Open Chords

September 7, 2008 by  
Filed under chords, featured

In this post we’re going to look at open guitar chords. Chords are formed by placing your fingers on one more frets and strumming the guitar. Open guitar chords are the most basic and fundamental of everything you learn when you start off learning to play a guitar . This is definitely the first thing every guitarist should learn because it is the foundation for so many songs, you would be surprised how many really popular songs are just three open chords. I have to warn you though, they are not easy to play. It takes a lot of time and a lot of practice to be able to play well and change between them quickly. It seems tough at first but keep playing and eventually it becomes much easier until you can play them and switch between them without even looking at the guitar.

The best advice to start off with is to put your fingers into these positions and playing the chord, play it once, play it twice and get a feel for it, and try to keep your fingers away from the other string that way you can minimize any additional noise. This will definitely take some practice. Chords like C, E, Em, A, Am and Dm aren’t too bad and it shouldn’t take you too long to get used to them. Just remember, practice is everything.

When you are eventually used to playing some of these chords, find some easy guitar songs and try playing along or just strumming as practice.

Learn guitar chords (Major):

The C Major Chord
formed x32010

The E Major Chord
formed 022100

The A Major Chord
formed x02220

The G Major Chord
formed 320003 or 320033

The D Major Chord
formed xx0232

Learn guitar chords (minor):

The E Minor Chord
formed 022000

The A Minor Chord
formed x02210

The D Minor Chord
formed xx0231

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