The First Four Chords You Should Learn On Guitar
In this lesson, we'll look at the first 4 chords you should learn on the guitar. They are G, C, D, and Em. Now, why these 4 chords in particular? Well, they're foundational chords that are easy, and give you a sizable library of songs to begin practicing right away.
Here are some song tutorials that use 3 of these 4 chords:
What you should learn next...
The 18 Foundational Chords
Play 5 Christmas Songs With 3 Chords
In this lesson, I'll show you how to play 5 popular Christmas songs using a total of 3 chords; G, C, and D.
If you'd like to learn these chords you can check out this tutorial:
Oh, and be sure to download the chord charts for each of these songs below. I've included detailed strum pattern overview at the bottom of this post.
STRUM PATTERNS
Since this video has been released, I've re-worked the strum patterns to make them even simpler for beginners to learn, by using the 3 strum patterns I teach: The Driving Pattern, Swing Pattern, and Folk Pattern. You'll notice this update within the chord charts as well. Here's the breakdown
The First Noel & Silent Night: Swing Pattern
Jingle Bells & Joy To The World: Folk Pattern
The Little Drummer Boy: Driving Pattern
How to Simplify Chord Charts
Some songs you find on the internet will have a jumble of chords, some of which you've never seen, and some that are a half dozen characters long (what the heck).
What I say is, instead of trying to learn them in your early stages of guitar playing, throw them out!
Let me explain. This won't work in every situation, or for everyone out there. Some people want to play the song exactly, to the T, as written. So I'll say that this concept is mainly for the beginner to novice, who just wants to hurry up and play the song, and have it still sound good.
The fact that there are over 2,000 chords available out there should be a clue that many of those chords are very similar to one another. Some are so similar, in fact, that they can be interchanged and hardly anyone will even notice. So instead of learning every new chord in every new song you want to play, just learn how to simplify a chord chart to its basic foundational structure, and life will be a whole lot easier for you.
Good luck and enjoy!
How to Transpose Using a Capo
One of the most life altering tricks you can learn on the guitar is how to transpose using a capo. No kidding.
Well, maybe it won't completely alter your life, but it will help you to play more songs with less chords. And that's pretty cool.
Theoretically, you can take 1 chord, and using a capo, play 12 different keys with that chord. All it takes is sliding that capo up one fret at a time, and with each fret, you are playing in a new key, even though you are playing the exact same chord shape. Of course, you're not going to ever play with the capo on the 12th fret (just grab a mandolin for Pete's sake), but hopefully you understand the point.
Good luck and enjoy!
