GUITA CHORD
BASIC
BASIC CHORD SHAPES
One of the most important things for any player, at any level, to know is how to form and play the basic chord shapes. In this chapter we’ll show you diagrams of all of the most common chord shapes; A, B, C, D, E, F and G, as well as the minors for each chord, and alternate fingerings for A, F and G.
These are the most common chords you’ll encounter in most popular songs, and the most common chords you’ll encounter when watching and playing along with the guitar lessons at FullDistortion.com. Practice these chord shapes until they’re like second nature to you, as knowing these chords will allow you to play a huge number of songs.
Open Chords:
In the chord diagrams that follow in this chapter, there are two types of chords, open chords and barre chords. Open chords refer to chords where strings are allowed to ring open as part of the chord. Open chords have a great, full, rich sound and they’re the most common type of chord you’ll come upon in your playing.
Barre Chords:
Barre chords are chords where you use your index finger to press down all (or most) of the strings across a fret, and then use your other fingers to press down subsequent frets, forming a chord. Barre chords can be a little tricky and many beginners dread them. They’re extremely important though as once you know how to form them, they can be played in any position on the neck, with the same shapes forming many different chords depending on where you play them. In this way, they open up the neck, so make sure to learn them and practice them regularly.
Legend:
In the subsequent chord diagrams, the red circles represent where to press down the strings, and the numbers inside the red circles represent which finger to use as follows:
1)
2)
3)
4)
Index finger.
Middle finger.
Ring finger.
Pinky finger.
In the barre chords, you’ll see a long red shape across a number of strings. This indicated which