Newbie Strumming/Chord Question

Hi Eric - Welcome to chordie and congrats on the new guitar. Hang in there, get past the initial finger pain and making music will bring a lifetime of joy.

First, please realize that the chords / tabs you find on the internet are offered by fellow musicians and leave room for interpretation. Some are great, some not so much. The number 1 rule in my book is "If it sounds good, it is good". What I mean is experiment a bit, don't take the written notation literally.

So your first example:
                 C                              G
This land is your land, this land is my land.

If taken literally, the vocals would start before the first chord and the first strum would begin as you sing "your". That may be fine, but if it sounds better strumming the C at the start, do it!

The C/D is typically known as a "slash" chord, in this example being a C chord with a D note in the bass. Do a search on slash chords - there have been many discussions. Here is a link to a large chord chart that gives many examples of chord variations:

http://www.guitarnotes.com/guitar/notes2/ultimate.pdf

Again, realize that the chords are just an individuals interpretation. In many cases a substitute chord will sound just fine (a simple C in this example). Also, oftentimes I find it useful to click on the "Original version" link - sometimes that will lend a clue as to the intended fingering.

Strumming patterns - My advice again is to listen to and play along with the song. Feel the tempo and pattern, don't get hung up on a formula - If it sounds good it is good!!  There are also many discussions on strumming patterns here and several good video examples, just search the forum for strum patterns.

And finally - justinguitar.com - check out his free beginner lessons with video. An invaluable resource.

Welcome to Chordie.  Give your wife a big smooch for getting you a guitar. 

Generally the chords in those charts aren't placed exactly right.  And sometimes they allow a lot of room for interpretation.  Given that you're a beginner, you are in the PERFECT situation to arrange difficult passages and use the excuse "Hey, I'm new at this!"  I use that a lot.  Although, people are starting to question me on that, and it's probably time for another cheap excuse.  Guitar playing is TERRIFIC for coming up with cheap and/or humorous excuses. 

You'll get into the hang of the chord placement.  Youtube is also a valuable resource.  Not only can you generally find videos of original artists doing the songs, but you can also find guys like Fretkiller (a bit of a legend on Chordie) who does terrific acoustic arrangements and his videos are closeups of his fretting hand showing you EXACTLY how he does it.  (Please note that this guy is terrificly talented and makes everything look easy.  It isn't.)  Once you get some basic chords down, I'd recommend going over to Goldhat.  Search on "Goldhat Lessons" and you'll find some good arrangements of Sissified Seventies Folk/Pop music, which is my favorite genre. 

There's a million good resources.  Probably www.justinguitar.com has the best beginner lesson and skill development plan of any free resource. 

Good luck.  Have fun.  Stick with it through the initial finger pain.  It IS worth it.  It usually takes about a year to get to where you can recognize something, and longer before people start wondering whether you brought your guitar with you when you go somewhere.  But stick with it, enjoy the journey, don't be too hard on yourself.  If you can follow that advice, you just found yourself a lifetime of challenge and fun.

- Zurf

Thanks to all for the warm welcomes and kind advice. I'll be spending some time at justinguitar.com over the next while for sure. I'm especially glad to have some direction when it comes to youtube guitar videos. There's an overwhelming number of such things and I was starting to get a little ADD with them.

The best advice in this thread so far was something I hadn't thought of and I feel a little silly. Listen to the original music. So simple! Why didn't I think of that? It turns out that sampling iTunes songs is enough to get a sense of the song (even tho I just bought a copy of Peter Paul and Mary's "This Land is Your Land") without spending a $1 to buy it. So thanks to NELA for that. I've started marking up the words (in red with accents) after listening to both PM&M and Woodie Guthrie versions. Hopefully someday in the not too distant future it'll sound like a song.

Ok my next question of what will probably be many more... Should the strings of my guitar be the same distance away from the frets all the way down the neck? The closer to the bridge my strings are a little further away. Does that matter? My neck isn't warped already is it?

Thanks again to everyone.

-Eric

Thanks Zurf... I checked with the guy who recommended this Alvarez to my wife to buy for me and he said that the strings are just kinda high on this guitar. Whew! Today was the last day we were able to return it.

Thanks,

-Eric

Gotta have one of the section mods delete the spam.   Any mod can ban a spammer, but the section mods are the only ones that can modify posts in their forums.

They've been notified, and I'm sure will be here shortly to clean up.