Your two hands

Your hands do completely different work on the guitar:

• The fretting hand presses the strings against the neck. For a right-handed player that is the left hand. It chooses which notes sound.
• The strumming hand plucks or strums the strings over the body. That is the right hand. It decides when the notes sound, and how loud.

Chord boxes and tab only ever describe the fretting hand, so its fingers get numbers.

Your index finger is 1, your middle finger 2, your ring finger 3 and your little finger 4. The thumb is T, but it mostly stays behind the neck and rarely presses a string in this course.

Say them out loud a couple of times while you wiggle each finger. You will see these numbers on every chord box from here on.

Now make your first note. Put finger 1 on the thinnest string, just behind the first fret: close to the metal strip, but not on top of it.

• Press with the tip of your finger, not the soft pad. Keep the finger curved like a hook.
• Press only as hard as you need to. Pluck the string with your other hand, then ease off the pressure until the note starts to buzz. Now press slightly harder than that. That is enough.
• Keep your thumb behind the neck, roughly opposite your finger. It is a gentle support, not a clamp.

If the note buzzes, move your fingertip closer to the fret. If it sounds dull and muted, something is touching the string: usually another finger, or the flat of the fingertip.

For the first week or two, pressing strings is uncomfortable. The skin on your fingertips has to toughen up, and it does. Everybody goes through it.

Play for ten to fifteen minutes at a time, a few times a day, rather than for an hour at once. Stop when your fingertips are sore, not when they are numb. Within a couple of weeks you will barely notice.

You can strum with a pick or with your fingers. Both are fine, and you can switch later.

If you use a pick, hold it between the side of your index finger and the pad of your thumb, with only a few millimetres showing. Grip it just firmly enough that it does not spin when it hits the strings.

If you use your fingers, brush down across the strings with the backs of your fingernails and back up with the pad of your thumb or index finger.

Whichever you choose, strum from the wrist, loosely, as if you were shaking water off your hand. A stiff arm makes a harsh, uneven strum.