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 those down, you need to learn 7th chords. Those are the most basic chords you want to know.
If all you require is the diagrams for guitar chords, the best place to go to is:
www.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 involves learning a few chords and the notes of the 5th and 6th strings (the two low strings).
Go to website mentioned and see how the E Major chord is formed. The diagram doesn’t show the fingerings, but the text books normally state to place the first finger on the third string, the second finger on the fifth string, and the third finger on the fourth string.
Alternatively, what you can do is to lift 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 maintaining the fingers on the strings, run them up the neck to a different position and put the first finger across the strings, forming 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. So if you’re first finger bar is at the fifth fret, you are playing the A Major chord.
Let’s now look at the A 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.
We’ll now look at the E7 chord, not the Emaj7, this is a different chord. Once 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 want to keep moving your hands up and down the neck so much to change chords, you can use another chord shaping.
Take a look at the A Major chord this time. This time the root note is on the fifth string. Rather than holding the three strings 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 it might not matter too much if you are playing rock with distortion. Also 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.
Whether you play the sixth string or not is up to you. Again, it’s up to Whether the first string is played or muted.
You need to learn the notes on the fifth string to use this chord.
Open – A, 2nd fret – B, 3rd – C, 5th – D, 7th – E, 8th – F, 10th – G, 12th – back to A and so on.
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 lift up the third and little fingers and place the third finger down across the second, third, and fourth strings, with the first finger still maintaining the bar at the third fret.
You can do the same with the A Minor chord and A7 chord. You should be getting the idea now.
A simpler way to play the A7 chord is to leave the third finger bar in place from the A Major chord and position the little finger on the third fret of the first string. This still gives the A7 chord and can still be played at various positions on the neck.
Let’s now look at power chords. These are real simple. Say you want a G power chord. Find the G note on the sixth string which is at the third fret. Put your first finger there. Place your third finger two frets up on the fifth string which is the fifth fret. This is your G power chord.
This is theoretically 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 play the power chords with three strings. With the G power chord, place the third finger over both the fourth and fifth strings at the fifth fret. This extra note on the fourth string is another G note an octave higher.
With the fifth string root note power chord, move the third finger down on to the fourth string and leave the first finger barring both the fifth and sixth strings. The note on the sixth string is another fifth note of the major scale one octave lower.
If you think your guitar playing would benefit from learning guitar scales and notes, check these out:
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