To start playing songs on your guitar you’ll want to first learn some of the easy guitar chords available to you. Later on you’ll have a chance to add to your repertoire but for now we’re going to stick with the 4 simplest chords available to you.
The holy grail for the beginner guitarist is being able to get their fingers to go to the right place, apply the right amount of pressure and not accidentally touch adjacent strings. No easy task. On top of that learning how to change from one chord to another and in time with the music is usually enough to send guitars flying. Follow these instructions carefully and you will bypass these obstacles.
I don’t think any guitar lesson is complete without applying the theory to a real world example and a practice routine you can use by yourself. We will cover a simple song using just three of the four chords you are about to learn and I will provide a routine for you to add to your daily, or weekly practice schedule that will help solidify this knowledge.
Open Chord: E Major
The EMaj Open Chord uses the notes E, B and G#. The Low E String is played open to give you the E, the A String is fretted by your 2nd finger at the 2nd fret to give you the B note, the D String is fretted by your 3rd finger at the 2nd fret to give you another E note, and the G String is fretted by your 1st finger at the 1st fret to give a G#. The rest of the strings are played open to give the final B and E notes.
GMaj Open Chord
Place your 1st finger on the 2nd string from the top, 2nd fret. Your 2nd finger on the top string 3rd fret, and your 3rd finger on the bottom string on the 3rd fret.
The C Major Open Chord
For this one we only strum from the 5th string down. Place your 1st finger on the 5th string from the top 1st fret, your 2nd finger 3rd string from the top 2nd fret and your 3rd finger 2nd string from the top 3rd fret.
The D Major Open Chord
The open chord D Major uses just the bottom four strings on your guitar, strum from the Open D String down. Place your 1st finger at the 2nd fret on the G String, your 2nd finger at the 2nd fret on the High E String and your 3rd finger at the 3rd fret on the B String. The Root Note is D which is played as the Open D String.
Now let’s put our theory into practice, we’re going to learn Knocking On Heaven’s Door by Guns N Roses, it’s a simple chord progression of 2 downstrokes of the G Major Chord, moving to 2 downstrokes of the D Major Chord and finishing with 4 downstrokes of the C Major Chord. You can find a backing track to play to by searching Google for “Knocking of Heavens Door backing track”.
I want to now give you the tools needed to practice the finger positions, strumming technique and changing between these four guitar chords. Remember to strum from the Root Note down for each chord. So the E and G Major chords start from the top, the C Major from the 2nd string down, and the D Major from the 3rd string down. Choose a sequence to follow for your practice session, for example G-D-C-E, and play each chord four times being mindful to make each note ring out clearly. Spend several minutes getting into the correct position for each chord before doing your four strums, then move onto the next.
Each day change the order of the chords, so if you chose E – G – D – C today, tomorrow you might choose D – C – E – G. The trick is to keep going over this loop until you can change to the next chord without skipping a beat, or without stopping your foot from tapping.
Take these four chords and practice getting your fingers into position, you don’t even need to strum them, I used to sit in front of the TV with my guitar just moving my fingers into different chord positions, when I came to play the next day I noticed my speed and finger strength had already improved.
Adam Summers is out to bust the myth that you need money to learn how to play guitar. What you really need is a teacher who’s looking out for your best interests and time to practice. Check out some more free resources on guitar chords for beginners at InstantGuitarist.com.
