Beginner Guitar Blog

Beginner Guitar Chords

While I am an ardent supporter of melody-focused learning for beginners, you do have to start forming chords sooner rather than later.

What you want to avoid are “big” three finger and four finger chords, at first. And forget barre chords for now. Instead, spend time learning how to deal with one finger and two finger chord shapes, on the top strings.

For instance, a real G and a G7 chord can be made with one finger on one fret of the first string, yet it allows you to strum or pick the top four strings.

A C chord can be made with one finger and played on the top three strings. A “jazzy” C9 uses the top four strings, and just one finger.

An E minor or Em7 chord takes no fingers on the top three strings and a full six string chord takes just one or two fingers on strings four and five.

Toss in an A minor 7 (Am7), which takes just two fingers, and we have enough material to build a song that we can use to practice making easy chord changes, and even harmonize the melody a bit.

Guitar Songs for Beginners

Hear me out..

Most beginning guitar students try to tackle material that is just far too complex for their skill level. This is a recipe for complete frustration.

It’s usually not the sttudent’s fault. They are encouraged to go this route by *most* of the so-called “beginner guitar” lesson materials. A new guitar player should not be starting wth chords! No way.

I suspect that most instructors who put this stuff out there have never actually taught a complete beginner how to play guitar. Thus, they fantasize about what works.

Here’s what works, again and again…

Find simple songs that have strong melodies, and that are in easily “accessible” keys, like C or G, with few shaprs and flats. For the easiest songs, you want mostly quarter notes, with maybe a few eighth notes here and there.

What kinds of songs are those? Remarkably, they are the kind of songs that good guitar players have been learning for decades. Classic old tunes that have stood the test of time, like Aura Lee, When the Saints Go Marching In, Willdwood Flower and on and on.

Classic mountain music and fiddle tunes a based on tunes like this. Their ease of learning and recognition keeps them in the forefront.

Start with these kinds of classic tunes. Learn to play them WELL, using a metronome. Learn them so that you can play them with some *style* of your own.

Then you’ll begin to have a repetoire of familiar material that you can play on demand, for friends and family who might ask you to “play something”. What they really want to hear is a melody (preferably familiar), and not bunch of chord strumming. 

It does not take long to learn these kinds of tunes. Because they are simple. Most “pop” tunes are not simple. Save them for later, after you have developed some real skills.

You can beat yourself up trying to play hardstuff, or make quick progress and build confidence with easy stuff. As someone who has taught beginners regularly, the second approach is the one that provides the most satisfying path, again and again.

Here are some books that have good simple beginner tunes: