9 MUST KNOW Beginner Guitar Chords to Play 1000s of Songs

Hey, guitar enthusiasts, in this video, I'm going to show you nine essential guitar chords that you can use to play thousands. Yes, thousands of songs. Let's get into it.

So the reason it's important for you to learn these nine chords. And if you learned no other chords on the guitar besides these nine chords, I guarantee you you will be able to play thousands of chords because these are the most common chords used in pop music today. So before I get into the exact chords, I want to make sure we're on the same page about the strings and the string numbers. I like to say the top string meaning the top of the guitar, and the bottom string meaning the bottom of the guitar. And starting from the bottom string, this would be E, B, G, D, A and E. Okay? So if I say the top string, I'm talking about the one on the top side of the guitar. If I say the bottom string, I'm talking about the one on the bottom side of the guitar. Also, if you don't know, these little cubes, these little blocks on your guitar are called frets. We're going to be hanging out in these first three frets. So I'm going to be referring to fret one, fret two, and fret three. So let's start off at the top of the Alphabet with the A minor chord, okay? And I'm going to start on this one versus A major, because sometimes people have tricky times with that a major chord. We're going to start with our second and third fingers, and we're going to put them on the second fret on the middle two strings, okay? So your second finger is on the D string and your third finger is on the G string, okay? Right in the middle. And then this first finger is going on the first fret of the B string, okay? And you're going to play as best you can, the bottom five strings. You're going to try not to hit that top string, okay? So this is an A minor chord, okay? If we rebuild that again, we're going to take the second and third fingers. Second finger goes second fret. Fourth string, third finger goes second fret on the third string. And the first finger goes on the first fret of that B string, okay? And that's what we got. It's a very sad sounding chord. That's why it's called a minor chord. Minor chords sound very sad. Major chords like this, A major chord I'm going to show you next are very bright and happy sounds. Now this a major chord. There's a number of different ways you can play it. I like playing it with my first, second and third fingers on the second fret. That's the tricky part. It's all smushed in here. So the first finger is on the fourth string, the second finger is on the third string, and the third finger is on the second string. I find this very comfortable. But for some people, if you've got big hands, I know a lot of guys that can play the A, an entire A chord with just. With just two fingers. I can't do it. My fingers aren't fat enough to do that. I. But I know some people who have bigger fingers that find doing it this way very hard. Okay. So sometimes they like to bar it. Okay. Or if you're one of those people with bigger fingers, you might just be able to play it with your first and second fingers. I can't do it. I'd have to bar the finger. But I just want to let you know there's options. All right, so so far we have A minor and A major. The next chord we're going to learn is a C major chord. And I'd like to start at the A minor again. And you're going to see why in a second. I'm a big fan of pivot points. If you guys don't know me, my name is Lauren Bate and I help make the guitar make sense. I especially love teaching older learners how to have fun on the guitar. And this is why, because I try to break things down and make them simple. So we've already learned an A minor chord. Okay. Well, guess what? Two of your fingers are already in place. Your first and second fingers are already in place. You just have to take this third finger and move it up to the third fret on the fifth string. Now, for a lot of people, this is very difficult and can be a tricky transition. It's a big stretch over three frets. Okay. So you might need to practice that. And you'll notice when I'm going from A minor to C, my fingers are shifting in the frets a little bit. Okay. I'm trying to get as close to the front of the fret as possible because that requires the least amount of pressure to push down. The further back in the fret you get, the more likely you're going to hear that. And that's why that A chord for a lot of people is very hard, because this first finger ends up on the backside of the fret. Alright, so we have A minor, A major, and now we have a C major chord. The next Chord we're going to learn is a D chord. And I like to teach people by going from the A chord. Okay? We already know the A chord. So what we do is we lift up the third finger and we move these two fingers down to the third. And the first strings, we're just kind of spreading them apart. So if we go back to A, these two fingers are staying in the second frets. Okay. First finger on the third string, second finger on the first string. And then this third finger is going to reach around and it's going to get the B string on the third fret. Now, for some of you, this knuckle, you can see my. I don't know if you can see it on the close up. My knuckle is bent. A lot of people, this knuckle ends up laying flat and you end up muting that bottom string. So try and get this knuckle to bend. You want to play with those tips of the fingers as best as possible. Now remember, if you're an absolute beginner and these chords are sounding like this, that's perfectly normal. You're learning, you're just getting started. That's okay. Keep going with these shapes. Keep practicing and as your fingers get more flexible and nimble, you'll be able to play the chords better. Chord number five, very easy chord for a lot of people, E minor. I like to play mine with the first and second fingers on the second fret at the fifth and fourth strings. The reason I like to do this is it creates a nice pivot point to go back into that C chord. You'll notice I don't have to move my second finger, E minor to C. Okay. That's why I like playing with my first and second finger. Now if you are someone again and you have very large fingers, you might be able to play both those strings with just one finger. My finger's not quite wide enough to do that, but if you're someone with bigger fingers, you might be able to play that with just your first finger. All right, so give it a try. See what works best for you. I like using fingers 1 and 2 on the second frets of the fifth and the fourth string because of that pivot point. Okay. And I'm also going to show you another pivot point down the road for another chord. So we learned E minor, the sad chord. Well, now we're going to learn E major and again we're going to go back to that A minor chord. Alright, you can see I like that a minor chord a lot. Why? So we're going to make that a minor chord again, okay? So we have our second and third finger in the second frets. First fingers on that first fret of the B string. Okay? This a minor chord. What we're going to do is we're going to take every finger and we're just going to shift it up one string each. Now we have E major, okay? It's the same shapes. Go back down to A minor. Just move everything up one string. Okay? So now you have the second finger is the second fret of the fifth string. The third finger is the second fret of this fourth string. And your first finger is now on the first fret of the third string or the G string. Okay? And you're gonna strum all six strings on E minor too. E minor is a full six string chord. Okay? Nice and fun to strum the whole thing on those two. And you can hear the difference again between the sadness of the minor chord. Very sad, dark. And the happiness of the major chord. Very happy and bright. I'm gonna skip over F for now, but don't you worry, we're gonna come back to that. That usually is a barre chord, but I have a couple of easy fixes. I'm gonna show you guys to add those chords in because it'll allow you to play A on the guitar. So the next chord we're going to learn is the G major chord. I like to play mine with the third finger on the bottom string, the second finger on the top string, and both of those are in the third fret. And then the first finger on the second fret of the fifth string. I like doing it that way. Some people like playing with their pinky on the bottom string. Okay. For some people, that's more comfortable. I feel like I have a lot more strength and control in my third finger, so I like playing it that way. The other thing that's nice about this G chord is, is as a pivot point to that E minor again. That's why I like playing my E minor with the first and second. A little bit of a pivot point. All you see, I just have to scooch my fingers in the frets a little bit to make some room. But we have the G chord, E minor, so G chord again, third finger or pinky. Bottom string, third fret. Second finger, top string, third fret. And then your second finger is going to be on that A string at the second fret. And you would strum all six strings. Now, the chord most beginners hate is the F. Chord because it's a bar chord and it shows up in so many songs and they're like, I hate this because it sounds like this when you first play it. And I don't think the F chord is a beginner chord at all. I think they're more barre chords are more intermediate because they require some strength. But there's so many songs that have an F chord and an F sharp minor chord in them. So I show beginners some easy versions of these ones and they mimic some of the chords you've already learned. Let's start with F sharp minor. So F sharp minor, if you remember that, A chord. Well, we're just going to take that A chord and we're going to move it down to the bottom three strings. Look at that. And that is an easy F sharp minor. We're just going to play the bottom three strings. Now does it sound as nice as the full bar chord? It doesn't, but it's much easier to play and it gives you access to that chord if it shows up in a song. So if you're on your A chord, just scooch everything down one string and you're making an A chord on the bottom. And if you, like some people, you could bar this. It's probably pretty easy to bar on these bottom three strings for people. Or again, if you're someone with bigger fingers, you might only require two fingers and that's perfectly fine. The final one is going to be our F major 7 and it looks a lot like a C chord. Alright, so we have a C chord and what we're going to do is the first finger is going to stay in place. We're not going to do anything with that. Okay. What's going to happen is these top two fingers are going to move down one string each. It's kind of like a really squished C chord. Alright. And we're gonna. You can just strum the bottom four strings again. Does it sound as dark and rich as a full bar chord? No. But does it allow you to play an F chord in a song? Absolutely. Without it sounding like this. Okay. So that's your F chord if you know that C chord, the three fingered C chord. Come down with the top two strings, one string each. And now you've got an F chord. So now that you know the most popular nine chords in this next video, I'm going to show you how to put them together so that you can play thousands of your favorite songs. Click on that video. I'll see you there.