Some of the songs you’ll be able to play with these chords include “More Than Words” by Extreme, “Collide” by Howie Day, “Good Riddance” by Green Day, “A Thousand Years” by Christina Perri, and “Perfect” by Ed Sheeran. These four chords are a slight step up in difficulty from the previous three chords as they require you to use all four fingers to fret notes, and you will also be required to fret a note with your thumb for the D/F# chord. The last chord is read as “D slash F-sharp.” This chord is actually a D major chord, but the F# that comes after the slash lets you know that you will now play an F# note as the bass note. The additional seven lets you know that there is a minor seventh interval added to this E minor chord. The third chord is read as “E minor seven.” If it was just written as Em, you can assume that the lower case “m” denotes a minor chord. The second chord is read as “C add nine,” and this means that it is a C major chord with an additional ninth above the root of the chord (for those of you who know your music theory).

The first chord is simply a G major chord.

The first thing that you’ll probably notice with these chords is that they have crazy names, so let’s cover that first. G, Cadd7, E minor 7, and D - these four chords have been used in countless songs thanks to their simple shapes and the fact that you only have to move two fingers between most of the chord shapes. Some songs that you can play with the A, E, and D major chords are “Happy Birthday,” “Chasing Cars” by Snow Patrol, both the “Three Little Birds” and “Stir It Up” by Bob Marley, and the standard 12-bar blues.Īn additional chord that you can learn at this stage is the E minor chord, and this additional chord will give you the ability to play another common chord progression - the ii (E minor), V (A major), and I (D major). Having anchor fingers will help you smoothly change between chords. Using the fingerings outlined in the above chord diagrams, you will find that you will have an anchor finger (the index finger) between all three chord shapes. A quick thing to note is whenever the names of chords are just represented by a single letter, you can assume that they are major chords A, E, D majorĪ, E, and D major chords are what we begin with, and just with these three chords, there are dozens of songs that you will be able to play as they will give you the ability to play the simplest chord progression in Western music - the I (A major), IV (D major), and V (E major). Your success with these chords will help keep you motivated to continue learning. If you’re a complete beginner, you should start with open chords because they don’t require much finger strength or dexterity to execute. Open chords are any kind of chord that has open strings that are played.

Song in open e