 Playing chords is an essential part of playing guitar. No matter what kind of music you want to play - if you’re a guitar player, you’re going to spend a lot of time playing chords. Most of the time, guitar players learn chords in a way that doesn’t really help their guitar playing. Many methods and guitar teachers give students a long list of chords to learn, with the promise that one day they will be used to play songs. If you’re like most students, you have no idea which chords sound good together or why. It can be frustrating to learn pages of chord shapes and still not be able to play songs or write your own music with them. It can be easy to get your chords confused, and there are often an overwhelming number of chords on the chord resources you can find. The truth is that many popular songs use just 3 or 4 related chords - so if you play your cards right, you can get away with learning just 3 or 4 chords to get started playing real songs. In this lesson you’re going to learn the 4 primary chords in the key of G:
Open Chords In The Key Of GWhat is a key, anyway?A key is a group of notes or chords that sound good together. We don’t need to make it any more difficult than that. All major keys have 7 notes, with a chord built on top of each note. So in the key of G major, there are potentially 7 chords total that you could use. Within a key, the notes are numbered in alphabetical order, 1 through 7. There are also only 7 letters in our musical system, so each letter gets its own number within a key. More advanced musicians use this numbering system to keep track of chords in the songs they play. I’ve found that it’s just as easy for beginners to start doing this - especially if you make it a part of your practice from the beginning. Even though there are 7 possibilities, many popular songs only use 3 or 4 chords out of the key. The chords used are the 1, 4, 5, and 6 chords. G ChordSince we are in the key of G, the G chord is going to get the number 1. You can think of this as the starting point, or home base for the key.  Finger Placement: - Ring finger (3) on the first string, third fret - Pointer finger (1) on the 4th string, second fret - Middle finger (2) on the 6th string, third fret Strumming: - You can strum all 6 strings C ChordThe C chord is called the “4” chord in the key of G. If you think of the musical alphabet starting from G (G A B C D E F), C would be the fourth letter.  Finger Placement: - Pointer finger (1) on the second string, first fret - Middle finger (2) on the fourth string, second fret - Ring finger (3) on the fifth string, third fret Strumming: - Start your strum at the fifth string - Avoid playing all six strings if you can D ChordThe D chord is called the “5” chord in the key of G. If you think of the musical alphabet starting from G (G A B C D E F), D would be the fifth letter.  Finger Placement: - Middle finger (2) on the first string, second fret - Pointer finger (1) on the third string, second fret - Ring finger (3) on the second string, third fret Strumming: - Start your strum at the fourth string - Avoid playing the fifth and sixth strings if you can Em Chord (E minor)The Em chord is called the “6” chord in the key of G. If you think of the musical alphabet starting from G (G A B C D E F), E would be the sixth letter. In major keys, the 6 chord will usually be a minor chord.  Finger Placement: - Pointer finger (1) on the fifth string, second fret - Middle finger (2) on the fourth string, second fret Strumming: - You can strum all 6 strings Practicing Your New Guitar ChordsIt’s one thing to know what these chords look like and where to put your fingers, but another thing to be good at playing these chords. Practicing is what helps you take the information of where to put your fingers and what strings to play and program it into your hands so you can just play the chords that you want to play. We’re going to look at practicing these chords in two phases - I call them the mechanical phase, and the musical phase. Mechanical PhaseFor this phase of practice, the name of the game is repetition. For most people, the hardest part of playing these chords is the actual forming of the chord - getting your fingers to do what you want them to do. Here is the process:
To get started, try to play each chord 10 times on each until they feel comfortable and easy to play. Musical PhaseFor this phase of practicing, you have 2 different options you can play with. Neither one is better than the other, it just depends on what you feel like practicing on a given day. Option 1 - Play your chords through chord progressions.
Option 2 - Find a song that uses some or all of these chords, and work on playing the song using your chords.
Things To Think AboutIn this lesson, you learned the 4 main chords in the key of G. You‘ve learned how to practice them in ways that will make it easier for you to actually use them to play songs that you like. You also learned that going slow is the key to making your chords feel smooth and easy - and that speed will come as you get more comfortable with playing your guitar. Remember:
Your next steps:
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