Eight Great Tips for Learning Electric Guitar

I first picked up an electric guitar when I was a teenager. I had already been playing acoustic for a couple of years, but there was something more exotic and powerful about the electric version of the instrument, with its switches, knobs and a sleek, colorful body. Once plugged into an amp, it could create an explosion of sound, power and sustain, making my acoustic guitar seem tame in comparison.

The transition wasn’t seamless, however. In fact, it took a while to get comfortable on electric. Although it shares many similarities with an acoustic guitar, its sound, playing feel and vibe are quite different.

In this posting, I’ll offer some tips and links that will help you make the transition more easily. Keep in mind that as a new electric player, it’s critical to learn solid fundamentals; otherwise, you can develop bad habits that will hold you back. The best way to ensure you’re developing those basic skills is to study with a guitar teacher. That said, there’s also a lot of good online content for learning.

(Note that this posting is written from the perspective of guitarists who play right-handed, because they’re the overwhelming majority. If you’re a lefty, simply substitute “left” when I say “right” and vice versa, when I’m talking about hands, arms or legs.)

1. GET COMFORTABLE HOLDING THE GUITAR

Holding an electric guitar when sitting is similar to the way you’d hold an acoustic, but the guitar body is usually significantly thinner.

As you can see in the picture below, the indentation at the bottom of the guitar should sit on your thigh, but the top of the guitar (the side with the strings and the fretboard) ends up closer to your body by virtue of the instrument’s thinner dimensions. The top of the guitar’s body leans against your chest, and the neck angles slightly forward and up a little.

When performing on an electric guitar, however, you’re most often going to be standing up and using a guitar strap. The experience is somewhat different than playing sitting down, so it’s good to do at least some of your practicing standing in order to get accustomed to it.

The length of a guitar strap is easily adjustable. Shortening it raises the guitar, bringing it closer to your eyes and making it easier to see the frets.

However, many guitarists wear it lower, with the guitar’s vertical center approximately at stomach height, either because they find it more comfortable that way or because it’s considered more fashionable. For newbies to electric guitar, the most crucial factor in deciding strap height should be what’s most comfortable for playing.

2. ESTABLISH GOOD HAND PLACEMENT

When you hold an electric guitar, your picking hand should angle down from the top upper right of the guitar’s body (from the player’s perspective) and hover above the strings somewhere between the two pickups. (On a three-pickup electric guitar, such as a Yamaha Pacifica model, you’d typically place your hand just in front of or behind the middle pickup.)

Keep in mind that a pickup’s location impacts significantly on the tone. The closer a pickup is to the bridge, the brighter it sounds, and the closer to the neck, the rounder it sounds. This principle also applies to where your right hand encounters the strings, regardless of whether you’re using a pick or playing fingerstyle. In other words, hand placement affects tone too.

As you get more proficient as an electric player, you may find yourself occasionally moving your hand closer or further from the bridge to alter the tone strategically. But as a beginner electric player, it’s best to find a comfortable spot and keep your strumming/picking hand there consistently.

3. LEARN CORRECT FINGERING

Perhaps the most essential fundamental for an electric (or acoustic) guitarist to master is correct fingering when fretting notes and chords. To that end, it’s critical to involve your pinky when playing scales and chords. This might feel awkward at first, but it will get easier over time.

For scales, the concept of “one finger, one fret” is crucial. It means that, when in a given scale position, it’s most efficient to use the index finger over one fret, the middle finger over the next, the ring finger over the next one and the pinky on the last one.

In the fretboard diagram of an A-major scale shown below, the numbers refer to which fingers to use (1 = index, 2 = ring, 3 = middle, 4 = pinky). Notice the “one-finger, one-fret” concept is in effect here.

There are plenty of scale positions that cover more than four frets, such as the example below, where the first finger has to briefly move out of position for one of the notes. But the idea is to stick to “one-finger, one-fret” whenever possible.

You can find additional examples with fingering, as well as many other handy tips that also apply to electric guitar in this posting on learning acoustic guitar.

4. CHOOSE THE STRINGS AND PICKS THAT BEST FIT YOUR NEEDS

Guitar strings come in a variety of gauges (thicknesses) that affect both tone and playability. Guitars come set up for particular string gauges, but of course you can opt to put on different strings if you like (though that may require a new setup — see below).

Guitarists typically refer to their string sets by the gauge of the high-E string. So, for example, a “10s” set has a high-E string with a gauge of .010, a low E of .046, and the rest in between. Those are also referred to as “light gauge.” A “9s” set has a .009 high E and is often called “Extra Light.”

Choosing a string gauge involves a trade-off. The heavier (thicker) it is, the fuller the tone. The lighter it is, the easier it is to fret, and especially, to bend. The size and adjustment of the guitar’s neck will also impact the feel of different string gauges.

Because an electric guitar gets a good part of its tone from the amplifier, using thicker strings for tonal reasons is not as necessary, so electric players mostly go for thinner string gauges (8s, 9s or 10s) that make both fretting and bending easier.

Strings don’t last forever and should be changed periodically. Otherwise, they lose brightness and slip out of tune more often. If you play regularly, you should change your strings at least once a month.

If you decide to switch to different string gauges, you may want to have a guitar tech adjust the intonation (the guitar’s ability to play in tune across the neck) and action (string height). Even if you stay with the same gauge that your guitar came with, it’s good to bring it to a guitar tech every year or two for a setup, especially if it becomes difficult to play in tune at different frets.

Although some electric players use their fingers to pick the strings, most utilize picks. Typically made of nylon, picks come in three basic gauges: thin, medium and heavy. Thin picks bend easily and are best for strumming. Heavies don’t bend at all and are best for fast picking. True to their name, mediums are halfway between and suitable for all-around playing. Experiment to find the gauge pick that’s best for you. You can always change them!

5. DEVELOP YOUR OWN SOUND

One of the coolest aspects of being an electric guitar player is the virtually endless sound-shaping options available from a full electric guitar rig (guitar, amp and effects), or from a digital equivalent.  The musical style you play will likely influence some of your tonal choices. For example, the typical jazz guitar sound is clean, while rock tones tend to be at least somewhat distorted.

But before even considering how amps and effects can impact your tone, explore the wide range of sounds your guitar offers on its own. The first stop for tone adjustment is the guitar’s pickup selector switch. It lets you choose which pickup or combination of pickups is active. As a general rule, double-coil pickups (also known as “humbuckers”) sound thicker than single-coil pickups. As mentioned previously, pickup placement affects tone: the neck pickup is brightest, and the bridge pickup is the most round-sounding.

In the following audio examples, I play the same passage on the neck, middle and bridge positions of the five-way pickup selector switch of a Yamaha Revstar RSS02T electric guitar, which has single-coil pickups. Notice the tonal change as I do so.

All electric guitars have control knobs: two that you’ll always find are a master tone and a master volume. (Some three-pickup electrics have an additional tone knob.) On a two-knob guitar, the tone knob sets the guitar to its brightest setting when turned fully clockwise and its warmest setting (for the roundest tone) when turned fully counterclockwise.

The volume knob adjusts the guitar’s output level. The highest setting sends the hottest signal, which drives outboard gear like amps and effects harder and offers the most sustain. As a result, rolling off the volume knob slightly can clean up the sound, which can be handy when finishing a solo and switching to a rhythm part.

6. FIND YOUR FAVORITE EFFECTS

Guitar effects, most commonly found in pedal form (“stompboxes”), allow you to shape your tone in creative ways.

Ambient effects, such as reverb and delay (sometimes called “echo”), add space and dimension to your sound. Reverb, which is often built into guitar amps, simulates how sound bounces around in a room or larger space.

In this audio clip, you’ll hear a rhythm guitar part with no reverb.

Here’s the same part with some subtle reverb added:

Delay simulates the discrete echoes you hear in a large space, and you can adjust the speed, the number of echoes and more to fit the music you’re playing. Here’s a lead line with a long delay added, more as a rhythmic special effect than to add ambience.

Distortion effects alter a guitar’s tone by adding grittiness, fatness and sustain. One way to get it is to overload a tube amp’s input. But even if your amp is only capable of clean tones, you can distort your sound with pedals. You’ll find many flavors of distortion effects, designed to mimic the effect of overdriven tubes, broken speakers and more. They use different technologies, but all cause the sound to break up.

In the following three audio clips, you’ll hear the same passage, first clean through an amp, then with overdrive added and finally with fuzz instead of the overdrive. All three also have reverb.

Other effects, such as chorus, phaser and tremolo, subtly modulate the pitch, level (or both) of the sound. The following audio clips feature the same musical passage — the first time with no modulation effects, the second with chorus, and the third with a phase shifter. All three have reverb as well.

Pitch effects such as pitch shifter and octaver (which is really just a pitch shifter set to go up or down octaves) change the pitch by specific intervals and allow you to mix in the shifted and original note to create harmonies. In this next audio clip, an octaver creates a much bigger sound by adding an octave below the original.

There are also filter effects like “wah”, as well as EQ pedals for changing tone and tuners for tuning your guitar. A tuner is a must-have effect for every guitarist. Typically, it lets you mute the output so the audience doesn’t have to hear you tuning, and uses a visual display to guide you as you turn the tuning pegs on your guitar to the correct pitches.

7. CONSIDER A PEDALBOARD FOR YOUR EFFECTS

If you’re thinking about performing or rehearsing with a group, or you just want to experiment with more than one effects pedal, a pedalboard of some type will be beneficial. It’s a flat, rectangular board, usually angled up on the end facing away from the guitarist and equipped with a power supply to run the pedals.

You can buy a purpose-built pedalboard in a variety of sizes, many with the power supply built in, which you can then populate with individual effects pedals. Alternatively, you can go DIY and make your own board using a piece of plywood and attach a separate power supply along with the pedals. (Tip: Velcro works well for attaching gear to your board.)

Another option is a self-contained multi-effects unit, such as the Line 6 POD GO. The advantage of these devices is that they’re loaded with many effect choices in every category, are digitally controlled, and allow you to save custom effect settings and combinations.

8. FAMILIARIZE YOURSELF WITH THE PARTS OF THE ELECTRIC GUITAR

When other guitarists, guitar teachers or online postings and videos mention certain parts of an electric guitar, you’re going to want to know what they’re referring to. Therefore, it’s essential to learn the names of the various parts and controls on the instrument. Here’s an illustration that shows the main ones:

Once you’re comfortable with the basics of playing and the gear you’ll need, you’ll find that electric guitar is not only fun to play, but offers incredible potential for creativity, both in technique and sound. So what are you waiting for? Grab a pick and start playing!

All audio examples played on a Yamaha Revstar RSS02T electric guitar.