So let's begin with the chief steps and work up to some effective data about guitar chords and how the dots on the charts associate with musical sounds. You know the frets on your guitar's neck show you where the notes are, so let's get a little more expert. You will see when you use scale charts to learn to play guitar tunes that in a given position on the fret board, you will sometimes need to move up or down one fret or two frets. If you play the note at the first fret, and then move up to the second fret, you have gone up a semitone. If you have moved up two frets, it is called a tone. The distance between the notes E and F or B and C is a tone. The distance between the notes C and D is a tone. So as you learn songs in various keys you will begin to see that what you are playing when you play scales is different patterns of tones or semi tones on the fret board.

Watching guitarists play you will have noticed that sometimes they put their index finger across all six strings. This is called a barre. When you start to learn songs you will be making use of chords played in the FIRST position on the fret board. Usually these will be open chords, that is chords that do not make use of the barre.

When you are learning chords to accompany songs, you will doubtless make use of your chord charts showing you chords that use all the guitar's strings. But if you want to get into playing solos begin with the three note chords called triads. The three notes in a triad are the basic notes of your chord, so by learning triads you will commence to see how the guitar chords are structured. Also you can move your triads up and down the fret board to make new chords.
Here's an example:
The chord of A Major is made up of the notes A C# and E shown in tab form as:

E-----------------------------------------
B--------------2--------------------------
G--------------2--------------------------
D--------------2--------------------------
A-----------------------------------------
E-----------------------------------------

Move that shape one semitone (one fret) up the neck and you get A# or Bb.

E-----------------------------------------
B--------------3--------------------------
G--------------3--------------------------
D--------------3--------------------------
A-----------------------------------------
E-----------------------------------------

One fret higher is B Major.

E-----------------------------------------
B--------------4--------------------------
G--------------4--------------------------
D--------------4--------------------------
A-----------------------------------------
E-----------------------------------------

This shape played anywhere on the neck will give you a major chord. The fret it is played at tells you the key it is in.

Here are the notes for the triads of the basic chords:
C Major - C E G
D Major - D F# A
E Major - B E G#
F Major - C F A
G Major - G B D
A Major - A C# E
B Major - B D# F#

Now the minor chords:
C Minor - C Eb G
D Minor - D F A
E Minor - B E G
F Minor - C F Ab
G Minor - G Bb D
A Minor - A C E
B Minor - B D F#

Learn more about guitar chords at Learn How To Play A Guitar For Free

How To Be A Guitar Player
Real enthusiasm for electric and acoustic guitar playing grew in the 1960's and 70's when everybody had a friend who sat in his bedroom all day and night practicing the guitar. In fact this willingness to devote all of your time to a musical instrument is one of the principal ingredients of a guitar player.

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