Category: Chords

How do we begin learn how to play guitar chords? By learning your I IV V chord progression in the first position. In the key of C that would be C F G chords. If you need help, just do a web search for “chord progressions” or the “Nashville number system”. Learn these chords in all keys. I do not mean learn them all right now but take it as a medium- to long-term task. Take a look at some sheet music or tabs for songs that you want to learn and work on the keys that your songs are in. That way you will be able to put your hard work to some good use.

If you have been working on how to play guitar chords while staying in rhythm you have probably found the going a little slow. The next step is to go looking for shortcuts. Sorry there are no shortcuts to fast chord changes, just slow, meticulous practice until one day you notice your body can change chords all by itself. Some people call it muscle memory, others say that all acquisition of motor skills is the work of “the intelligence of the body”. Whatever the explanation, too much analysis never helps. What does help is repeated practice.

Learning chord progressions will train and strengthen your fingers and give you some practice in strumming. What is most important in this is to practice carefully so you are not repeating a whole lot of mistakes. What is at work here is muscle memory and the more careful you are to get things right, the faster will be your progress. The end result will be that the chord progressions will come automatically to you. This will stay with you all your life.

Another exercise for developing physical dexterity is practicing scales. One point that needs so be made here is to learn scale shapes. Just as there is an assortment of guitar chords in first position, and a few basic shapes that can be moved up the fretboard, there are also scale patterns that can be moved to all positions. One thing to look out for is the point where fatigue sets in after a few runs up and down the scale. Accuracy and speed do not necessarily follow warming up the fingers. The answer to this is do not spend too much time on scales if you do not yet know your chords. Once you know some open chords you can play a few songs which is something to show for your initial efforts. Then you can settle down to working on scales. Improvement in playing scales simply comes with some weeks and months of practice.

Once you have some basic guitar chords under your belt, get yourself some songs like some basic blues or a few Bob Dylan songs. Play along with some CDs or whatever is on the radio. Your aim is to build your confidence and musical skill early in your career as a guitar player. This progress will help you in the next stages of learning to play the guitar.

Here is a video on learning basic guitar chords:

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This post is a kind of add-on to this earlier post on slide guitar and this post on the DADGAD tuning featuring Led Zeppelin’s Kashmir.

A slide is a tube over the guitar player’s finger which moves up and down the neck of the guitar. This produces an expressive wailing sound which immediately grabs the heart strings of the receptive listener. Slide guitar playing is not rocket science but there is a bit of a learning curve involved. For instance you can forget about the idea of pressing the strings down onto the fretboard. Slide players just touch the strings lightly with the slide.

If you tune your guitar to one of the open tunings, where strumming the open strings plays a chord, you immediately feel that you have a world of feelings to express and the slide guitar is giving you the wherewithal to express them. Once you begin to play the slide guitar you will see that you need to mute some strings because you are not going to need to play all of the strings all of the time. Also, if you want to play notes that are not included in the open chord that your guitar is tuned to, you will need practice in fretting the strings with the fingers not carrying the slide, plus you will have to learn where the notes are in the open tuning. This is why we usually spend a long time devoted to playing slide guitar in one particular tuning before we move onto other open tunings.

Here is a list of open tunings for slide guitar playing:

Open E: E B E G# B E

Open D: D A D F# A D

Open A: E A E A C# E

Open G: D G D G B D

Drop D: D A D G B E

Here is a guitarist playing a song in open D tuning with a nice glimpse of how to play chords and single notes with the left hand as well as using the slide:

This video goes into the problem of playing minor chords in open D tuning:

Technorati Tags: slide guitar

Dan Denley is giving away five bonus videos to every single person who orders a copy of his Ultimate Guide To Chords by midnight, Friday, August 8.

These videos are about creating simple solos. Here’s just ONE of the tips you’ll discover: Once you’ve learned the patterns of pentatonic minor scale, you’ve learned them for the major pentatonic scale.

And he shows you the EXACT process he uses when writing a solo from scratch. Just real technique that you can put into practice immediately. There also two jam tracks (live instruments) so you can practice your new solo skills.

Dan is GIVING them to everyone who gets Ultimate Guide To Chords by tomorrow night. The course contains eight DVDs, two CDs, 2 CDROMs and a 179 page book.

Click here for all the details on the free bonuses.

The price is going to jump tomorrow, Friday, at midnight but if you use the link above you can secure the $20 introductory discount. But after that expect to pay full price.