Beginners guitar lessons

Both of these chords, and all the other chords you will learn in this Quick-Start Series are open chords. Open chords usually occur on the first three frets of the guitar and they have at least one open string to play.

Throughout this lesson, I’ll give you tips for your fretting hand to help keep your chords sounding clean and free from buzzing noise. I’ll also give you some extra tips that are more subjective, but can still apply to almost everyone.

Before we start playing any chords, you need to know how to read a chord diagram. If you look at a chord diagram like the one onscreen, you’ll see six vertical lines that represent the strings on the guitar. The line on the very left represents the low E string, and the line on the far right represents the high E string.

The horizontal lines on the chord diagram represent the frets, and the chord diagrams in this lesson have a rectangle at the top of the diagram. That rectangle, or box, represents the nut of the guitar so you can keep track of where you are.

The dots on the chord diagram tell you where to put your fingers. If a dot is colored black, it represents the root note of the chord you’re playing. If the dot has a number inside of it, it’s telling you which finger to use when you make that chord shape.

For the A minor 7 chord, you can see on the chord diagram onscreen a circle with a ‘1’ in it on the first fret of the B string. This means you need to use your first finger to play the first fret on the B string.

Another part of chord diagrams to understand is if ‘X’ appears above the nut at all. If you see an ‘X’ above a string, that means that you won’t play that string at all. For A minor 7, you’ll leave the E string out when you strum.

Before we start learning the A minor 7 chord, make sure you are relaxed. Shake out any excess tension so you can avoid injuries. Stay relaxed as you play these chords. The only pain you may feel is in your fingertips as your calluses build up. After about a month of playing regularly, that pain will go away.

To get started, put your fretting hand out in front of you and pretend you’re holding an apple or baseball. For fretting hand technique, this is the posture you want to have. Place your thumb on the back of the neck of the guitar, which is the perfect starting position for learning chords.

A lot of guitar players kink their wrists either too far forward or too far back behind the guitar. If your wrist is too far forward, it can really hurt your hand. If your wrist is too far back, you won’t be able to reach around to make your chords. Keep your wrist fairly straight instead, like I do in the video.

Two more techniques I want to talk about are fret placement and finger posture. Place your first finger on the first fret of the B string. For fret placement, you’ll want to have your finger right behind the fret. In the video, you can see that the further away from the fret I place my finger, the more buzz the note has.

For finger posture, you want to come down right on the very tip of your finger. If I don’t come down on the tip of my finger, my finger will brush against the high E string and accidentally mute it. Staying on the tips of your fingers ensures that you’re not muting any of the surrounding strings.

For the second note of the A minor 7 chord, place your second finger on the second fret of the D string. This is the second of the two notes you need to fret to play this chord. Make sure you’re on the tip of your finger and right behind the fret. Now that you have both notes in place, strum the top five strings, remembering to leave the low E string out.