Unlearning some basic chords is an essential first step for any beginning guitarist, as this will enable them to start learning songs quickly.
Start out by exploring C major, G major, and A minor scales – they’re frequently found in music composition and should be fairly easy for beginners to pick up on.
Major
Beginner guitar chords are the cornerstones of any song, and this section covers some of the major chords you should know as a beginner: A, E and D major open chords and D major. All are used frequently across many musical genres and they’re simple and enjoyable to play – they sound amazing too.
At first, playing the A major open chord can seem tricky because it involves placing your finger down on the high E string; but once you get used to it it becomes much simpler. For best results, practice this shape alone without other strings playing so that your finger placement is correct; this will enable you to develop muscle memory so you can play these chords quickly and smoothly.
Once you’ve mastered some basic major chords, you can move on to more advanced ones like minor and dominant seventh chords – these require additional skills such as barre or capo work that we will discuss later.
As part of learning new chords, it’s essential to always double check each finger placement and ensure your fingers come down on the fret with their fingertips straight, to achieve a clean and clear sound. Play each chord separately so you can listen for how it sounds – notes should be clear or muffled? After playing an A minor 7 chord for example, listen carefully to how each string sounds before revisiting that chord later to listen for how each note/string sounds – this process may take time but will make chord changes much smoother in future!
Minor
Minor chords are among the first chords that beginner guitarists should learn, often beginning in ballads or slow songs. A basic minor chord consists of three notes C, E and G with any note lower than its root note being flattened or sharped by one fret; adding an extended dominant 7th (marked with “m7”) makes your minor chord even stronger and adds darker tones to it.
Minor chords are formed similarly to major ones: beginning at their root note and finding the notes for second, third and fifth notes before moving these intervals up or down the fretboard to find different voicings of it.
When stacking two minor thirds together, an augmented chord (C, E and G#) results. By mixing in major and minor thirds into the mix, a diminished chord (C Db G#) occurs. The difference between major and minor chords lies in their quality of 5th chord tone – hence why their names refer more directly to their fifth than root notes.
Once you have an understanding of basic minor chords, the next step should be creating more complex ones. A fingerboard chart and knowledge of scales is invaluable when trying to build more advanced chords; an excellent starting point would be the maj-min-dim-m7 progression in C major; this chord progression provides great material for rhythm guitar parts as well as lead parts. You could also start adding inversions to minor chords – even slight changes to finger placement can alter their sound significantly!