Music & Performing Arts

Beginner Guitar for Adults

Meets Mondays · 6:30 PM - 7:45 PM · on Zoom 15 enrolled Free to audit

This class is for adults who have never held a guitar, or who tried years ago and want to start over. No music reading. We'll tune, play basic open chords, change between them cleanly, and put a few strumming patterns underneath. We spend real time on caring for your instrument in our dry air, because that's the stuff that keeps a guitar playable up here.

Bring a guitar you're not scared to beat up. Every class is hands-on. I talk for a couple minutes, then it's your fingers on the strings.

You'll leave able to tune, play a handful of songs with the chords you know, and keep going on your own with a simple ten-minutes-a-day system.

What you'll learn

Tune your guitar by ear and with a tuner
Form Em, Am, G, C, and D chords cleanly
Switch between chords smoothly using an anchor finger
Strum steady down and up patterns in time
Restring your guitar and protect it from dry air

Materials & tools

What to bring

Acoustic guitar, full-size (steel-string dreadnought or nylon-string classical) — a used beater is perfect; $80-150 new for a starter, or borrow one
Clip-on chromatic tuner, or a free tuner app on your phone — $10-15 for a clip-on
Guitar picks, medium (0.60-0.73mm), a handful — they disappear; $3-6 for a dozen
Spare set of strings in your guitar's gauge (light/.012 for acoustic) — $6-12
Notebook and pencil for chord diagrams and your practice log — $3-5

Nice to have

Guitar strap, so you can practice standing and it steadies the neck sitting down — $8-20
Capo, spring-clamp style — lets you play along with more songs; $8-15
Soundhole humidifier (Utah's dry air dries out and cracks acoustic guitars) — $10-20
Small hygrometer to watch your case humidity, aim for 40-50% — $10-15
Padded gig bag or hard case to protect and store the instrument — $20-60
Footstool or a small box to raise your fretting-side leg (mainly for classical) — $15-25

Lessons

Getting to know your guitar
Meet the instrument, learn its parts, and get it in tune (and keep it there in our dry air).
Your hands: holding, fretting, and picking
Settle your posture and both hands so every string rings clean, calluses and all.
Your first chords and changing between them
Learn Em, Am, G, C, and D, clean them up, and move between them in time.
- Em and Am: the easy way in20 min
- G and C: the two you'll use forever22 min
- D and reading a chord diagram20 min
- Checking your chords: what's buzzing and why18 min
- Slow changes and the one-finger anchor trick20 min
- Em to G to C to D, over and over22 min
- Counting beats so changes land on time18 min
- When it sounds like a dying appliance (it's normal)15 min
Strumming, songs, and keeping it going
Add strum patterns to play a full song, then care for the guitar and build a daily habit.

Key terms

Fret: One of the metal strips running across the neck; pressing a string down just behind a fret shortens it to sound a specific note.
Fretboard (fingerboard): The flat front surface of the neck where you press the strings to form notes and chords.
Open chord: A basic chord played near the top of the neck that lets one or more strings ring open (unfretted), such as G, C, D, E minor, or A minor.
Standard tuning: The default pitches of the six strings from thickest to thinnest — E, A, D, G, B, E — that most beginner songs assume.
Chord change (transition): Moving your fingers from one chord shape to another cleanly and in time, which is the main skill a beginner is building.
Strumming pattern: A repeating sequence of downstrokes and upstrokes that sets the rhythm underneath the chords you're holding.
Capo: A clamp placed across all the strings at a chosen fret that raises the guitar's pitch so you can play familiar chord shapes in a different key.
String gauge: The thickness of the strings; lighter gauges are easier on beginner fingertips, while heavier ones are louder and stiffer.
Action: The height of the strings above the fretboard; lower action is easier to press down, while very high action makes a guitar tiring to play.
Barre chord: A chord in which one finger presses down several strings at once across a fret, letting you move a single shape up and down the neck.