This is a pattern my friend Nome taught me, it is a very good start for beginners, a simple guide to get anyone started with playing guitar. Only play on these strings for now and the rest you can practice once you get a hang of this. Only play with the notes shown. E|--2-3---5--- A|--2---4-5--- D|--2---4-5--- G|--2---4---6- Alright so this is really hard to get down but now there is more to learn, a lot more. Sure everything you play on this sounds good but that's just the basic format for anything really. There are a lot more complexities that I will describe now and later on in this text. Like this figure. E|2-3-5-7-8 So you should see how you may progress with knowing this but now it gets even weirder in this figure. E|2-3-5-7-8 Try going from 8 to 4 in this pattern. 2-3-5-7-8-4. Now you should see how you can continue with this. After 4 you can go to 2 or 5, and now you're back where you left off, now we must deal with other strings. Okay so 7 on E is the same note as 2 on A, to further continue I will now refer to notes as A3, D5, E2, etc... E3 is equivalent to A10 A3 is equivalent to D10 D3 is equivalent to G10 Don't follow this though, you should always stay in an area which consist of 4-5 frets when composing a riff. This is just a way of showing you where your notes are on any other string. Try hitting E3, D5, A3, G5. This is the same as the example above just you skip a string. You'll notice you're hitting the same two notes, just on different strings, this should help you progress using several strings. A good example would be E3, A6, D3, G4 or G4, D3, A6, E3. These are just examples, don't base any examples on your playing. Experimenting (trial and error) is the best way to learn, this is only a simple guide. This is too obvious but must be said to stop any confusion. The twelfth fret on any string is the same as when it is played open, just on a higher octave. Tuning Your Strings The best way to tune a guitar is with a tuner, preferably a good one, but when one is not around you must know to tune by ear. I myself do not know exactly how a E string should sound like open but if you feel you can learn that immediately do so A.S.A.P. Anyhow, first you must make sure your E string is tuned. After that hold down the E5 and play A open. E5 is A, A5 is D, D5 is G, G5 is b, b5 is e. Get the picture? keep holding the fifth fret above the string you are tuning and make sure it sounds exactly the same on both strings when you are holding #5 on the string above that you are tuning. But you probably already knew this. This guide was made for bass because I myself am a beginning bass player. I wrote this for a friend of mine because he wanted to know how to play guitar. This is just a basic guide. You can use this guide for which ever instrument you'd like, bass guitar or a normal guitar. I do not know how to play guitar but I do know what a person must learn when playing guitar. The basic chords. A chord is when two notes on a guitar are played together such as E5 and A3 or A3 and E5. I believe a chord consist of two to three notes being held at once but I may be wrong on some occasions. As for my friend Nome, he has found his own chords by himself without any prior knowledge of chords. He knows scales though so I guess that is why he has become a good guitarist. The main scale any person should learn before any others is the C Major Scale. It is used in most music of today, and yesterday, it is essential if attempting to learn guitar. Go to http://www.visualguitar.com/cmaj.html and look at the several differnt ways of playing the C Major Scale. The main one you should be considering is the second diagram. On bass guitar it would be. E|--2-3---5--- A|--2-3---5--- D|--2---4-5--- G|------------ A good practice technique is: E|--2-3---5--- A|--2---4-5--- You may want to do this several times before attempting to learn more scales. This is all I can actually think of when teaching someone guitar. I hope you can learn from this guide and if not e-mail me at beigebox@bellsouth.net. I have only been playing for five months and these are the basic guide lines I use to create music. Also remember I do not play normal guitar, I play bass guitar so if you feel as a guitarist that this is not a good guide I am sorry.