Guitar

At a glance

Role

Harmony — it can carry the chords on its own

Range

E2 – E6 (as written)

Transposition

Written at pitch but sounding an octave lower — the key you read is the key it is in.

Tuning

E2A2D3G3B3E4▶ all

previewed with the nylon guitar voice

Sits well in

EADGC

These five let the open strings ring under the chords. Anything else is a barre or a capo — which is exactly what the capo column on a song page is telling you.

How it works

Plucked strings over a fretted neck: the fret sets the length, so the pitch is fixed and the same shape works anywhere on the neck. That transposability is the entire trick, and it is why a capo is such a blunt, useful tool.

On the neck

Drills 4

A session's worth. Each one has a single point — do that, not the whole list.

1. Chord-change timer5 min

   The gap between chords, which is where beginners actually lose the song.

   1. Pick two chords you find awkward together — G to C, or C to F.
   2. One minute, count how many clean changes you make. Do not strum, just change.
   3. Repeat tomorrow and beat the number. Twenty a minute is a song you can play.
2. One key, all over the neck8 min

   Escaping first position without learning five unrelated shapes.

   1. Pick the key of a song you know. Play its major scale in first position.
   2. Play the same scale starting from the 5th fret, then the 7th, then the 12th.
   3. Now play the song's melody in each position.
3. Barre stamina5 min

   Holding a barre without the forearm seizing.

   1. F barre chord: press, strum once, release completely. Ten times.
   2. Then hold it for four bars, release, and shake the hand out.
   3. Stop the moment the thumb starts to ache — that is the drill working, not failing.
4. Play along, capo honest8 min

   Using the capo the way the song pages describe it.

   1. Find a song whose key is awkward — Eb, Ab, Db.
   2. Read the capo suggestion on the song page and play the shapes it names.
   3. Then play it without the capo, in barres, so you know what the capo saved you.

Tips

• Fingers just behind the fret, not on top of it — that alone fixes most buzzing.
• Thumb behind the neck, roughly opposite the second finger. Over the top is for bending, not for chords.
• Change strings before they sound dead, not after. Old strings drift sharp and teach you bad intonation.
• If a chord shape does not ring, pick each string one at a time and find which finger is leaning.

Heard on 0

Nothing linked yet. The pipeline never measures who plays what, so this list is human-curated: add recordings to the 🎙️ Recordings relation on this instrument's row in 🎻 MUSIC INSTRUMENTS [DB] and they show up here.

Worth practising on it

Suggested from what the pipeline measured — key, meter, tempo and the chords as played. Each one says why it is here.