Chords are typically made up of three or more notes played simultaneously. They create a louder, more profound sound than single notes do. Chords can be found in most songs in one form or another. The notes that make up a chord will determine the mood of the note, for example a slight note change can turn a Major chord with a happy sound into a minor chord, which is commonly regarded as having a sad sound.

When learning to play the guitar, learning chords is a MUST, and the more chords you learn the more dynamic your music will be. Chords are split up into different categories, the main being Major or minor.

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The main chord patterns which should be your beginning point are C, A, G, E, & D. These are the names of the 5 chords that you are about to learn. It is called the CAGED system. Now, I will quickly run you through how you would read chord shapes before we continue.

Chord shapes are similar looking to tablature but can be confused as the layout is completely different. Refer the above diagram of a C chord. The 6 VERTICAL lines represent the strings on your guitar, and the horizontal lines represent your fret bars. As a standard, the top fret will be your first fret. (to represent chords higher up the fretboard, the fret number is mentioned at the top of the diagram).

To the left is photo of a real guitar neck displaying the C chord.

The green dots are where you put your fingers and the numbers inside them are the recommended fingers you should use for each note. The below shows a hand with numbered fingers on it. This is the global guitar finger guide, throughout this website I will be referring to your fingers as 1st finger, 2nd finger, etc.

So as you will see, this is the C  or C Major chord. (Major chords are the most common chords and when you see a song has a C chord it will be the Major chord above. If it says Cm or C minor it is a minor chord which I will cover later).

The green dots that are on the nut of the diagram are open strings – these are the strings strummed with no fingers on them. The strings with no dots on them should not be played, either by  physically not strumming this string, or by blocking this string off with another finger while you strum all strings. It is good practice that you learn to not play those strings from the beginning, it can be a little tricky or hard to remember at times but its good to get in the habit.

The photo below demonstrated how the chord is actually formed.

Now that you have learned all this we can power through the rest of the CAGED system. Learn all 5 chords and you will be mixing them around, adding some rhythm and making up tunes in no time!

Continue on to learn how to play basic chords.