which chords to learn first on guitar
Chords and scales are the greatest important part of learning to play the guitar. There are literally thousands of chords and not all of them are essential. You need to be familiar with A B C D E F G and their minors as well. Once you have learnt those, you need to learn 7th chords. These are the most elementary chords you need to know.
If all you want is the diagrams for guitar chords, the best place to go to is:
http://www.all-guitar-chords.com
They will show you more chords than you will need to know or use.
There is an easy way to learn chords that just involves memorizing a few chords and the notes of the 5th and 6th strings (the two low strings).
Go to website mentioned and look at the E Major chord. The diagram doesn’t show the fingerings, but the text books commonly state to set the first finger on the third string, the second finger on the fifth string, and the third finger on the fourth string.
Instead, what you can do is to lift up the first finger and use the second finger on the third string, the third finger on the fifth string, and the little finger on the fourth string.
While holding the fingers on the strings, move them up the neck to a different place and put the first finger across the strings, making a bar, at the fret below the second finger. The strings that were earlier being played open, are now being played at the first finger bar.
This now allows you to play any major chord by moving the chord to a different fret. The root note of the chord is on the sixth string, meaning you will need to learn the notes on the sixth string.
Open – E. 1st fret – F. 3rd – G. 5th – A. 7th – B. 8th – C. 10th – D. 12th – back to E and so on. The sharp and flat notes fall at the frets in between. So if you’re first finger bar is at the fifth fret, you are playing the A Major chord.
Now take a look at the E Minor chord. It’s the same chord but with the third string now played open. You can use the same idea to play this Minor chord at any fret on the guitar neck.
Next take a look at the E7 chord, not the Emaj7, this is a different chord. Once Again, it’s the same as the E Major chord, this time it’s the fourth string that’s played open. And again, it can be played at any position on the neck.
You can now play any Major, Minor, or 7th chord by just learning one chord and moving up or down the neck.
If you don’t desire to keep moving your hands up and down the neck so much to change chords, you can use another chord shaping.
This time, take a look at the A Major chord. Here you can see that the root note is on the fifth string. Instead of holding the three notes down with individual fingers, I place the third finger across the three strings and use the first finger to bar the remaining strings.
You might find that the first string gets muted playing the chord this way. It just takes practice, but it might not matter too much if you are playing rock with distortion. Likewise note, it shows that you don’t play the sixth string. You can because that note is part of the chord. The reason they show the sixth string as not played is because, in theory, the lowest note played must be root note of the chord, which is the fifth string.
Whether you play the sixth string or not is up to you. Whether the first string is played or muted, again it’s up to you.
To use this chord, you need to learn the notes on the fifth string.
Open – A. 2nd fret – B. 3rd – C. 5th – D. 7th – E. 8th – F. 10th – G. 12th – back to An and so on.
So now, if you’re playing a G chord at the third fret with the E style chord, you don’t have to go all the way up to the eighth fret to play C. Just lift up the third and little fingers and place the third finger down across the second, third, and fourth strings, with the first finger still holding the bar at the third fret.
You can do the same with the A Minor chord and A7 chord. You should be getting the idea now.
A simpler way to play the A7 chord is to leave the third finger bar in place from the A Major chord and set the little finger on the third fret of the first string. This still gives the A7 chord and can still be played at different positions on the neck.
Now on to power chords. These are real easy. Say you want a G power chord. Find the G note on the sixth string which is at the third fret. Put your first finger there. Place your third finger two frets up on the fifth string which is the fifth fret. This is your G power chord.
Technically, this is a G5 chord. If you know your major scales, the note on the fifth string is the fifth note of the major scale.
This can also be done up and down the fret board.
This can also be done using the fifth and fourth strings with the note on the fifth string being the root note.
You can also do the power chords with three strings. With the G power chord, place the third finger over both the fifth and fourth strings at the fifth fret. This extra note on the fourth string is another G note an octave higher.
With the fifth string root note power chord, move the third finger down on to the fourth string and leave the first finger barring both the fifth and sixth strings. The extra note on the sixth string is another fifth note of the major scale an octave lower.
If you think your guitar playing would improve by learning guitar scales and notes, go to:
Guitar Scale Mastery
and
Guitar Note Mastery
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