Meet your guitar: the six strings
This lesson is fully written out below — tab, chords, and all. Video is on the way.
About this lesson
Before chords, before songs, before anything: the six strings, their names, and the two tricks for never forgetting them.
Six strings, two E's
Hold your guitar in playing position and look down. The thickest string — closest to the ceiling — is the LOW E. From there, moving toward the floor, the strings are:
E — A — D — G — B — E
The thickest and thinnest strings are both E, two octaves apart. That's why you'll see the thin one written as a small 'e' — same name, much higher sound.
The numbering trap
Here's the part that trips everyone: strings are numbered from the FLOOR up. The thin little e is string 1, and the big thick E is string 6. It feels backwards — the biggest string gets the biggest number — but every chord chart, tab, and teacher on Earth uses this convention, so learn it once here and it never bites you again.
Play them and say them
string: 6 5 4 3 2 1 name: E A D G B e e|-------------------------0--| B|--------------------0-------| G|---------------0------------| D|----------0-----------------| A|-----0----------------------| E|--0--------------------------|
Tab is read the same way you look at the guitar: bottom line = thickest string. A 0 means play the string open — no fingers. Pluck each one slowly and say its name out loud.
Two ways to never forget
Pick whichever sticks, low to high:
Eddie Ate Dynamite, Good-Bye Eddie.
Elephants And Donkeys Grow Big Ears.
Or invent your own — the sillier, the stickier. You only need it for about two weeks; after that the names just live in your hands.
Practice this week
1. Pluck each string from thickest to thinnest, naming it out loud. Then backwards. One minute, once a day.
2. Quiz yourself: touch a random string, name it before you pluck it.
3. When you can name all six without thinking, you're ready for the key of C — where those string names start earning their keep.
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