Often beginners get worried when they see some saddles which are slanted and ridged, or appear to be broken, uneven, not level, on the acoustic guitars. This is in contrast with some saddles which are straight, level and even.

There are 2 basic electric bass guitars types based on their pickups. They are commonly known as Precision Bass and Jazz Style bass guitars.

Beginners often get overwhelmed by the number of music notes to remember eg F#, Db, A, etc. Here's some basic tenets that may be helpful:-

* There are only 12 different musical tones

* Each a half-tone apart

* The 13th tone repeats the 1st tone but at one octave higher (when ascending) or lower (descending).

******************************************************************************

To learn to strum, it is good to understand and 'see' timing sense.

Most songs are of the 4/4 type, meaning there are 4 beats to one bar like this:-

||___x___x___x___x___||___x___x___x___x___||___x___x___x___x___

Each beat is known as a quarter beat, and each music note is known as a quarter note.

In the simplest strum, just use your pick and brush gently all down strokes for each beat, and give the 1st beat (in bold) a slightly stronger stroke.

Beginners often buy a guitar chord book, and then frown when they see so many chords inside. "So many chords! Is this guitar chord book complete? How many chords are there?"

There are as many chords as you want them to be. Chords are made up of 3 or more notes played together.

Let's take the mother of all scales first, key of C major (2 Octaves), we have:-
C D E F G A B C D E F G A B C
(remember the alphabetical sequence - Learn How To Count)

Eleanor Rigby (Part Two - more embellishments)

These are the changes to Eleanor Rigby simple version (Part One):-

1) Strumming - instead of all downstrokes, just add an upstroke in between the downstrokes. This 'fills up' the quietness in between the down-to-down strokes. Counted as 1_&_2_&_3_&_4_& The "&"s are the upstrokes.

Often people asks how long to play a song on the guitar? The easiest is find a 2 chord song, strum the easiest strokes while you sing or hum the song. This is guitar accompaniment playing and is the easiest - 3 to 5 lessons and you are good to go! And not all 2 chord songs are kiddy tunes. We can do Beatles Eleanor Rigby at its simplest (Part One). In another segment ER Part Two - embellished gusto. If you have not heard of ER, here's the clip http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Dsz4dB6DuM

Fret__1st_____2nd______3rd____

E_|________|________|________|
B_|________|________|________|

The simplest chord in the Ukulele is C (one finger chord only). And in the key of C i.e chord I, it follows chord IV is F and chord V is G. Remember with the 3-chord we can play many many songs, try Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.

Below is not tablature, just diagrammatic. Ukulele's 4 strings from top to bottom is 4th G, 3rd C, 2nd E and 1st A.

Fret__1st_____2nd______3rd____

A_|________|________|___X____|
E_|________|________|________|
C_|________|________|________|
G_|________|________|________|

Here's the tab for Twinkle Twinkle LIttle Star - Ukulele. The tuning of the ukulele is:-
G (one octave higher) - 4th string (i.e one whole tone below A on 1st string)
C - 3rd string
E - 2nd string
A - 1st string

Note: Below the lyrics are the chords - Key of C (chord 1), F (chord IV) and G (chord V).

A_|____________________0____0_______|
E_|_________________________________|
C_|__0____0_________________________|
G_|___________0____0____________0___|

___twin___kle_twin__kle__lit___tle__star

Earlier we learn how to play the scale of G major 2nd Position using type 2 fingering. The actual name of all the notes in G major are shown below. If you do not understand how we get the alphabets order, refer here. Consciously 'see' or say out loud the alphabet notes you are playing.

Scale of G major (Note: Below is not guitar tab notation - just diagramatic)

Fret _1st_____2nd______3rd______4th_______5th__

E_|________|___F#___|___G____|________|___A____|