Learning guitar chords made easy
When first learning guitar chords, its best to start by learning them in the right order. That just means learn the ones that you really must know to start with, leave the ones with the fancy names until later, for now its the basics that need to be clear in your mind and fingers.If you have a chord book then please dont use it as a tutor and try and work your way through it, learning every single chord shown. That will just make you annoyed and want to give up. There are bound to be chords in there that you are highly unlikely to ever use anyway. Why learn them if you will never need them?
In music, no matter what type, be it rock, country or orchestral or any other type you can think of the basic chords are exactly the same. Of course there is a lot more going on in and orchestra than a simple guitar strum, but the basic facts are the same. Most chords are made up of three notes no matter what instrument they are played on.
Have a look at the C major chord thats played down near the nut.
This contains just 3 notes, C, E and G. Some of the notes are repeated, they are C,E,G,C and E
If we played the barre version of this chord at the eighth fret, the notes remain the same. This time they are C,G,C,E,G,C.
The same three notes just mixed up and played in a slightly different order.
So remember, a basic major chord has three notes.
Heres another useful thing to remember. Chords can be broken down into three basic types. Major, Minor and Seventh.
No need to concern yourself with the whys and wherefores at the moment. The names are just to describe the sound that each makes.
Using the chord of C again try playing the three different types, Major, Minor and Seventh. Listen and take note of how each sounds. How does the major chord make you feel? It sounds like a positive happy chord that can stand alone. Now try this with the minor chord. How do you feel after listening to this one? Sadder perhaps? also it doesn't stand alone as easily as the major chord, more like it needs a chord to follow it to finalise it.
This can be heard a lot more in the seventh chord. How does this sound to you? Does it need to be finished off somehow? like another chord must definitely follow it? If this is how you felt when hearing the chords well done. You have begun to train your ear. Dont worry if you dont hear the difference straight away. Just keep coming back and trying the exercise. With time you will start to hear the subtle differences.
With these three chord forms in all keys you really can play an awful lot of music. So the best way to cover a lot of ground in a very short space of time is to concentrate on learning these three types of chord in all keys.
Here are the diagrams of the ones that you will certainly need to know.
The next step is to move on to forming chords that have a sharp or flat in their name, but dont worry there is a simple way to achieve this and that is by learning to play barre chords as soon as possible.
If you have ever looked at these before and decided that they are impossible for you, think again. Every player that ever lived has thought the same thing.
See you in part two for some hints on how to learn and play these little rascals.