Which beginners guitar chords are easiest to play?

Here are the simplest chords you can play on a guitar with standard tuning.

The G chord - one finger version.

Place your third finger behind the third fret, on the first string of the guitar, and strum the first four strings. That’s a simplified G chord.

Okay, I see I’m going to have to explain a few basics on the guitar. Firstly, the strings on a guitar are numbered one to six, and the first string is the thinnest string and has the highest pitch.

I sometimes catch myself getting this wrong, and assuming that the thickest string is the first one. It’s a natural mistake.

The second thing is the finger numbering, which is quite logical, seeing as your index finger is the first finger, seeing as that’s the one you point with.

The second, third and fourth finger are the rest in logical sequence.

Frets are the metal bars in the fretboard behind which you place your fingers. The frets are numbered from the nut, so the nut of the guitar is basically zero. A long time ago, some guitars had a nut, and then immediately after there was a zero fret that the strings rested on.

Anyway, I’m sure you get the idea.

For this version of the G chord, the reason why I chose to use the third finger is because later, when you play the full G chord, your first and second fingers get used.

If you place your first finger on the first fret of the first string, and play the first four strings, you’ve got a G7 chord.

The simplified C chord on guitar.

For this chord you place your first finger on the second string behind the first fret. Here you only strum the first three strings.

So far, those are the simplest guitar chords I can come up with using standard tuning on the guitar. For small children just getting the hang of playing the guitar, these are an easy starting point.

The C and G guitar chords go very well together, but are only suited to a two chord song on the guitar. It’s a bit limiting. To really learn to play the guitar, a beginner would have to start with the open chords, which are still fairly easy to play.

Open chords are called open because they are all played within the first three fret spaces of the guitar, and use some notes from the open unfretted strings.

The open chords you’ll begin with.

The most common guitar chords for beginners are the major and minor open chords. For the major chords there is A, C, D, E and G.

For the minor guitar chords you’ve got A min (min is the chord suffix for minor) then D min and E min. This is a lot better than the one finger chords, but as you can see from the list, there is a lot more needed to be able to play any song you want.

On the positive side, the open chords are the building blocks for more complex and difficult chords on the guitar, and even though there are some chords missing, by changing the key of some songs, you could easily build a fairly large repertoire of songs to play with open chords.

Andrew Webber is a professional guitarist who’s website play-electric-guitar.net has enough Free guitar lessons to get you started on the guitar, not least of which is his page on Open guitar chords.

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guitar scales

How important are scales?

It appears that learning and understanding scales is vital to becoming a better guitarist, how many scales should I learn and which scales should I learn first?

Good questions, the truth is scales re important, they’re like our musical alphabet. The thing to keep in mind is that you only need to know a few scales, guitarists often become obsessed with practicing scales and over their real purpose which is to make music.

Here’s a list to help you choose what scales to practice and eliminate the confusion.

Tip 1 — Select a style

With literally thousands of scales to learn the first thing to do is decide on which style of music you want to play. Certain scales are more applicable to particular types of music e.g., the minor pentatonic scale works well for rock, blues, metal music…mainly songs with power chords.

The blues scale is used mainly for rock, blues, metal music while the major pentatonic scale is mostly used for country, pop, country rock …generally songs with open chords.

Of course, I’m generalizing here, you can use any scale you wish for any style of music, however some scales work better than others. The idea is to use the correct musical alphabet (scale) for the style of music you want to play.

Tip 2 — start on the keynote

Simply running up and down a scale won’t produce any meaningful music no matter how fast you play them. It won’t communicate anything to the listener.

The idea is to train our brain and fingers to make musical decisions, which note do you want to play next? Where is the note I’m hearing in my head is it higher or lower than the previous note?

To get this brain — fingers connection practice starting on the keynote of the scale and decide whether your next note is higher or lower than the keynote.

The keynote is the first note of the scale, e.g., the keynote for the A minor pentatonic scale would be “A”.

Tip 3 — record a background

Once you have decided on a scale to practice, record a background in the key you want to practice. The recording does not have to be elaborate, a simple acoustic guitar will work fine.

Record the backing track for 5 to 10 minutes duration, this will give you plenty of time to practice and try out your ideas.

A good idea is to try and play just one note (the keynote is an idea choice for this), practice all different types of rhythms, slides, bends etc., to see how creative you can be.

Recording a backing track is very helpful as you will find that you react differently to certain chord textures, the same note will sound different when played against a variety of chords.

Tip 4 — learn all keys

Guitarists should practice their favorite scale(s) in all keys, this is especially important when working with singers.

Each key has it’s own personality, certain keys have a warm feeling, while others are bright.

Try playing a “G” minor pentatonic scale over a recorded background in the key of “G”, then, play a “B” minor pentatonic scale over a pre-recorded background in the key of “B”.

Scales can “free your fingers and freeze your brain” the whole idea of scales is to help you play music. Think of music as a language, scales are our musical alphabet, knowing the alphabet is just the beginning, it’s how we use the alphabet to communicate that’s important.

These ideas will help you develop your own style and soon you will be transferring the music you are hearing in your head onto the guitar.

Mike Hayes develops systems and products to help you succeed in your guitar playing. Find out more about how to learn guitar fast with his popular free ecourse, available at:
=> http://www.guitarcoaching.com

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Is there a best way to practice on your guitar? Of course you have to make your practice sessions effective but could there be a way to practice that is more effective than other ways?

There are many principles involved in an effective practice session and I think some of these are:

1. A motivation founded on a love and passion for the music you can produce on the guitar.

2. An acceptance of the fact that you must practice on that technical level you have reached.

3. A working knowledge of muscle tensions and how to minimize them when you play and how to work on reducing them when you don’t play.

What shall we do until we find the most effective way to practice on the guitar?

When I was studying music at an academic level I many times had the question messing around in my mind about the ultimate method for practicing on my guitar and other instruments I played.

A well renowned jazz tenor saxophonist who was my teacher in jazz improvisation discussed this issue with me as I asked him and he gave me the most intelligent answer I ever heard before or after. He said with a smile, “until you find out the best way to practice, practice anyway!”

How effective can a practice session be?

My humble opinion after much practicing and playing guitar and piano and other instruments and also teaching piano and guitar is that you have to take many things into consideration like the time available, your motivation level, how concentrated you can expect yourself to be and more.

As real growth often is a slow gradual process you will not very often be able to measure the effectiveness of a practice session by how much you have learnt so you have to find other ways to find out if you are effective.

Can you practice too much or too effectively?

It depends on how we define effective practice sessions. If effective guitar practice is to work through a long list of things to improve in your playing and to practice ten hours a day without interruption I guess you can practice too effectively.

This will mean that you practice in such a way that you will get fed up with guitar playing and maybe you will even hurt your muscles and develop an aversion towards guitar playing for the rest of your life.

What is real effectiveness when you practice on your guitar?

Real effectiveness is better measured by how well your practicing methods and results are pointing towards you goals. Without goals you cannot measure effectiveness. The roads to Anywhere are many so to find out if you are on the right road you have to decide your destination.

If your goal is to have fun with your guitar then you have a very effective practicing session if you have fun with your guitar. If that is what you want then it is a worthy goal. I guess you could come upp with more specific goals with deadlines so you can measure them better. But it is up to you to decide your own goals, otherwise the goals will not be effective.

I hope these words on practicing guitar playing will give you some comfort and also help you realizing that when human beings like you and me are involved we cannot definitely say how we ought to play to be effective.

Human beings are funny things that sometimes behave like as if they were identical, but nevertheless they are unique. This also applies to guitar players like you and me. We are different in many ways but I guess we want our guitar playing to contribute to our happiness and joy so have fun and…”until you find out the best way to practice, practice anyway!”!

Peter Edvinsson is a musician, composer and music teacher. Visit his site Capotasto Music and download your free sheet music and learn to play resources at http://www.capotastomusic.com

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Movable chords are something that anyone that wants to learn acoustic guitar should become familiar with.

These chords use the same basic shape to make the same chord for any note simply by moving up and down the neck. These chords are sometimes called closed chords (in order to be so easily movable, these chords have no open strings) or barre chords.

E Series Barre Chords
The E series of bar chords all have their root note on the low E string and are based off the E or Em chord formation. Sometimes these are referred to as F bar chords, because the first natural chord with a barre used is the F chords.

Here some examples of E series chords:

E: 0-2-2-1-0-0
F: 1-3-3-2-1-1
G: 3-5-5-4-3-3
Em: 0-2-2-0-0-0
Fm: 1-3-3-1-1-1
Gm: 3-5-5-3-3-3
The pattern of the shape holds true for any position on the fret board, if this shape is used it will form the major or minor version chord of whatever note is on the low E string.

The chord is formed by “barring” all six strings with the index finger. At first, this can be difficult, but with time and practice it will become easier. The remaining notes of the chord are fretted using the remaining fingers. Since the one difference between the major and minor versions is the middle finger being lowered or raised, it makes changing between chords as simple as moving up and down the fretboard and raising and lowering the middle finger. Take some open chord progressions and try playing them with E bar chords.

A Series Barre Chords
The A series of barre chords (sometimes referred to as B series chords) is similar to the E series, except the bar chords are based off of the A or Am chords.

The root note of the chord is the note being played on the fifth string and the low E string is usually not played. This is not a hard and fast rule because extending the bar adds a fifth note, which can be added to the major or minor chord, but it is not actually required.

Below are some examples of A series chords.

A: X-0-2-2-2-0 or X-0-2-2-2-X

B: X-2-4-4-4-2 or X-2-4-4-4-X

C: X-3-5-5-5-3 or X-3-5-5-5-X

Am: X-0-2-2-1-0
Bm: X-2-4-4-3-2
Cm: X-3-5-5-4-3

One thing that is apparent is there are two versions of the major chord commonly used. Many guitarists will simply use the ring finger to bar the higher strings and not play the high e string rather than trying to hold the chord in other ways. This is because that way of holding the chord is easier to move in and out of and higher up the neck, it can be extremely difficult to hold the chord in other manners, as the frets get closer together.

The minor version of the chord, on the other hand, is quite easy to move up and down the neck in the basic form.

The movable chords are an important part of the repertoire of someone that wishes to learn acoustic guitar. Some guitarists will use them almost exclusively because they prefer the sound or ease of usage of them.

Beyond that, some chords have no open chord variants and can only be played with movable chords. If a progression has an unusual chord like Ebm, this is the only way to even be able to play the chord in standard tuning.

Learn more acoustic guitar tips: Learning Acoustic Guitar

Dave Long is the owner of http://www.LearningAcousticGuitar.net where he provides acoustic guitar tips and advice.

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You will need to know how to read music if you want to play music that other people have written or if you want to write your own music. There are two types of music you can learn, tablature or notation. GLI will have examples that have both types but you should know how to read both of them.

The downfall to tab is that guitarists don’t get to see chord shapes like they would in regular notation music (the black dots). Also, since only guitar and bass players use tabs it is hard for a guitar player that has only used tabs to communicate with someone like a piano or horn player that uses notation.

Reading TAB

The good thing about tablature is that it is really easy to read. There are six lines, one for each string and there are numbers placed on the lines to show which frets to push down to play the piece at hand. The bottom line represents the lowest string on the guitar. The top line represents the highest string. If the numbers are on the bottom string it means the note is played on the lowest string of the guitar. When the numbers are stacked on top of each other it means to play a chord. Sometimes you will see that there are X’s stacked on top of each other instead of numbers, this means to mute the strings so that the notes do not sound and then strum them.

Time Signatures

Music can be divided up into small sections called measures. The examples in GLI will have measure numbers above the examples in red lettering. Measures are a way to organize music and show time signature. Each measure contains a certain amount of beats according to the time signature. Knowing what time signature we are in will help us to play the music at hand.

Time signature tells us how many notes we can fit into a measure before we have to start another one. If we didn’t have measures and time signature musicians would have a hard time playing together without getting lost in the music. Time signature gives us a predictable route within the music. Tab doesn’t have a real way of showing the time signature that the music is in, but in GLI there will be notation examples along with the tab so you can peer at the notation to see the time signature. Time sigs are shown as a fraction, like 4/4. This is the most common type of time signature. The number on top shows how many notes are in a measure and the number on the bottom will show how long those notes are. In the case of 4/4 there are 4 quarter notes in each measure. You will not have to know a lot of time signatures for now. Just stick with 4/4 until later.

In tab there are a lot of different symbols to know. Aside from lines and numbers there may be slanted lines between two numbers, this means to slide your finger on the fret board between frets instead of just fretting the next note. You can slide down and up depending on what the arrangement of notes is. There are also curved lines between notes that mean to play two notes but only pick the first one, this is called slurring, or hammer ons and pull offs.

At first this should feel like a ton of information. There are still a lot of different symbols, these will get you started on playing though. Like any new hobby or skill you learn, everything you read at first will seem very confusing and complicated.

Good luck!

For more Free Electric Guitar Lessons, please visit our site for Free Guitar Lessons
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David Coates has been playing guitar his whole life, and is presently a team member of a Free Guitar Lessons site. The site features free tools, lessons and resources for guitarists of all ages and stages. So if you are interested in learning to play guitar there will be an enormous variety of tip, tools and tutorials for you.