Learning Guitar Chords? Start With These 3 Essential Chords
This is the most satisfying part of learning the guitar because as a beginner you can quickly accelerate your playing to sounding reasonably good within minutes. Playing a chord simply means striking simultaneously at least two or three strings on the guitar at the same time.
A common question asked when people are learning guitar chords is "how many chords do I need?". Well these days I'd say you'll need around 2000 to get started. Kidding! Don't panic. Although there are hundreds of guitar chords and variations, you don't need to know them all.
It's a bit like learning a language vocabulary. The more you know, the more flexibility you have in creating a piece but you can get by with only a handful.
As a beginner you should first start with the 3 most common chords. They are the G major chord, C major chord and the D major chord. These are the easiest chords to learn and are known as 'open' chords. That means you don't have to barre the strings with your left first finger.
Learning G Major Chord
Ok. Let's start with G major. Place your second finger on the sixth string of the third fret. Then put your first finger on the fifth string of the second fret. Finally put your third finger on the third fret of the first string.
Remember to curl your fingers so that they are not touching any other strings that they are not supposed to touch. Drag your thumb (or pick) over all the 6 strings in one continuous strum. You should try to make all the strings sound at the same time rather than individually.
Let's Move On To C Major
For C major, place your third finger on the third fret of the 5th string. Then, the second finger should be placed on the second fret of the 4th string. Finally place the first finger on the 1st fret of the second string. It is important to be careful and not strike the bottom E string for this chord. Only the top five strings should be strummed when playing this C major shape.
Finally In This Lesson, It's D Major
This can be a tricky one for the beginner learning guitar chords because all three fingers that are used in the chord are crowded into a very small area of the guitar neck. Start by placing your first finger on the second fret of the 3rd string. Then put your third finger on the 3rd fret of the second string. Finally, place your second finger on the second fret of the 1st string.
Now you can strum the top 4 strings to play the D major chord. be careful to avoid hitting the bottom 2 string.
It is important to be familiar with these 3 basic chords before starting to learn the more complicated chords. These 3 chords that are commonly used in many a song. learn these 3 and you'll be off to a great start in your mission in learning guitar chords.
Why You Need To Understand Chords
Understanding chords is essential to understanding why the guitar is such a popular and flexible instrument. A chord is a range of different notes played on the same instrument at the same time.
Not all instruments can do this, (think about a flute or a saxophone), and instruments that can are called harmonic instruments (other examples are guitars, violins and harps). Chords are fundamental to song-writing.
The use of a few simple chords strummed repeatedly whilst a voice or other instrument takes the main melody has formed the basis of many a successful song (think in terms of folk-era Bob Dylan).
Chord Names
Guitar musical notation follows the standard Western way of naming notes (using the alphabet letters of ‘A’ to ‘G’. Chords are also named after these notes, where the main ‘root note’ (usually the lowest note of a chord) of the chord dictates what it’s called (for example an ‘A Chord’ has ‘A’ as its root note). You also get ‘minor’ and ‘major’ chords, as well as all sorts of other ways of describing chords based on the musical scale (this will all be explained in later articles).
How Do Chords Work with the Guitar?
Most instruments require the player to be able to read musical notation if they are going to have full access to playing all the songs and musical styles out there. With the guitar this isn’t essential as chord diagrams (or boxes) provide a uniquely visual way of showing you where to put your fingers on the fingerboard to form the notes and sounds.
What is a Chord Diagram?
If you were to pick up your guitar and look down at the fingerboard from directly above and then draw exactly what you saw (as if drawing a map), you would end up with the basis for a chord diagram. You would then just need to add some symbols to represent the shape your fingers make when playing a chord to have a basic map of how to make a specific chord. This is what makes the guitar so accessible to non-professionally trained musicians.
How Do You Interpret A Basic Chord Diagram?
Imagine again that you are looking down at the fingerboard of your guitar from above. You should see what is essentially a grid of six vertical lines and a series of shorter horizontal lines with a white horizontal line at the very top (this is where the fingerboard starts). This grid is the basis of all chord diagrams.
Think now about what other information needs to go in there if it is to be useful. You use your fingers to play, so you need a way of marking which finger you are using (number them 1 to 4), and where about on the fingerboard you are putting them. This is sometimes called the Chord Shape. For example, here is an E7 chord represented by a chord diagram.
A guitar has six strings tuned to different notes (EADGBE), so you need to know which side is the high E string (the one on the far right) and which is the low E string (the one on the far left).
You also need to know if a chord requires to you to get a note out of all six strings, or just some of them. This information is shown on the diagram by two symbols, and ‘O’ which means that an open string (one which you have no fingers pressing on) should be played, and a ‘X’ which means that it shouldn’t.
And finally, some chords need you to make the chord shape further up the fingerboard. The distance up the fingerboard is measures in frets, and the frets are simply numbered upwards from ‘0’ (the one you never use represented by the white bar at the start) according to the number of frets on your guitar. So, if the number ‘5’ is marked on the left top of the chord diagram, you form the chord shape 5 frets up.
And these are the basics!
Do I Need to Know Anything Else?
This article should provide you with all you need to know about how to read simple chord diagrams. Some chord diagrams include additional information, but this will be explained in later articles. In the meantime check these out.
- The 5 Cornerstone Guitar Chords To Last You a Lifetime
- 3 Guitar Chords That Will Blow your Friends Away
If you’re interested in getting really good with guitar chords I can highly recommend Jamorama.
It uncovers the truth about how to get a guitar at below dealer cost and how to decide whether you should learn how to play guitar on an acoustic or electric guitar, and just what to look out for if you choose to buy a used guitar!
It’s also a complete step by step guitar learning system and all you’ll need to become a great guitarist.
Easy Guitar Chords For Beginners
Before you can effectively play a guitar chord, you have to have some idea of what it is. By understanding how a chord is put together, you will be able to move from one chord to another and understand how they relate to each other.
What is a chord anyway?
A group of notes that are harmonious when strummed on the guitar. A chord can be played one string at a time, or all of the strings may be strummed in unison. Whether strumming or plucking, the chord is the same. Generally comprised of several notes, a chord can sound very different depending on the strumming or plucking technique employed as you play.
Chords are divided into two types major and minor. To help you remember the primary chords, use the word CAGED. By first learning these chords and mastering the transitions between them, you are building a strong foundation towards playing the guitar. Some of the early rock and roll bands never developed much past these chords, while others were amazing musicians in their own right.
Click HERE to find out the best way to learn chords
How to Read a Chord Diagram
When you are reading guitar music, the chords can be denoted in diagrams with dots showing the finger positions. Learning to read the chords in the diagrams actually lets you play the guitar without ever having to know how to read music.
Once you are adept at reading sheet music, you can read the chords directly off of the music, until then you will very likely use sheet music with chord diagrams to make it easy for you to play guitar in time with the song.
The C-A-G-E-D Pattern
If you face your guitar and look at the frets you will notice that your guitar has six strings resting on top of the fret board which runs the length of the guitar’s neck. Plucking a string sounds a musical note. Depressing the string at a certain point on the neck determines how high or low the tone is. By practicing your finger placement across the frets of the guitar, you will have the basics mastered for playing the guitar.
By practicing the five basic chords and being able to transition from one to the other seamlessly, you have a solid foundation on which to build more difficult finger patterns.
Conditioning those finger muscles
Learning to play the guitar is not without its suffering. As you first begin to practice your fingering you may notice that your fingertips are a little sore. You will develop calluses over time, and the soreness will go away. Until then practice frequently for shorter amounts of time to keep from getting too sore. Playing a chord properly involves really pressing on the string, so you will have to condition your fingers.
Tips for Better Playing
- Trim Nails – Sure you see famous country stars playing the guitar with three inch long nails, or are they? Keeping your nails trimmed will make it easy to master your fingering.
- Arches – Make little arches with your fingers so only the fingertip touches the intended string. If you lay flat fingers across the frets, you will dampen neighboring string’s vibrations and lose your musical sound.
- Calluses – Even though your fingertips will be sore at first, if you practice consistently you will quickly develop enough of a callus on your fingertip to make playing fun instead of painful.
- Consistency – Maintain consistent pressure on all of the notes in the chord, or you will end up with a weird sound.
- Practice – There is no substitute for practice. So have fun and practice often.
- Enjoy – Give yourself time to master these skills. If you rush you will only be frustrated, but if you take your time and start with easy songs, you will have a rocking good time.
The Lazy Guitarists Way To Change Chords Properly
How quickly can you change from one chord to another?
Like most intricate human activity, the key to learning the guitar, is to develop brain and muscle coordination, more commonly known as muscle memory needed to play the instrument.
Imagine a basketball player for example. The key to a good shooting performance is the proper hand-to-eye coordination in order to bring the ball up, prepare, aim, and successfully throw it in the hoop. The different muscles of the arms, wrist and hands will learn the right movements and strength needed to score.
It's All About Repetition
Constant practice will condition the eyes, brain and entire body to know the routine of shooting the ball.
It's the same with guitar playing. The muscles involved are in the wrists, arms and fingers, with the ears, eyes and brain working in unison to relate the movements to the music being read and the notes produced by the guitar. This is the mechanism that works when you're learning to changes chords.
The speed at which you change chords is going to be key to you mastering the guitar and playing songs.
But I'm Lazy! How Can I Improve My Chord Changing Technique?
Here are 3 tips to dramatically improve the speed at which you change chords.
- Visualise. Before playing, close your eyes for a second and visualise the chords you're going to be playing. See where your fingers are going to go and see yourself moving from chord to chord gracefully and economically. Do this for a minute before practicing the song.
- Find a 'hinge' finger. A hinge finger is a finger which stays on the same note as you change from one chord to the next. The secret is to keep this finger pressed down as you move the other fingers. For example, moving from C to Am to D7, a fairly common progression, you would keep your first finger on the second string , first fret throughout the movement. Because this note, a C, is common to all 3 chords you don't have to move it. So don't bother!
- Find a 'sliding' finger. A sliding finger is finger which stays on the same string during the chord change. For example, switching from E to D involves sliding the first finger up the G string from fret 1 to fret 2. So there's no need to lift the finger off the string. This is great news for us lazy guitarists! Sliding fingers are most useful when moving from a high to a low fretting position or vice versa.
- Play along with a song. Crank up your iTunes and put your favourite song on. Play along with the chord changes, even if you're just starting and can't keep up. Just make sure you attempt the changes as well as you can. After 3 run throughs of the same song you will notice that you have drastically improved your changing speed. You can also use a metronome for this technique by changing on chord on each "tock" of the metronome (tick, tock).
Do this for every song, and before you know it, you'll be playing a new song like a seasoned guitarist in no time at all.
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The First 3 Chords The Beatles Ever Learned
In the 1950s, long before the internet made lovely guitar learning sites like this possible 
, it was a little trickier to learn the guitar chords of your favourite songs on the radio.
So imagine the young Paul and John tearing their hair out trying to work out what chords Little Richard was playing on Good Golly Miss Molly. Or what Fats Domino was playing on I'm Walkin'.
According to the history books, they eventually got two chords nailed. E and A.
What was missing now was the elusive 3rd chords. After all, you can't play rock 'n' roll with only two chords. Not the songs the Beatles wanted to play anyway. What was the 3rd chords to compliment E and A and complete the puzzle.
They worked out it was B7. But none of them knew ho to play it. According to Paul they had heard of a guy on the other side of town who knew how to play B7.
So they all hopped on a bus and headed across Liverpool to gather apostle-like around the guy who knew B7 and pleaded to him to show them it. This he did and it turned out to be a little trickier than E and A.
But now that they had it, their arsenal of chords was complete and they were able to play virtually every rock 'n' roll song on the radio . . . and start writing their own. Consider Love Me Do for example, one of their earlier songs. It's a simple "3 chord trick" involving only E A and B7.
So here they are. The first 3 chords the Beatles ever learned.
E7 ---------------- A7
Love, love me do.
E7 ---------------- A7
You know I love you,
E7 -----------------A7
I'll always be true,
A7 E7
So please, love me do.
E7
Whoa, love me do.
(repeat)
B7
Someone to love,
A7 ------------ E7
Somebody new.
B7
Someone to love,
A7--------------- E7
Someone like you.
E7--------------- A7
Love, love me do.
E7 --------------- A7
You know I love you,
E7 --------------- A7
I'll always be true,
A7 E7
So please, love me do.
E7
Whoa, love me do.
So that's how you play Love Me Do. And you didn't even have to get a bus across town to learn it.
If you’re interested in finding out more about how to play chords I can highly recommend Jamorama.
The Jamorama program includes a chord training game. You'll be amazed at how quickly, just by playing this game, you'll train your ear without much effort and eventually you'll be able to recognize all 36 major, minor and seventh chords.
It’s also a complete step by step guitar learning system and all you’ll need to become a great guitarist.
The 5 CAGED Guitar Chords To Last You a Lifetime
At a basic level, guitar chords are formed with the fingers of the right hand and transformed into sound by strumming or picking strings with the right hand. Chords are played with two or more notes.
For the moment, don't worry about what you're right hand should be doing. It's probably easiest to just play down strokes with your thumb while you concentrate on the chords with your left hand.
The Basic Primary Chords
Categorically, there two kinds of chords - minor and major. And the basic primary chords are C,A,G,E,D or CAGED. If you are new to playing the guitar, mastering the CAGED pattern should be up there at the top of your things to do list. A lot of artists who mastered these basic chords confessed that it paved the way for easy manipulation of the other difficult chords.
The 6 Secrets Of The Chord Diagram
Don't panic! Reading a a chord diagram is not nearly as difficult as reading music. All you need to understand from a chord diagram is which fingers to put on which strings.
- Imagine holding the guitar vertically with the head pointing to the ceiling. This is the orientation of the chord diagram. The diagram represents the guitar's fretboard and strings.
- The vertical lines of the diagram represent the strings of the guitar. The vertical line furthest left on the diagram is the bottom E string and the furthest right vertical line on the diagram is the upper E string.
- The horizontal lines of the diagram represent the frets of the guitar. The very top horizontal line is usually represented in bold and is the 'nut' of the guitar (that's the plastic bar that the strings lie in). So the first fret is actually the second horizontal line on the diagram.
- The large black dots on the diagram are where you put your fingers.
- The numbers on the dots, or at the bottom of the diagram represent which finger should be used. 1 = Index finger, 2 = middle finger, 3 = ring finger, 4 = little finger. usually the thumb is not used.
- An X or a O at the top of each string means you don't put a finger on that string. If it's an X then you don't play the string at all and if it's a O then you play the string 'open' which means you don't put a finger on it.
if the chord is to be played further up the fretboard then a number appears to the left representing which fret to play at. But for now we'll be playing chords at the very top of the fretboard. These are called open chords.
Here are the chord diagrams for CAGED.
Troubleshooting
Often a lot of beginners complain how sore their fingers are after finishing one session with their guitar. This is a normal reaction. You should be surprised if you're not hurting even a bit, this means that you're not playing it correctly. Don't worry, the skin on your fingers will soon harden up if you do just 5 minutes a day.
The proper way to carry out fingering is by pressing your fingertips hard enough on the strings. When you notice that there is a buzzing sound, try to press harder on the strings. Try to place your fingers as close to the fret (on the right-hand side) a possible to avoid buzzing.
Fingernails Are Banned!
1) Cut those long fingernails. They will make it difficult for you to press the strings correctly.
2) Don't let your fingers lie down while playing for they tend to mute some strings. This is the most common mistake by beginners.
3) Be sure that the very top of your fingertips are in contact with the strings and not the flat, soft pad of your fingers. Maintain the straight arch. Aside from the fact that this is exhausting, this is also painful and difficult but will pay off as soon as calluses are produced.
4) Remember that you should press the notes altogether. Make sure that no strings are left out except the ones marked with an X.
5) Practice. 5 minutes a day. Memorize each chord pattern.
6) Don't rush yourself. If you do, it'll just frustrate you.
If you’re interested in getting really good at guitar chords I can highly recommend Jamorama.
It uncovers the truth about how to get a guitar at below dealer cost and how to decide whether you should learn how to play guitar on an acoustic or electric guitar, and just what to look out for if you choose to buy a used guitar!
It’s also a complete step by step guitar learning system and all you’ll need to become a great guitarist.
3 Guitar Chords That Will Blow your Friends Away
Impressive Chord Number 1
You're sitting at the back of the movies and the opening credits for Casino Royale are mesmerizing you.
The twangy guitar of the James Bond theme is making you feel like you're a special agent, licensed to kill.
Then the credits are brought to an end by the stark chiming of one of the most recognisable chords in the world.
Can you hear it in you're head now?
It's one of those chords that can never be used again without people recognizing where it comes from.
What's it called? How do I play it?
It's a minor 9 chord with a major 7. That's right, you heard me. Min9Maj7.
Here it is in the key of A minor.
Be sure to pluck the open A string hard and hit the top 4 strings with as much zeal and international mystery that you can.
Impressive Chord Number 2
This is the Jimi Hendrix chord. Best known for it's use in Purple Haze by Jimi Hendrix, our next awesome chord is the E7 sharp 9. (I can't find the wee sharp sign on my Mac keyboard. Don't they have guitar chords at Apple?).
Be sure to play this one only in E. You have to bang the bottom E string hard and hit the top 4 strings (much like the one above). Of course it can be played elsewhere on the keyboard but you miss out on the banging of the bottom E string.
Impressive Chord Number 3
You could call this a Pavlovian chord because when you strum it once, everyone listening will immediately start singing the same song.
Chickachaaaang . . . . . .it's been a hard days night . . .
What is that crazy opening chord? Well , in truth it's a combination of piano bass and guitar. To play it on the guitar, you play a G7sus4. The bass is playing a D and god knows what the piano is doing.
Here's the G7sus4 chord.
You have to barre at the third fret with your first finger to get the chord right. Or you could use a capo at the third fret and finger it with just the 2 and 3 fingers.
That's you're three chords to impress your friends with then. Enjoy them but one word of warning.
Don't wear them out. You'll never be invited back again if all you play is these 3 chords.
If you’re interested in getting really good at guitar chords I can highly recommend Jamorama.
It uncovers the truth about how to get a guitar at below dealer cost and how to decide whether you should learn how to play guitar on an acoustic or electric guitar, and just what to look out for if you choose to buy a used guitar!
It’s also a complete step by step guitar learning system and all you’ll need to become a great guitarist.