Easy Guitar Chords For Beginners

One of the hardest things about starting out learning to play guitar is knowing where to start! If you look up beginner guitar on the world wide waste of time you find hundreds, if not thousands, of websites that promise to tell you 'all the secrets'.

And then there are programs and online lessons that you can pay for that promise to teach you how to become better than Joe Satriani in fifteen minutes!

The amount of information out there is overwhelming - so where do you start?

The five essential chords to learn are the basic guitar chords (and unique shapes) for the Major chords: G, C, D, E and A. As any guitarist will tell you, if you learn how to play these chords then note only will you be able to play hundreds, if not thousands of songs that have been written just using those chords - but you will then be able to take it further as those chords shapes are 'move-able' chord shapes.

What you need to realize with guitar is that you can learn a chord shape or scale pattern and then if you want to play in another key (or play another chord) you can use that same chord shape or scale pattern but move it up or down the neck and you will be playing in a new key.

It's one of the unique things about the guitar, sometimes referred to as pattern playing.

If all you ever learn is one pattern of the blues scale you can play along to pretty much every song every written! Literally. The blues scale fits all chord progressions, that's why the blues is so powerful. Simple, but so diverse, you can use it for anything. So you learn how to play the blues scale in one position and then just move that same pattern up or down the neck of the guitar relative to the key of the song that you are playing.

Obviously learning guitar can become much more complicated than this. But if you are just starting out and all you learn is the 5 basic chords then you will be able to work out how to play along with most songs. Especially pop, rock and your favorite songs off the radio.

You can use that concept with each new chord (or scale) that you learn on the guitar.

i.e. Move chord shapes and scales up and down the neck to play in other keys.