Making Music With Acoustic Guitar Chords

When you play several notes on your guitar at the same time, you are actually playing an acoustic guitar chord.  There are many different acoustic guitar chords that you can learn, but you only need to know a few to be able to play hundreds of different songs. You can even vary how you play a song so that you only use the chords you know.  There are two types of chord you will need to learn. Major chords produce a brighter sound, whilst minor chords have a much darker, sadder sound when played. 

As is the same with tabs, guitar chords are notated using diagrams.  The difference between the two is that, with tabs, the lines will run across the diagram (horizontally), whereas chords are represented by the string lines running top to bottom (vertically)

When you take a look at a chord diagram, the first thing you will spot is a grid.  The vertical lines represent the strings and the horizontal lines represent the frets (the area between two metal bars on the fingerboard).  The dots tell you where you should hold the string down. You will also see numbers, either at the top or the bottom of the diagram. These tell you which finger you should use to hold down each string, with 1 meaning index, 2 middle, 3 ring finger and 4 is the pinky.  Where you see a number 0, that string is left open and played.  Where you see an X, that string is left open and should not be plucked.  The thumb is only used on rare occasions, but when it is, it’s noted as T. 

So, lets look at a couple of easy acoustic guitar chords that we can start with:

G-major

To play G-major, start off by placing your middle finger at the third fret on string six.  Next, put your index finger on string five, fret two.  Finally, your ring finger should go on the first string, third fret.  Now play each string one at a time, including the open ones.  Listen to each note as you play it, and if it sounds a little off, check that you are holding down the strings tightly and that your fingers are not overlapping the strings then try again until you are happy with it. You can then strum all strings at once and voila! You have played your first chord.

E-minor

For this chord, you need to place your index finger on the second fret of the fifth string, and your middle finger on the fret two of string four.  Make sure there is enough room on the fret for both fingers without letting them touch each other.  Once again, start by strumming each note until you are happy with finger placement and the individual sounds, then strum the full chord.

Some other basic acoustic guitar chords you can learn are D-major and A-major.  We cover these in part one of the free online course.  You will then be ready to move on to chord progression.

Chord progression is basically moving back and forth between acoustic guitar chords.  The key is to try to get your fingers in place as quickly as possible.  You will probably find that it takes a little time to perfect, so start by getting your fingers in place one at a time.  Do this over and over again, aiming to be quicker each time. Doing this helps build muscle memory, so that, eventually, your fingers will just fit in place automatically.