorize just a scale. When you start learning notes you won’t limit yourself to just scales and you’ll have more freedom when soloing. Here is a quick example of the C Major:

e————————-5-7-8———————
B——————-5-6-8—————————
G———–2-4-5-7———————————
D—–2-3-5—————————————–
A-3-5———————————————–
E—————————————————

Once you learn the fretboard you can play any type of scale, song, or note. The electric guitar has 6 strings and 20 frets for every string. The standard tuning for these strings are E, B, G, D, A, E. Every guitar fretboard usually has metal discs or strips inside them at specific frets to help you finding the right fret. You can find these fret markers on the third, fifth, seventh, ninth, twelfth, fourteenth frets, and sometimes higher.

The scales you need to be aware of on the fretboard are the major, natural minor, harmonic minor, pentatonic minor, and pentatonic major. You should place your hand on the fretboard so your index finger rests on the fret corresponding to the root note of your scale. The finger pattern for the natural minor scale is 1,3, 4, 1, 3, 4, 1, 3.

The harmonic minor scale is pretty much the same thing except the seventh interval is a half step higher. You should utilize the fingering position 1, 4, 1, 4, 1, 4, 1, 3, 2, 4, 2 when you want to play a pentatonic major scale over two octaves. To play the pentatonic minor scale play 1, 4, 1, 4, 1, 3, 1, 3, 1, 4, 1.

The last basic I want to go over in playing the electric guitar is playing power chords. Simply begin with your index finger on the root note to play a power chord. Now put your third finger on the following highest string, two frets down.

Learning your scales and the fretboard are some of the most important things you need to learn if you want to play the electric guitar properly. There are many other electric guitar lessons online that will teach you a lot more, but these fundamentals will start you off in the right direction.