How to Play Basic Chord and Chord Progession Lesson 1
Hey guys, what’s up? This is Aaron. This video I wanna do right here is basic video on chords, how to fret a chord, some of the common chords you’re gonna used during your guitar playing. When fretting a note, the one thing you wanna know is that you wanna make sure that you fret it right above this strips right here. These metal strips that are very thin and they can go all the way the guitar neck are called frets. When you fret a note or hold a note, you wanna make sure you hold them right above that fret. So if we’re playing the 3rd fret on the high E string, which is your lowest string, the strings go one, two, three, four, five, six. Okay, they start from the thinnest string, which is the one string. Then six string is the top string, the thickest, okay. Now from top to the bottom, standard tuning is E, A, D, G, B, E. What this means is, top string, the thickest, your six string is tuned into an E note. The next one is tuned to an A, a D, a G, a B, and a high E, okay. So now we have that said. On a high E string, the thinnest string, the 3rd fret, okay, if you wanna play that note, right above this little thin strips called frets, you wanna hold the note right directly above it, okay. So you can see the fret is here and I’m gonna be just a little up, you get a clean note. If you’re on top of the fret, it’s muted, it’s dull, it’s not what you want. If you go too high, you get a rattle kinda mute. You wanna be right above it to get a clean sound. It’s the same when you’re fretting your chords. You wanna try and get each one of those fingers right above it, if you get on top of the frets, that sounds bad. If you get too high… If you get right where you’re supposed to be, right above the frets it sounds like this. It’s nice and warm clean sound, alright. The chords I wanna teach you right now are just the few of the basic beginner chords. I wanna teach you a G chord. With the G chord, on the top string, your six string, you need a finger on the 3rd fret of your low E, I prefer the four fingered G. The difference between the four fingered G is on this B string, you have 3rd fret, if you’re on a four fingered G. You have this note… 3rd fret of your B string. If it’s a three fingered G, that notes not there. So the difference is, a three fingered G here… four fingered G… this gives a kind a little bit of, little higher, higher range there and I enjoy the color of that chord better. So let’s just teach, I’m gonna teach you the four fingered G. Take your middle finger, put on the 3rd fret of your low E, your pointer finger goes on the 2nd fret of your next string down, your five string, your A string. On the bottom two strings, your ring goes on the 3rd fret of the next to last, your B string. And your pinky goes in the 3rd fret or your high E string. Okay, that’s the four fingered G right there. To make that a regular G, a three fingered G, just lift your ring finger up… and that’s your other G, okay. The next chord I wanna teach you is easy to transition to from this four fingered G, and it’s the D chord, okay. Now, whenever you go from this G to the D, there are things that I like to call common fingers, which is one of the easiest ways to teach people chord, I think is common fingers. And what that means is, when you go from one chord to another, generally there’s at least one finger or two sometimes that does not need to move, needs to stay exactly where it’s at to move from chord progression to the next chord, alright. So from this G, your common finger, you have that ring finger on the 3rd fret of your B string, if you lift all of your fingers up and keep that finger there, that’s where it needs to be for the D string… for the D chord. So to get to the D, next you take your middle finger, put it on the high E, 2nd fret and your pointer finger goes on the 2nd fret of your third string up, your G string. Okay, that’s a D chord, okay. From the D chord, the next chord that you usually go to in lot of progression is an A chord. Okay, now, to get from a D to an A, you have another common finger, that common finger is your pointer finger, okay. So if you lift the rest of your fingers up, but leave your pointer finger there, it is right where it need to be for the A chord, okay. So now, to get to the A, the way I like to play it is you have your middle finger comes over top and goes into the 2nd fret of your D string… okay. So you have a D string, third string down from the top, 2nd fret by the middle finger. Your G string is covered 1st fret, oh I’m sorry, 2nd fret by your pointer finger, and then on the B string, which is your second string up from the bottom, your two string, your ring finger goes right here on the 3rd fret, or 2nd fret. So it gives you this A chord… okay. Now that you’re on your A, a lot of common chord progression will go back to this G. So the common chord progression, if you wanna practice it, if you’re just picking up your guitars, this G, take your, leave your everyting, move everything but your ring finger, go to this D chord, then leave your pointer finger there, move everything else, go to your A chord, and then go back to your G. So if for just one, one strums, G… G… D… A… okay. Now another easy chord progression to get to is, where we finish in that A, okay. Go back to that A, now another thing, it’s not necessarily common fingers, but it’s, it’s close enough, is, we’re gonna go to an E chord. An E chord is another very common chord, okay. What you’re gonna do from that A to the E, is this pointer finger’s on your G string, now in an E chord, your pointer finger or something needs to be on the first fret of the guitar, but it’s also on the G string. So to go from your A, lift every finger up except for your pointer finger on the 2nd fret of your G string, then you wanna slide it down to the 1st fret of the G string, and then add your middle and ring fingers on the 2nd frets of your A chord… A string, and your D string, which are your second and third strings down from the top, okay. So that’s an E chord. So from this A we have here, where you have the first two strings are open, the third string down from the top of your middle finger on the 2nd fret, four string down your pointer finger’s on the 2nd fret, fifth string down from the top, your ring finger is on the 2nd fret, that’s your A chord, okay. Now when you slide that pointer finger up to the 1st fret add these two fingers here on the 2nd fret of the A and D, and you have an E chord. So that’s another chord progression that you can practice. You’re gonna practice from the G, to the D, to the A, to the E, okay. Those are four basic chords right there that you can practice. As far as another chord, I’m gonna give you another chord progression that will help you, and this is gonna be an A minor chord… to a C, to a G, to a D, and I’ve seen that a lot on some songs. So I’m gonna start out on an A minor chord. An A minor chord is just like an E chord, except everything is moved down lower at one string. So your pointer finger for your A minor chord needs to be on the 1st fret of your B string, then on the two middle strings, your middle and ring finger need to be on the 2nd fret, and that’s an A minor chord, okay. The common fingers from an A minor to a C are really easy, because you only move this ring finger, your pointer and your middle stay the same. So from A minor to get to a C, lift your ring finger up, move it down to the second string up from the top of your A string on the 3rd fret, that’s the C chord. So from your A minor, you pick up your ring, you put on the 3rd fret of your second string down from the top, and there you have your C. Next, you can move into a G chord, I like to do the four fingered G, that I talk about earlier… but if you don’t like all that movement, you can just move your ring finger up one, and your middle finger up a string, take your pointer finger off, put your ring… pinky on the 3rd fret of your high E and you have that G, the three fingered G that we talked about, okay. The kind of pros and cons of that is from your C chord to your three fingered G, is an easy move, but when you go to the D, you don’t have any common fingers, so you have to use all three moved. Now, if you’re on A minor, to a C, you go to a four fingered G, which I prefer, then you have that ring finger, common finger when you move back to the D. So for very beginners, starting with chords, those are the four chord progression I would tell you to practice. You can practice with just one strum, or you can do it any strum pattern that you want. That go from the G, four fingered G, to the D, to an A, to an E. And the second one I practice is A minor, to C, to a G, to a D. So if you’re on youtube, check the info box over here, if you are, please go to the website, FreeandEasyguitar.com, if you’re on the website, which I hope you are, check below, and I will have the tabs and kinda the locations for what your fingers go so you can get used to this chord progressions. So take care guys.