Guitar Chords For Beginners

G Major

janesuperstar — Sun, 28 Aug 2011 21:24:31 +0000

Guitar Chords For Beginners – G Major

Welcome to another guitar chords for beginners video guitar lesson.

Here is a very common progression in G. In fact it’s the same chord progression for “Stand By Me” and loads of other songs.

G Em C D Progression

G Major stretches across all 6 strings so it’s a great workout for beginners. There’s also two different fingerings for G. One sounds a bit brighter and happier while the 4 fingered G has a more modern sound to it.

Make sure you learn them both!

E Minor

chordmaster — Sun, 28 Aug 2011 21:20:49 +0000

Guitar Chords For Beginners – E Minor

Welcome to another guitar chords for beginners video guitar lesson.

There’s only one finger different between E minor and E major. If you’re just starting to learn acoustic guitar practice changing from C to E minor. If you use fingers 1 and 2 for E minor then there will only be one finger different between the 2 chords.

C to Em Exercise

Once you know G major, C major and D major then you would be able to play a I VI IV V (One Six Four Five) progression in the key of G. This is a very common chord progression and it’s often used in rock, pop and country.

G Em C D Progression

C Major

chordmaster — Sun, 28 Aug 2011 21:12:27 +0000

Guitar Chords For Beginners – C Major

Welcome to another guitar chords for beginners video guitar lesson.

C Major stretches across 3 frets and if you’re just starting to learn acoustic guitar it will help you to develop a good stretch with the fretting hand.

Practice changing between C major and A minor. There’s only one finger different between these two chords. They also sound very similar because Am is the relative minor of C major.

C to Am Exercise

Learn To Play B7

chordmaster — Sun, 28 Aug 2011 21:03:47 +0000

Guitar Chords For Beginners – B7

Welcome to another guitar chords for beginners lesson.

B7 is cool sounding chord! Once you know it you’ll be able to play the three chord trick in E.

B7 is also known as B Dominant 7 and it normally resolves to E.

It’s a good idea to practice changing from E to B7. The fingers stay on relatively the same frets. Check it out, it sounds cool as well!

Three Chord Trick in E

You’ll need to know E major and A major as well.

F Major

chordmaster — Sun, 28 Aug 2011 20:33:11 +0000

Guitar Chords For Beginners – F Major

Welcome to another guitar chords for beginners lesson.

F major can be quite tricky to play because you need to play 2 strings at the same time with one finger. But as long as you practice it really isn’t that hard. You’ll need to twist your first finger of the fretting hand on it’s side a bit so that you can use the bonier side of your finger to fret both notes.

Have a look at how I’m playing it in the video.

A good way to practice F would be to play a basic chord change from C major to F major. Essentially your fingers will be playing the same formation and with a bit of practice your F should sound great!

C to F Exercise

A Minor

chordmaster — Sun, 28 Aug 2011 20:24:58 +0000

Guitar Chords For Beginners – A Minor

A minor (also written as Am) is the exact same chord shape as E major except it’s played a string higher than E. So if you’d like to practice your A minor chord, start by playing E to Am over and over as you just have to move a string up or down to change between the chords.

E to Am Exercise

Once you have that down try and practice changing from Am to C major. Only one finger has to change which is the 3rd finger that moves from the second fret on the G string to the third fret on the A string. Practice it in the same way as you did with the previous example.

C to Am Exercise

Learn To Play D Major

chordmaster — Sat, 18 Jun 2011 11:18:33 +0000

D Major – Guitar Chords For Beginners

Welcome to another guitar chords for beginners video guitar lesson.

Here’s the fingering for D Major.

Don’t Play the Low E String

Don’t Play the A String

Open D String

1st Finger 2nd Fret on the G string

3rd Finger 2rd Fret on the B String

2nd Finger 2nd Fret on the High E String

You have to be careful with D Major because it’s easy to touch the 1st string with the 3rd finger on the B string if it’s not arched properly. That means it won’t ring out and that is quite an important note in D Major. That F# is the note that makes the chord major. You can check out my 4 tips for beginners to learn how to get the most out of you guitar chords.

D Major is used to play the 3 chord trick in A major, D major and G Major, so it’s definitely a handy chord to learn. It also happens to be a wonderful voicing when it comes to embellishing open chords which we will look at in more detail at a later stage.

If you want a fat sounding D Major add the open A string to the chord.

Technically it becomes D/A pronounced “D over A” and you’ll hear it has quite a fat sound which is cool to use as well. If you use the 4 finger voicing for G major then your 3rd finger can stay on the 3rd fret on the 2nd string when changing between G and D which is quite handy to change faster between chords.

Use this chord to play the 3 chord progressions in the 3 different keys of A, D and G. You’ll be equipped to play 100′s of songs then. Be sure to learn some strumming patterns as well. Rhythm is VERY important!

Happy strumming and leave a comment on this page if you’re enjoying these lessons. I will be adding more lessons soon.

Learn To Play A Major

chordmaster — Fri, 17 Jun 2011 13:50:48 +0000

A Major – Guitar Chords For Beginners

Welcome to another guitar chords for beginners lesson.

A to D Exercise

There’s three common fingerings for this chord. I normally advise beginners to go with the 3rd fingering as shown in the video. When you first start learning guitar you should always go with fingerings that come easy to you. We’re all different so try all three options and see which one is the easiest for you. No need to make things harder than they need to be right?

Fingering One:

Don’t Play 6th String

Open A String

2nd Finger 2nd Fret on the D String

1st Finger 2nd Fret on the G string

3rd Finger 2nd Fret on the B String

Open High E String

Fingering Two:

Don’t Play 6th String

Open A String

1st Finger 2nd Fret on the D String

2nd Finger 2nd Fret on the G string

3rd Finger 2nd Fret on the B String

Open High E String

Fingering Three:

Don’t Play 6th String

Open A String

2nd Finger 2nd Fret on the D String

3rd Finger 2nd Fret on the G string

4th Finger 2nd Fret on the B String

Open High E String

So there you have 3 fingerings to explore. In the long run you’ll probably end up learning all three. Reason is that certain fingerings will flow easier into certain chords so it just depends on where you’ve come from and where you’re going chord wise. The key is to start with the easy version and over time learn them all.

Below you’ll find a progression for the three chord trick in A.

Here is a three chord trick in E Major. (You’ll need to know D major and E major as well)

Here’s another cool progression you can try.

It’s always a good idea to learn one or two strumming patterns when you put new chords together. Check out this site that’s entirely devoted to strumming patterns.

Learn To Play E Major

chordmaster — Fri, 17 Jun 2011 13:14:05 +0000

E Major – Guitar Chords For Beginners

E Major is probably in the top 5 guitar chords for beginners. It’s a big sounding chord and very easy easy to play.

6th String is Open

2nd Finger 2nd Fret on the A String

3rd Finger 2nd Fret on the D String

1st Finger 1st Fret on the G string

Open B String

Open High E String

Sneaky Trick – Move this chord shape down one string and you’ll end up with A minor!

Three Chord Trick In E

E Major goes along great with A Major and B7 which of course makes up the three chord trick in E.

Three Chord Trick In A

You can also use it with A Major and D Major for the three chord trick in A.

Cool Progression in E

Another cool progression to play is E to G to A.

E Major is quite handy to use if you’d like to see if your guitar is properly tuned which is very important! Loads of people learn acoustic guitar on an out of tune acoustic guitar which is not the way the go. Make sure you’re guitar is in tune every time before you start playing, it will sound so much better.

Simple Strumming For Acoustic Guitar

chordmaster — Tue, 14 Jun 2011 17:49:16 +0000

When you learn to play guitar, you may find it easy to learn a couple of guitar chords for beginners or to learn a simple strumming pattern. The problem usually comes when you try and put everything together with the intention of writing, or playing a famous song. All of a sudden you find that the fingers won’t stay where you placed them and they won’t move to the next chord shape in time or accurately. To top it all off you also have to worry about the right hand movement an any strings you might need to mute or skip. It’s a lot of work undoubtedly.

Let’s be honest, when we play guitar there’s a lot going on and we have to keep all aspects of our playing under control in order to sound good. Because of this it’s best to break things down as much as possible.

The key at this stage is to slow it down as much as possible. This way the brain will have enough time to multitask each motion and movement. Once you can play a simple two chord pattern at a relatively slow tempo, then you can start thinking about bringing up the speed gradually.

What you don’t want to do is overload your brain with too much information all at once. You will benefit more if you learn a couple of chords at the time. It is better to play one strumming pattern as best as you can, than to play a lot of patterns badly.

As an example try this exercise that combines a simple strumming pattern with some basic guitar chords for beginners.

Example 1

Here the right hand motion should be Down – Down – Down/Up – Down for both bars. The tricky part comes when you have change chord. However here’s a tip you might find useful.

The third finger (ring finger) of your left hand stays on the B string for both chords, in fact you only have to move the third finger one fret back to play the A chord. So there’s really no need to lift that finger at all, rather use it as an ‘anchor’ for your left hand. This way when it’s time to change chord you have less fingers to move and an anchor to help you do it faster.

Because the third finger only goes back one fret, you don’t really have to lift it at all. This is often a bad habit that a lot of players have. Whenever you play you should aim to make things as easy as possible for you.

Has this lesson been helpful? Let me know in the comments below.