Easy Guitar Chords - What Are They?

• October 15, 2016
• Chords

No matter what skill level you’re at, it’s important to keep learning and building up your musical repertoire. For guitar players, this may mean discovering some of the easy guitar chords that are out there.

Easy is relative to your ability. Small hands or big hands? Skinny fingers or fat fingers? No matter how you’re built, you can learn a few of the easier chords on guitar and make your music. It’s important to remember to think in shapes.

There are 5 basic shapes for major chords and I believe at least one of them will work for you. You need to learn them all and as you grow, you’ll master them as you build muscle memory.

Muscle memory is how we describe your reaction to the fretboard when it’s time to change chords. Your reflexes and accuracy improves as you do the motion over and over. Great guitar players put in hundreds of hours playing. That’s why we aspire to like them.

The “C” Chord Family - Easy Guitar Chords

We think C is the best place to start. It’s a real natural position for your hand. It’s important to position your hand correctly on the neck and fretboard. Wrist down and thumb in the center of the back of the neck. Let your fingers do the work, not your hand or arm.

Don’t under or over press the strings, be gentle. Also, make sure your fingers are not in the center of the frets or on top of the fret wire, but just behind the oncoming fret. So you’ll want to find the C chord, or C Major Chord as it’s known. It’s a little stretch for your fingers but this is guitar 101. And if you’re having problems reading any of the chord charts out there, this helpful link tells you what all of the symbols mean.

You will feel some discomfort at just about anything new. Don’t give up, but keep reaching for it til it’s smooth and every string can be heard. A minor is a cool chord in the C family and all you have to do is lift your 3rd finger off the C chord. F is similar to C in that the shape looks familiar. These are easy guitar chords for sure.

The “G” Chord Family - Easy Guitar Chords

Now, G is also in the C family, but it’s a shape of it’s own. Take a moment to locate a G Major or G chord. I’d avoid bar chords for now.

You may also find there are different fingerings for any of these chords. It’s not contradictory, it’s just approach. For example, G might be played with fingers 1,2, and 3, or 2, 3, and 4. One might work better for you than the other. Take a Kodak picture in your brain for each chord shape. You can give the chord a nickname to help you remember it if you like. For example the G chord could be nicknamed “Cowboy G” because so many simple country western songs are in G. Do whatever it takes to help you memorize the shape and location of the notes.

You’ll mess up a lot at first but keep trying and suddenly you’ll nail it and surprise the heck out of yourself. That smile you release when it happens is worth the pain and frustration. After a while, you’ll make more than you’ll miss. E minor is part of the G chord family and only requires 2 fingers. It’s kind of hard to make a guitar chord easier than that.

The “D” Chord Family - Easy Guitar Chords

D is also in the G chord family. You will notice there are chords that overlap from family to family.

A good nickname for the D Major or D chord is “the triangle chord.” It’s shape is, you guessed it, like a triangle. Again, shapes are so important.

I’ll also mention that to sound really good, you’ll need to avoid certain undesirable strings in some chords. For example in this D chord, you only play from the 4th string, or D open string, down. You leave off the 2 lowest strings. So, with your pick, target your strum at the 4th string and strum down and up in that space and avoid the A and E strings. That takes some practice but your muscles will eventually learn the right hand motion and you’ll nail it every time.

Now, with a D, C, and G chord in your hand, you can play a song like “Sweet Home Alabama,” or many other simple songs. Your quest to learn these easy guitar chords will eventually have you playing dozens of popular songs and before you know it, you’ll be entertaining at the local coffee house.

The “A” Chord Family - Easy Guitar Chords

Maybe what’s hard for one is easy for another here. The A major or A chord requires you stacking up 3 fingers in a small space at the 2nd fret. Look it up and give it a go.

Some use fingers 1,2,3 and others use fingers 2,3,4. The space is the challenge. If you have skinny fingers, it might be easier than if you have short, fat fingers. A is a very important shape though and repeats down the neck with bar chords, so get familiar with it.

Try going back and forth from the A minor you learned earlier and the A major chord. Listen to the sound or color of each chord. A major sounds bright and happy, but A minor sounds sad and lonely.

Once you learn your major chords, you’ll need to start on the minors. Each major chord has a relative minor and some of them are easier than others. One of your goals should be to learn the “Diatonic Chords” for each key. That’s a whole other topic, but you’re on your way by learning these easy guitar chords.

The “E” Chord Family - Easy Guitar Chords

You learned the E minor chord. Remember it’s the 2 finger chord and relative minor to G. Well, just add the major 3rd scale degree instead of the minor 3rd and you have E Major. You’ll just add your 1st finger to the chord on the 1st fret, 3rd string. Now you have an E Major or E chord.

Strum all the strings from big E to little e on this one. It’s one of the coolest sounding chords on guitar. This shape is also very important to memorize, because when you start working on bar chords, you’ll see it more perfectly. Your easy guitar chords will turn into a vast knowledge of the guitar fretboard.

Finally, in no particular order, but if you put these 5 chord families in an acronym, you can spell CAGED. This is a common way to learn your shapes. CAGED theory as it’s called is used by most great guitarist. Learn these 5 chord families and their nicknames or shapes and you’ll be well on your way.

While we hope that this article has been helpful for you, the best way to become a better guitar player is to invest in guitar lessons. It may seem more rock n roll to teach yourself how to play guitar, having someone else give you a few pointers along the way always helps.

At Pro Lessons, we offer online guitar lessons from the guys who are out on the road making music today. To find out more about our affordable rates, clink on the icon below.