You’re about to lo learn your first chords, just a few blisters away from your first song! Don’t forget to stretch your fingers first.
I like calling them the “campfire chords” because they will unlock the ability to play many songs quickly and sing along with your friends (at a campfire, for example).
Also known as the “cowboy chords”, it actually refers to the open position chords or first position chords because they are played on the first part of the neck and involve open strings.
Before we dive in the positions, let’s start by attributing a number to each of your fingers:
- The index finger (or forefinger) will be #1
- The middle finger #2
- The ring finger #3
- The little finger (pinky) #4
- The thumb will be T (yes, I lied, it’s not all numbers)
All the chords will be in a tablature form; if you don’t know how to read guitar tabs, please refer to our guide.
Note: the finger positions are only suggested; you ultimately do as you prefer.
Let’s start with the easiest one and, very conveniently, the first letter of the alphabet:
The A Major chord
The main difficulty is not playing the low E string. If you do, don’t sweat it too much, it still sound like an A chord, but it’s technically an A/E (“A over E” = A Major with E in the bass)
You can also try to press the 3 strings with just 1 finger, but I find it more difficult.
A minor
It doesn’t look too different, right? but if you look carefully, there’s not one finger in the same position. If you want to go from Am to A, you can add the pinky on the 2nd fret (no need to lift #1).
The E Major chord
Similar shape than A minor, just one fret higher, it shouldn’t give you too much trouble – once you master one, you have the other.
E minor chord
Take that index off, and you’re good!
D Major chord
My favorite! I also remember having trouble remembering which finger was going where – don’t worry, that’ll become natural after a while.
Pro tip: add your pinky on the 3rd fret of the high E string – you like that? That’s a Dsus4, don’t bother about the name, for now. Just enjoy the sound of it. Open your ears: does it sound Major? Is it minor? (the answer is none *mind-blown*)
C Major chord
Now you’re in trouble! But again, one day you won’t even remember how hard it was to put 3 fingers on the fretboard and you’ll start adding the pinky everywhere.
C chord is always the first one I play when I pick my guitar. Not sure why…
G Major chord
My first nemesis… you can also play it with the #2 on the low E, #1 on the A string, and #3 on the high E but I prefer the position below (even if RIP your pinky), but that’s way easier to switch from C to G.
F Major chord
You can drop the finger on the high E if it’s easier, it’s still an F chord, but the difficulty is now not to play the 6th string (if you do, that’s a Fmaj7… that sounds a lot like an Am don’t you think? 😉 I’m teasing you but I promise, that’ll make more sense very soon don’t worry).
If you feel adventurous, you can also play it like below. As you can see, your index finger has to press all strings on the first fret (you can try without the other fingers to make sure no strings are muted)
Hey, that’s your first barre chord! The first of many…
What did you learn?
Your very first chords! There’s a vast number of chords, but unless you want to play some fancy jazz music, those are enough to play many songs already and keep you busy for years. Also, the following lessons will teach you that you don’t really have to learn any of them if you understand how they’re built; you can play them all (anywhere on the fretboard).
Why is that important?
If you ever played or tried to play the ‘Happy Birthday’ melody on a piano playing one note after another – you just leveled up. Now you’re playing chords, which are multiple notes at a time, allowing you to play a lot more than melodies.