Realistically, you can’t expect yourself to be a genius playing guitar chords if you’re just learning how to play the acoustic guitar. Everyone who plays the guitar, even the famous ones like B.B. King, Eddie Van Halen, Jimi Hendrix, and Slash all had to start with basic, simple, and easy acoustic guitar chords for beginners.

The truth is these basic chords lay down the foundation for all succeeding lessons. So once you have mastered the easiest chords, you’ll be well on your way to learning intermediate and then more advanced chords.

You may find that you breeze through the basic chords which is great however if you want to be really good at learning guitar chords, you need to acquaint yourself with the basic anatomy of an acoustic guitar.

You need to keep in mind that the chords are usually show in a pattern that’s printed making it important to learn how to read chords charts.

The main component of an acoustic guitar that you will be working closely with are your guitar’s strings and the fingerboard of your guitar.

Your acoustic guitar will most likely have 6 strings, although I have a few guitar playing friends who have 12 string guitars.

A right handed guitar player holding their guitar facing away from them will have the six strings starting with the top as Low E, A, D, G, B, High E. Just like in the image to the right.

Going down the neck of your guitar you will have metal bars that cross the neck at specific locations. These are called Frets and allow you to change notes while you’re playing.

If you play or pluck each individual string without placing any fingers on the strings they are called open strings. When you place a finger on one of the strings at a fret it will give you a specific note.

Example: When you put your finger on the first fret holding the low or high E string down it will produce the note F. If you move that finger down one more fret so that it’s on the second fret and pluck it you will hear a F# or F Sharp. Holding the string down at the third fret will produce a G note.

The diagram on the left shows a G chord. The black dots show where to place your fingers and the blank circles at the top of the chart show which strings to play open. Open means you don’t put a finger on that string. So this combination will product a G chord and is just one of many ways to play a G chord and is the most basic.

Now if you wanted to play a D chord you would use the finger positioning shown in the diagram on the right. Again the black dots are where you place your fingers and the blank white dot is played open.

The other two strings in this case don’t get played at all. So when you see a chart like this one and it has no black dots on a string or no white dot above the string it doesn’t get plucked.

Here is a diagram of the basic chords I learned first. Learning these simple chords allowed me to learn dozens and dozens of songs I have loved over the years.

Do you feel overwhelmed already. Don’t fret, ‘pun intended’ it’s not as hard as most people tend to think it is. Although the ends of one’s fingers can get a bit tender when first learning but you can soon get over that as you practice.

There are hundreds of combinations that make up chords at various positions along the fret board but concentrate on the basics and you’ll find it less frustrating or overwhelming.

There are options for learning how to play guitar today. I started with books and chord charts I picked up at a local guitar shop. I also learn a ton of cool stuff at local guitar jams but where I learned the most is from online sites such as Jamorama.com, Jamplay.com and YouTube.com.

I do prefer the online methods of learning as I do so much better with show and tell than learning from books, but that’s just me. I also tried hiring a guy to teach me but he was an ass and it cost me more than I wanted to pay.

If you’re keen on learning acoustic guitar chords for beginners, you will find these tips indispensable:

1. Take advantage of the power of the Internet. It’s rife with online tutorials and instructional for learning chords. Just be wary of choosing the right website, as there are those that require payments so you can access the lessons. Patience is the key to finding sites that provide free lessons.
2. When it comes to acoustic guitars, it pays to spend time studying the instrument and familiarizing yourself with its different parts. You don’t just play the guitar. Instead, you need to know it like the back of your hand. This is important as it lets you understand how each component of the guitar works together to produce sound.
3. Rather than just strum the strings on your acoustic guitar, try to understand how the tension in the string affects the sound emitted by the guitar. You’d be surprised to find out that the sound differs depending on the length and size of each string.
4. You need to know that there are different ways to play acoustic guitar chords. This allows for versatility. In addition, once you’re able to play chords in various ways, it would be easier for you to transition from one chord to the next.
5. It may be cliché, but practice makes perfect. Hence, devote 20 to 30 minutes each day in practice. Don’t try to learn the chords in one go, or you’d end up frustrated and overwhelmed. It’s impossible to learn everything in one sitting, so make do with the pace you’re most comfortable with and don’t rush yourself.

By following these simple tips, you’d be reading chords like a pro in no time. 

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I would have to say there are two things I had a real problem with when I started learning to play guitar, other than not being able to sing. One was not using a pick right from the start and second I continually watched my chording hand.

Watching your chording hand is okay when you are learning to form chords but once you can form the chords and switch between chords you need to take your eyes off the chording hand and get used to finding the right chord and fret without looking.

When I was learning to play my Yamaha acoustic guitar I started with the easiest chords first. Once I was able to play my first three chords, C, G and D I started learning all the songs I liked that used those three chords.

I played and practiced those chords every day, even while I was watching TV and learned a new chords every day or two. Next I started looking for more songs I like and then started learning the chords for those songs which included bar chords like Bm and F#m.

I thought I was doing great until the first guitar jam that was outside in the dark. That’s when I found out I had been watching my chording hand too much. I could form the chords and hit them right on, as long as I was looking at the fret board.

So glad my guitar buddies don’t play many songs with bar chords because I was feeling pretty uncomfortable right about then.

Trust me, from that moment on I started practicing NOT looking at my hands while I play guitar. I have also started using a guitar pick and have improved considerably.

If you are looking for a couple of good places to learn how to play guitar I would recommend Jamorama.com and Jamplay.com

It’s been about 10 years since I finally bought an acoustic guitar and began to learn how to play my new guitar. Well new to me that is. Nothing says one needs a brand new acoustic guitar to enjoy playing guitar.

I started by learning a few simple chords which only took a few minutes to learn. Immediately I was able to learn hundreds of songs that use those particular chords.

The first chords I learned were A, C, D, E, F. Here’s a image of what those chord shapes are as well as where you’re fingers are placed to make that chord.

These Chords Took Just Minutes To Learn

I quickly learned that by adding just two extra chords, minor chords, that I had a whole new world of songs opened up to me.

I have learned a lot of chords since I started playing acoustic guitar but those first two minor chords I learned made a huge difference in the number of songs I was learning.

Looking For Great Online Guitar Lessons

Two of my favourite sites for learning how to play acoustic guitar are Jamorama and JamPlay.

Both sites have quality lessons that are worth checking out, whether you’re new to playing guitar or just want to become more advanced.

I take a long time if I try to learn a song on my acoustic guitar by just listening to a song. Sometimes I get a few chords but tend to get frustrated. I should add that the longer I play the better I get at recognizing chords and notes by ear.

Use Youtube To Learn Songs

I have say that we are certainly blessed today as we have Youtube. Pretty much every song I like I can find on Youtube but even better most of the songs I can find someone playing it on an acoustic guitar.

When I am looking for songs to learn on Youtube I usually search the name of the song and then add something like the word lesson or cover. It works great most of the time and in seconds I am listening, watching and learning how to play acoustic guitar. What a great hobby.

Jamming Acoustic Guitar With Friends

I was so happy to finally be learning how to play guitar. Of course I couldn’t stop talking about it at work and soon found a few others that played guitar and before long we had a guitar jam planned.

That little guitar jam was awesome and turned into a weekly jam, sometimes two a week. One would be a practice so we could learn new songs and the other was to for jamming with what we’d learned.