In this guitar lesson
I will instruct you on how to play Mary Had A Little Lamb on your guitar. I will
use ordinary english words so you don't need to know sheet music notation!
Mary Had A
Little Lamb can be played on the first two
strings on your guitar. There are four notes
to learn and we will take this opportunity
to learn a little about the guitar at the
same time.
Guitar lesson:
Part 1
We will begin
with the first line of lyrics:
Mary Had A
Little Lamb
The first note
you will use is called E and is found on the
first string on your guitar. This string is
called E and is the thinnest string on your
guitar. You can pluck this note with your
right hand thumb.
The next note is
D on the second string. To play the note D
you need to press down the second string
with one of your left hand fingers on the
third fret. I suggest that you use your ring
finger.
Why should you
use your ring finger?
Left hand
fingering on your guitar means that instead
of using just one finger on your left hand
to play all notes on the guitar you will use
the first finger for the notes on your first
fret, the middle finger for the notes on the
second fret and the third finger for the
notes on the third fret.
This might feel
a little bit awkward at first because most
people feel that the ring finger is weaker
that the rest of the fingers.
If you are
persistent you will experience that using
these fingers will make it easier to find
your way around on the fretboard without
looking all the time.
Let's go back to
our guitar lesson!
The next guitar
note is C. Press down your first finger on
the first fret of the second string to find
this note. Play D again.
Now the melody
goes back to E played three times. The whole
sequence of notes will be:
E D C D E E E
You will
probably hear that the last E will be a
little bit longer than the rest of the
notes.
Guitar lesson:
Part 2
Here is the next
line of lyrics:
Little lamb,
little lamb
The first three
notes are D on the third fret of the second
string. Make the last one of these notes a
little longer.
After these
notes comes E on the first string. When you
pluck a string without pressing down a fret
you are playing on an open string. So we can
say, play E on the open E-string.
Finish this line
of lyrics by playing the note G twice. Press
down you left hand ring finger on the third
fret of the first string.
This sequence of
notes will be:
D D D E G G
Play the third
and the sixth note a little longer than the
rest of the notes.
Guitar lesson:
Part 3
Let's proceed
with the lyrics:
Mary had a
little lamb
The words are
identical with the first line. So is also
the melody. In other words, the sequence of
notes are:
E D C D E E E
Guitar lesson:
Finale
The last line of
lyrics looks like this:
Its fleece was
white as snow
The melody
starts with E on the first open string
followed by D played twice on the second
string, third fret. Next E again, and D and
the song ends with C on the second string,
first fret.
The whole
sequence of notes looks like this:
E D D E D C
In this guitar
lesson we have learned four notes on the
guitar. C, D, E and G. I recommend that you
learn this melody by heart, one line at a
time.
This means that
you can play Mary Had A Little Lamb in
C-major on your guitar!
