How To Play The Am and Dm Chords on Guitar - Beginner Guitar Chords

So the next chords we're going to learn will pop up a lot in song. So we're going to do some minor chords. So so far we've learned one minor chord which is E minor and the rest of the chords have been major chords. Now you might be asking yourself, well, what's the difference between a minor chord and a major chord? There's some music theory behind it, but in general for now, what I want you to think about as major chords, as happy chords.

And think of minor chords as kind of these mysti and sad sounding chords.

Have this kind of mysterious and dark and sad quality to them, whereas the major chords sound very bright and happy.

So think of it that way for now and down the road we'll get into a little bit more music theory, into why one is major and one is minor. There's one note difference between the two chords. So what we're going to do is we're going to learn an A minor chord. We're going to learn a D minor chord as well. So those are the two minor chords that we're going to add to the mix here. Now if you go to the C chord, the two fingered C chord that you learned in the beginning.

All you have to do is put your third finger right, right underneath your second finger. So it exists on the second fret of the third string. And if you strum the bottom five strings, you have an A minor chord. That was pretty easy, right? So we're going to take that two fingered C chord that we learned that hopefully you've memorized and you've got that one down pat. So this is going to be very easy. So we got the two fingered C chord, you're going to take your third finger and just put it right below that second finger. So second fret, third string.

And you have a minor chord. Super simple, right? Okay, let's do that one more time. So it's two fingered C chord. Take that third finger, put it directly underneath the second finger on the second fret of the third string and strum the bottom five strings. That is your A minor chord. The other chord we're going to learn is a D minor chord. And I think this is probably one of the most awkward chords to play of the open chords. Now what we're going to do is we're going to start with our second finger.

On the second fret, third string, we're going to put our first finger on the first string, first fret and our third finger is going to go on the second string, third fret.

So if you play a regular D major chord.

The third finger is going to stay exactly where it was for the D chord. The first finger is going to come down to the first string first fret. The second finger is going to come up to the third string second fret.

So you'll notice the difference between a D chord and a D minor chord is that this note, this one note on the bottom string gets moved back one. We call that flatting the third. Alright? That's why it's A minor ch moved one note and we've made it lower. So this is your D major. So leave your third finger right where it was. The second finger is going to come up to the third string second fret and the first finger is going to go to the first string first fret.

And that is your D minor chord. So let's go in for close up so that I can show you how to get in and out of the A minor and the D minor chords. And then you can add these into the mix for your chord changes. Here I am for the close up. Let's start with that A minor chord. So we're going to start by finding that two fingered C chord we learned at the beginning of the course. We're just going to take this third finger and put it right underneath the second finger. So here it goes right here, third string, second fret. You get this very sad A minor chord. Strum the bottom five strings. All right, so to build it again, go to your two fingered C chord. Take your third finger, put it right below.

Right below and that'll give you an A minor chord.

Now if you want to go to a C major, you just have to move this third finger up for C major underneath A minor up to the fifth string. C major underneath A minor. That's an easy fix to get between A minor and C major. Let's talk about D minor. So let's go to our D major chord. I want you to leave this third finger right where it is.

Take these other two fingers off. The first finger is going to go to this first fret of the first string. The second finger is going to come here to the third string second fret. So if we go to our D major chord, move your second finger up to the third string second fret and your first finger is going to come to the first strip first, first fret of the first string, strum the bottom four strings. We have D minor. This is definitely an awkward feeling chord. We go back to D major.

So third finger stays in place, first finger to the first fret, first string, second finger to the third string, second fret, D minor. One more time, we got D.

And then we're going to move to the second fret of the third string, first finger to the first fret, first string.

And we have a D minor chord. Now that I've showed you the close ups for the A minor and the D minor chords, want you to add those into your chord change. Practice, Practice going between every single chord that you have learned so far in these chords. Because there are more common ways that you're going to get in and out of these chords. But there's a lot of stuff that happens in music that sometimes you'll get into these chords from chords you typically wouldn't get into them from. So I just think it's good to always practice all your chords going in and out of every other chord you already know, because at some point it might happen and then you won't have to practice it, you'll already know it. So work your chords, build them up to that 100 beat per minute mark and then you can come back and I'm going to show you your final chord, which is an F chord that you can use in the songs.