To start off with, let's look at what makes playing the electric guitar pretty much the same as learning to play on an acoustic guitar.

The first solid body electric guitar was invented by Les Paul in the early 1940's. It was basically an archtop acoustic guitar, with the center replaced by a solid piece of wood, on which were mounted two pickups. So you see, it's got the same fretboard and tuning as an acoustic guitar, so you play it the same - well almost.

Here's the thing. All the chords on an acoustic guitar are exactly the same as an electric guitar, and all the scales.... I'm sure you get the picture. There is a difference though in the styles that get played. It's a different approach, but not one that should really cause too much concern when you first learn to play guitar.

What's great about learning how to play on an electric guitar?

The first and most important thing about learning on an electric guitar, is that it's much easier on the fingers. This is mostly because you can use lighter gauge strings, and the string height is easily adjustable at the bridge. I personally recommend that anyone learning how to play guitar, whether they want to play acoustic or electric, should learn to play on electric guitar.

Later on, when your fingertips have hardened a bit, then move on to acoustic if you want. Whether you learn to play electric guitar or acoustic, it's always nice to eventually have one of each. Beginner guitar lessons suited to both acoustic and electric guitar.

For starters, no matter which type of guitar you play, the first set of chords you'll learn are called open chords. These are the easiest guitar chords to play. A little later, when your fingers get used to the guitar, you move on to bar chords.

I would like to show you something that will make learning how to play guitar a whole lot easier. It's called guitar tablature, or guitar tab for short. Guitar Tabs are a simplified way of reading guitar music.

There are a few major differences between guitar tablature and conventional sheet music, the first one being that no time signature or note length is displayed, so you'll need to have a recording of the guitar piece to understand exactly how it's supposed to sound.

The second major difference is more a matter of appearance than function, and that's because guitar tabs have six lines - one for each string, as opposed to the five lines in regular music notation.

So how will understanding Tab help you to learn how to play electric guitar?

Well, Guitar tabs are very popular on the internet, and a lot of guitarists like posting useful tablature of their favorite songs on various websites. Because tabs are so easy to understand, and very descriptive of what's actually happening on the fretboard, it's easier to give guitar lessons with - so just about everyone uses it.