Guitar.com - A place for guitarists to call home

Forums > Beginners > Tips for Learning Basic Guitar Chords

Jump:

Forums > Beginners > Tips for Learning Basic Guitar Chords

Code of Conduct Search

Original message:428 days 13 hours 36 minutes ago

+ 1

Member: penguin 3

1
WebCred

Tips for Learning Basic Guitar Chords

Here's something I wanna share to all beginners like me. I came across this article in the course of my guitar studies... read on...

Tips for Learning the Basic Chords:

1. Pick a Chord Family and master it. This will give you quick success and let you play great sounding progressions right away.

2. Use a Guitar Chord Chart as a reference tool. A chord chart shows each chord as an easy to read "chord diagram" with exact finger positions. See this example of a chart of basic guitar chords.

3. Find the chords and lyrics for an easy song that is based on the chord family so you can apply your skills. Many great songs are based on only three chords!

4. Ensure each string sounds right. Take care to make sure that each string is sounding clearly, and that only the strings that should be played are played.

5. Practice, practice, practice! Every day, practice continually change from one chord to another until you can do it rapidly. Learn the chord families one at a time.

6. Master all the basic chords first. Only then move on to Barre chords and other more complex chords. First things first!

7. Expand with 7th chords. As a next step you can easily expand on your basic chord knowledge by adding 7th and minor 7th chords based on the nine basic major and minor chords.

8. Have fun using your new skills! Enjoy your musical ability by applying it to learning a small set of 5-10 songs you know really well and can confidently play at any time.

Source:http://www.articlesbase.com

Reply:427 days 6 hours 52 minutes ago
Member: Michael

7
WebCred

Great advice! I would also suggest practicing the chord changes with the left hand alone, analysing the movements of the left hand. This will bring a lot of progress very quickly, thereby motivating the student.

www.ferrisguitar.com

Reply:427 days 6 hours 46 minutes ago
Member: Savva_Rhythm

417
WebCred

So where can i find the Chord Families, and Chord Chart? As I'm self taught

My music recommendations:

My gear recommendations:

To Live Is To Die

Reply:426 days 23 hours 53 minutes ago
Member: dcunning30

3391
WebCred

When you say chord family, do you mean something like this:

A - Ami - Amaj7 - Ami7 - Adom7 - A6 ....etc?

If so, I've seen chord charts that show that stuff, it's very good as reference material, but it's of minimal to actually learn chord progressions. Once you can play chord progressions with just the maj and min chords, then learning chord families really comes into good use, but you gotta be able to play progressions first.

My music recommendations:

Reply:426 days 57 minutes ago
Member: dcunning30

3391
WebCred

My opinion, if you're really serious about your chord work, learn the chord scale. Learn it like, yesterday! What's the chord scale? Glad you asked. In a nutshell:

Key of A: A - Bmi - C#mi - D - E7 - F#mi - G#dim - A

This really is not a daunting task, there's a relationship between the chords that is true regardless of which key you're in. we'll refer to the chords by using roman numerals, so when you see a roman numeral below, that represent a chord. capital numbers are major chords, lower case chords are minor chords. the vii chord is dimished, though.:

(ws) whole step = two frets
(hs) half step = 1 fret

I wh ii wh iii hs IV ws V ws vi ws vii hs I

My music recommendations:

Jump:

This is your home page. Here you'll see real time activity on guitar.com from the forums, groups, blogs, music and gear recommendations and more. You can add whatever content you want to your home page via rss and move it around via drag-and-drop.

Tell others about yourself, your favorite music, gear, movies, genres you play, set your screenname, share your bookmarks, embed vids and more. If others buy music or gear based on your recommendation, you get a commision.

Start or add to discussions, embed outside URL's for discussion, embed vids and have your music and gear recommendations seen.

If you've got something to say, chances are someone wants to read it. Write your blog for education or amusement, embed vids or images and pass out the link. Guitar.com gives you advertising revenue generated from your blog pages.

See what you're fellow musicians are listening to and watch YouTube videos based on artist names.

Ever wondered just how musicians get that sound? On guitar.com musicians list the gear they use and tell you why they use it.

List stuff for sale or swap in our classifieds section.

Create and manage groups. Make them private or public. Manage them at anytime.

Learn a tip trick or lesson from other musicians and professional educators in the Get Educated section. Have a tip trick or lesson to share? Create your blog, mark it as educational and drive traffic to it from here.