Learning guitar can be tricky at times! There are so many things you need to know, including chords. Luckily, there is a way to learn your first few chord structures quickly and easily. These easy guitar chords will get you started!

Chord diagrams or “chords” as they are more commonly known are an essential tool for anyone who wants to play music. By knowing some simple chords, you can start playing songs and developing your ear.

There are several different types of chords that make up most songs. Knowing how to play major, minor, power, and diatonic chords is very important if you want to take your skills seriously.

This article will go into detail about one of the easiest ways to learn beginner guitar chords by learning what are called show chords.

Show chords refer to any chord structure that doesn’t have any notes outside of the root position. This means that none of the other strings in the neck area (the ones next to the index finger) rise above a natural third, nor do they drop beyond a dominant seventh.

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These chords usually use either the bass note(s) or the fifth string as the root, making them sometimes referred to as 5th-root chords. The bass note can be struck with either hand depending on the style of song.

The five common show chord shapes all begin with the second finger position, which is also their typical position when played.

Naming the chords

The next step in showing guitar chords is to name your chord. This is very important since you will need to refer back to this naming system later when writing songs!

Name your chords using either shape or position names. For example, the first chord of most rock songs is the Major Scale String-Five Position.

The reason why it’s called that is because the fifth string (the A string) goes up one note (a major third), then down a perfect fourth (A – Bb). That makes a total of a minor second (A–Bb).

This whole process is referred to as ascending by a minor second. Because this song has three repetitions of this chord pattern, it is also known as an ascent by iii – repeat twice, then drop.

I have provided some examples below along with the full lyrics and music notes.

Recognizing chord shapes

The second way to show chords is by using what are called chord shape patterns. These patterns use some of the notes in a given scale as a template for how to play more complicated chords. For example, if you wanted to play an A major chord, you would have to know that the first note of the A major chord is the root, or sometimes referred to as the index position.

The next step is to take the other three notes and slide them down one fret towards the floor. Then lift the third finger off the string and place it on the next higher fret. This covers the middle two strings, which then form the second degree (or minor) of the A major chord.

You can now lower all five fingers onto the bass string, creating the third degree (major) of the A major chord. Finally, drop the top most finger onto the lowest open string, completing the A major chord!

This method of playing chords uses familiar pattern pieces to create new ones. It is very common to find these types of patterns in music books and online guitar lesson sites. Some of the best sources I have found are this website here and this one here.

These websites break down many different type of songs into their chords and give detailed tips on how to be able to recognize and pull out each one.

Finding the closest match

In music, chords are a very common structure. A chord is simply three or more notes that sound good together. The notes in a chord can be from the same source (like the first note of a guitar string) or different sources (different strings on the guitar).

Most songs use several chords – some verse, some chorus, maybe an intro or a bridge. When listening to a song, you will often notice how many different types of chords they include. These different types of chords add texture and emphasis to the song.

A lot of people learn piano as children and sometimes these students wonder if their playing has “slowed down”. This is usually because they have limited knowledge about how to play using major and minor keys and/or diatonic scales.

If you ever feel this way, take a look at the blues scale. It is one of the most basic starting points for any guitarist to know! The blues scale contains five steps which begin with either a natural second, flat second, or perfect fourth tone. Then it moves quickly via half step, whole step, and back to a tonic (or main) third.

This article will go into detail by showing you two songs that contain the blues scale in various ways for both vocals and instruments. After that, I will show you how to find the blues scale in any key and apply it here.

Practice makes perfect

There is no way to truly know how to play guitar chords unless you practice consistently. When beginning, it’s best to start with easy songs that use only one chord per line or section. Once you are able to easily recognize those chords, move onto more complicated songs!

There are many ways to learn guitar chords. Some people may be better at learning numbers as strings of notes, while others may feel more comfortable using intervals and roots. Either method can work well for you!

For now, choose your favorite style and just focus on practicing each new chord several times until you get them right. With time, your playing will improve due to repeated practice.

Rhythm is everything

Even if you’re not playing songs, there are some chord shapes that every guitarist should know! The easiest way to recognize these chords is by their rhythm position.

The first thing to note about most major scale guitar chords is that they place the third finger one step up from the second (or bar) in the bass line. These include A Major, G Major, F Major, C Major, and so on.

This position creates a nice steady pulse for your music. If you take away this footer, it will lose its luster quickly!

And while changing fingers can be fun, nothing beats having a solid hand pattern. Once you have it, you won’t ever need to think too much about which notes go with what others.

Know your chords

As we learned before, not every song has to be made of only chord progressions! Some songs use ladders as their main structure or an intro-verse-chorus form with no special pattern. What is a ladder? A ladder chord progression uses all of the notes of a specific chord as partials (or weaker versions) of another chord. For example, if you play the first note of a D Major chord, then immediately drop down one step to get an E Minor chord, those two chords are a parallel fifth.

By using these parallel intervals as building blocks, musicians call this a ladder structure. You can also consider it an extension of the previous concept about moving into adjacent keys. These extensions work both ways – going up in key or down in tone!

This article will go more in depth about how guitarists can learn new chords by looking at other related chords and how to practice them.

Know your tunings

Now that you have mastered some major guitar chords, it is time to move onto another important element of playing the guitar- tuning!

As we learned before, in order to play any chord properly, you must know what key the song is in, as well as the notes of the chord.

Knowing the chords already gives you a head start by pointing you in the right direction for other chords, but knowing your tunings can make your music-making even more powerful!

Tuning is the process of changing how many whole steps (or frets) each string has when being played.

For example, if the bass string was tuned a half step lower (one fret less), then our first chord would be G minor. This is because the second note of the bass string is one full step from A, making the A an extra tone above the original G.

This article will go into great detail about different types of tunings used on the guitar, how to use them, and which are most common.

Use a chord chart

There are many ways to show guitar chords to other people. The easiest way is by using a chord chart. A chord chart shows all of the notes in a song as rows or columns, making it easy to identify which note goes with which chord.

You can also use scale diagrams to show songs more clearly. A music theory beginner may not be able to tell what every interval means, but you don’t need to! You can just focus on the major, minor, and seventh intervals.

By learning how to recognize these three types of intervals, you have mastered some of the basics of music theory.