Be it electric or acoustic guitar, chords are essential – and this easy-to-follow lesson provides the perfect way to begin!
Ayla Tesler-Mabe provides eight essential beginner chords. Additionally, she demonstrates how standard open chords can easily be transformed into power chords with just a bit of creativity!
Basic Chords
Chord progressions form the backbone of many songs, altering its rhythm, texture and feel to create new sounds and styles. Chords consist of three or more notes played simultaneously to change rhythm, texture and feel in any given track; open or power chords may be employed depending on desired results.
Em Open Chord will be our starting point. Em is one of the easier chords to learn on guitar and can be found in many songs; additionally, it’s a fantastic way to start learning finger positions; placing fingers closer to frets will reduce chances of accidentally touching adjacent strings that cause muted or buzzy sounds.
C Major and C Sharp chords follow a similar interval pattern to E form chords but start on different strings, helping you understand how shifting its shape alters its sound.
Major Chords
Once you’ve mastered the fundamentals, it’s time to expand your repertoire with chords. Chords are groups of notes stacked together that allow for richer songs than one single note could convey.
As opposed to traditional sheet music, guitar chord diagrams contain numbers instead of letters above each string. Ayla provides instruction for new guitarists on eight essential chords for learning guitar: E Major, E Minor, A Major, D Major, C Major 7 and one unique G major chord.
Each chord has a unique shape and fingering, as well as being written in different keys, so it is crucial that your scale starts on bass E and advances to B, G, D, A and back down again until it reaches bass E again. In some instances you will also see that some strings have an “X” or an “O” above them; this indicates either they should not be played at all or an octave higher than intended.
An octave difference occurs when two singers use different octaves to produce harmony by singing the same note at different octaves simultaneously.
Minor Chords
Once you’ve mastered major chords, it’s time to move on to minor ones – these offer an ideal opportunity to expand both your chord repertoire and songwriting techniques.
Minor chords differ from major ones by having an added 8th note, which makes them distinct. When learning these chords it’s essential to keep this fact in mind.
Minor chords feature distinctive shapes on the fretboard that allow them to be quickly identified. To learn more about this topic, check out our Chord Chart Basics lesson.
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7 Chords
As you learn guitar chords, it is essential to keep in mind that each shape can move up and down the neck – giving each chord its distinctive sound while helping you form cohesive chord progressions.
Most guitarists will utilize a chord chart when learning new shapes and chords. Like music staff, chord charts display each string’s note from your playing position while showing which fingers are on which frets.
It is essential that when reading a chart, only ever use the correct finger placements on each chord. Doing this will build muscle memory and ensure smooth chord changes every time. Beginners sometimes make the mistake of changing finger placements randomly across chords – this slows you down and makes changing chords faster more challenging.