Printable guitar chord charts can be an invaluable resource for beginner guitarists. These charts display which strings and frets you should press with your fingers in order to form each chord.
For optimal sound, fret all vertically-stacked numbers at once in order to get a fuller tone; otherwise fret each string separately.
Basic Chords
At first, every beginner must become acquainted with and become comfortable with some basic chords – known as triads – which usually consist of three notes. Chord charts usually display these triads with circles or other shapes representing which finger should play each note on them, followed by numbers indicating which strings and frets they use, along with any indications for playing them or no longer using them, such as an “X.”
These basic chords will enable you to play most popular songs without additional resources, and memorizing them quickly will help ensure that they become part of your playing repertoire. Though intervals (changing more than one or two notes at the same time) are possible in chords, that topic falls outside the scope of this article and requires further study – for now just learn the fundamentals and practice until your fingers calluses up!
Major Chords
These chords are essential in developing your basic repertoire as a guitarist. Being open chords, they do not require bar finger positions – making learning to play guitar much simpler!
These chords consist of the first, fourth and fifth notes from a major scale and can add suspense before or after parallel major or minor chords.
These chords may be written as single letters or as series of numbers such as X32010. Each string in turn corresponds to a different number; pressing one string presses two others, while muted indicates whether or not this chord should be played open or muted.
Practice switching chords slowly and carefully using a metronome until you can do this without it. Next, try playing with a drummer or singing along to some songs to familiarize yourself with rhythm and how these chords fit together as part of a song’s arrangement.
Minor Chords
Minor chords tend to have more melancholic tones than Major ones, and often produce sounds described as tragic or sad. Many great classical pieces were written using this mode such as Fur Elise by Beethoven, Prelude in C minor by Rachmaninoff, and Greensleeves by Traditional.
Minor chords resemble major chords in their structure; the only difference being that the third note (or octave) has been reduced by one fret for easier playability and greater compatibility with major chords found nearby or before or after it.
Once you’ve mastered basic major and minor chords, try playing around with minor 7th, minor 9th, and minor 13th chords to gain more insight into how they move across the fretboard – you might also discover any patterns or shapes!
Open Chords
Open chords are ideal for beginners as they do not require any finger to press down on a fret. Plus, their sound makes an acoustic guitar truly beautiful as its open strings ring out beautifully!
To play open chords on the left hand, number your fingers from 1 through 4 on that hand – index finger = 1, middle finger = 2, ring finger = 3 and pinky finger = 4. The black circles on the chord chart show you where to position each of your fingers; numbers inside these circles represent comfortable fingering for pressing strings; an ‘X’ symbol above certain strings indicates you should skip playing them; “O” symbols denote picking or strumming those strings instead.
When playing chords, ensure that each string sounds clear and unmuted! If any don’t, determine whether your fingers may have accidentally touched another string, or that you are pressing down too lightly on one.