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Chords and scales are the most important part of learning to play the guitar. There are literally thousands of chords and not all of them are necessary. You need to know A B C D E F G and their minors as well. Once you have learnt those, you want to learn 7th chords. Those are the most basic chords you need to know.

If all you require is the diagrams for guitar chords, the best place to go to is:

all-guitar-chords.com

This will show you more chords than you will need to know or use.

There is an easy way to learn chords that just requires learning 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 lay the first finger on the third string, the second finger on the fifth string, and the third finger on the fourth string.

What you can do alternatively, is to raise 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 another place and lay the first finger across the strings, making a bar, at the fret below the second finger.

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 have 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 sharps and flats are at the frets inbetween. You’re playing an A Major chord if you’re first finger bar is at the fifth fret.

Now take a look at the E Minor chord. You’ll see that it’s the same chord but with the third string now being played open. You can use the same principle to play this Minor chord at any position on the guitar neck.

Next take a look at the E7 chord, not the Emaj7, this is a different chord. 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 fret on the neck.

You can now play any Major, Minor, or 7th chord just by 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 formation.

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 when I move it up the neck of the guitar.

You might find that the first string gets muted playing the chord this way. It just takes practice, but if you are playing rock with distortion, it might not matter too much. 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 the lowest note played is supposed to be the root note of the chord, which is the fifth string.

So, 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 – starts back at A again.

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 pick up the third and little fingers and set the third finger down across the second, third, and fourth strings, with the first finger still holding the bar at the third fret.

You should be getting the idea now, you can do the same with the A Minor chord and A7 chord.

An easier way to play the A7 chord is to leave the third finger bar in place from the A Major chord and place 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.

Let’s now look at power chords. Power chords are real simple. Let’s say you want a G power chord. Go to the G note on the sixth string which is at the third fret. Put your first finger there. Put your third finger two frets up on the fifth string at 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 note on the fourth string is another G note one octave higher.

With the fifth string root note power chord, move the third finger down on to the fourth string leaving 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 you would benefit from learning guitar scales and notes, check these out:

Guitar Scale Mastery

Learn Guitar Notes

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