How to Play Guitar: E Chord

The first chord I would like to show you is the open E chord. Now on the open E, we are going to strum all six strings, first string of course is E we are going to leave that open that is our root note and remember our fingers we have our first finger, second finger, third finger and fourth finger. When I first learn chords I had actually taken my other hand and place the fingers where they supposed to go. If you have to do that first go ahead. The main thing to get down is the actual shape. So when you are playing, even if it takes time for you to create that shape with your hands at least you know right where you want to position them.

So we are going to start with E major, the sixth string first string that we actually hit is the open E we are going to leave that open.’ Meaning no fingers is going to apply pressure to the string. On the fifth string, our A we are actually going to put our second finger on the second fret. The fourth string with one with our third finger on second fret, the third with one of our first finger on the first fret, and the second and first string we actually want to leave open as well. Now remember to hold your finger straight up and down so they do not touch the strings down below. We do not want this chord that sound muted. We want the entire strings ring out nice and clear. So here is our E-major, now hold this shape to switch from E-major to E-minor. We simply lift up our first finger. Now we have four open strings the only strings that we are applying pressure on are the fourth and fifth string.

This is E-minor, now let us switch from E-minor to E-seventh where we put out first finger back down on the first fret but this time we want to lift up our third finger. So we put our first finger, first fret the third string. Our second finger remains on the second fret of the fifth string. Here is our E-seventh. I definitely want you to practice each chord start with your major pattern again with all your fingers down lift up the first finger for E-minor. First finger back down and lift up the third finger, switch to the seventh.


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