Guitar Tricks Online Guitar Lessons

A Minor

 
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First let's check out this new concept over an old familiar chord, the A minor chord.

Let's try and slowly pick one string at a time, while you're holding down the chord. Start on the bass strings and move toward the treble strings. Then reverse the direction. It's pretty tricky at first for the picking hand, but just like you saw it with the root-chord strumming, it does not sound bad at all when you hit the wrong string.

You can do this with all downstrokes or all upstrokes. You can also try alternating between up and downstrokes. But I find that quite hard.

Personally I tend to prefer using several downstrokes in a row, then several upstrokes in a row. But there's no hard and fast rule here at first. Whatever works best for you right now is totally fine!

Instructor Anders Mouridsen
Tutorial:
Arpeggiation
Styles:
Any Style
Difficulty:
print notation download lesson open guitar tuner
A Minor song notation

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Questions & Answers

1 month ago
Hello! I'm working on the A minor arpeggiation lesson and I'm having a lot of trouble getting a pleasant sound from the B string. Do you have any advice for me? Thanks...Jeff (Ann Arbor, MI)
Mike Olekshy 1 month ago

Hey there - thanks so much for your question! Assuming you're using your ring finger to fret the 2nd fret of the G string, make sure it is curled up enough to completely stay out of the way of the ringing B string. If the sound is buzzy or not clear, this could be the problem. Try to curl all your fingers so that they are coming into the fretboard at as close to a 90 degree angle as possible. Pushing your wrist forward a little will help. When fretting the Am chord, make sure you start with your index finger (1st fret of the B string), and position it so that it is close to the 1st fretwire but not right on top of it. Then place the next few fingers. Another thing to try is just work with top 2 fretted notes of the chord (G string and B string) and get them sounding clean and clear, before putting your middle finger on the 2nd fret of the D string, adding it to make the full chord. It is common to find this chord challenging at first - so keep at it consistently. Eventually it will become easier. Hope this helps!!

1 year ago
What does those digits 0, 1, and 2 means in tabs?
Mike Olekshy 1 year ago

Hello - thanks for your question! Those digits represent the fret number of the note to be played. The horizontal lines represent the strings of the guitar - (lowest line is the low E string (6th string) - highest line is the high E string (1st string)). So in this example - the digit "1" means play the 1st fret of the 2nd string. I suggest you check out this tutorial on learning how to read guitar tabs: https://www.guitartricks.com/how-to-read-guitar-tabs Hope this helps!