Rhythm Guitar Archives

Your Very First Guitar Chords

April 13, 2025February 22, 2016 by Devin

Lesson ID: A0059

Brand new to guitar and wanting to learn how to play country music? You’re in the right place! In this guitar lesson, you’ll learn the four most common guitar chords used in country music. If you know these four chords, you’ll be able to play a ton of the songs you hear on the radio. We’ll also go over some good chord progressions that you can use to practice your left hand chord changes.

Lesson Video

Video Start Time	Lesson Topic
00:00 min	Lesson Overview
00:56 min	Open Chords
01:58 min	String Numbers and String Notes
02:59 min	Left Hand Finger Numbers
03:34 min	Chords and Their Root Notes
04:20 min	Your First Guitar Chord – E Minor
05:36 min	Major and Minor Chords
06:09 min	How to Read Chord Charts
06:43 min	The Three Most Important Guitar Chords
12:18 min	Your Homework – Chord Transitions and Strumming

Chord Charts
x = Mute String
o = Let Ring Open

Chord Progressions

Red = Two Down Strokes

Green = Four Down Strokes

Blue = Eight Down Strokes

Chord Progression 1
G – C – D – G

Chord Progression 2
G – C – Em – C

Chord Progression 3
Em – G – C – G – Em – G – D

Chord Progression 4
G – D – C – G – Em – D – C

Chord Progression 5
G – C – G – Em – G – D

Chord Progression 6
G – C – G – C – G – D

Lowering Your Guitar’s Action

April 13, 2025February 15, 2016 by Devin

Lesson ID: A0058

When you’re first learning how to play guitar, it can really hurt to press down your guitar strings. The majority of guitars straight out of the box from the factory come with high action which means the strings are far away from the fretboard and tough to press down. To fix this, you can have your guitar set up by a guitar tech — they can lower your guitar strings by lowering your saddle, adjusting guitar neck relief, etc. This can make a cheap starter guitar feel like an expensive high quality guitar.

Beginner Bluegrass Rhythm Guitar

April 13, 2025November 14, 2015 by Devin

Lesson ID: A0038

Bluegrass rhythm guitar is one of the most important parts of a bluegrass band. Since there typically aren’t drums in a bluegrass band, the rhythm guitar player sets the pace instead. In this lesson we’ll go over several important bluegrass rhythm guitar techniques that you need to know. This lesson is geared towards beginners but there’s some good stuff for all skill levels.

Video Start Time	Lesson Topic
00:00 min	Lesson Overview
00:57 min	Drums of the Bluegrass Band
01:41 min	Basic Boom Chick Pattern
02:30 min	Chord Progression Example
05:44 min	Turnaround Riff
08:12 min	Rhythm Hammer-Ons
09:42 min	Filler Riff Between the G and C Chords
10:30 min	G Lick Ending

Lynyrd Skynyrd Style Blues Progression

April 13, 2025November 14, 2015 by Devin

Lesson ID: A0024

In this lesson we’re going to go over an awesome Lynyrd Skynyrd style blues progression that involves hybrid picking. If you’re new to hybrid picking, you might also want to check out my hybrid picking lesson series. In this particular lesson, we’ll focus on using the pick, middle finger, and ring finger.

Once you master this style, it’s really fun to use at a jam sessions. For example, when you’re playing the twelve bar blues at a jam, trading lead back and forth, you can use this hybrid picking style when it’s your turn to play the rhythm part. It always sounds great when you can start out strumming during one section of a song, then switch to a hybrid picking style during another section. This adds some variation that makes your music sound much more interesting to your listeners.