Let's talk about what NOT to do when you're first learning chords on the guitar. At the beginning, you need chords that don't require finger acrobatics and crazy stretches. It's important to get you making relatively easy-to-finger chords as quickly as possible so that you get the reinforcement that comes with actually making music.
I recommend you begin with three chords that all use the same three fingers in the same combination. These three chords also all occur relatively close together on the guitar. This means that all you have to do in order to move between them is either slide up or down one fret or jump one string on each finger.
The first three chords I recommend you start playing right out of the gate on the guitar are: E Major, F Major and A minor.
Those of you who are already familiar with chords on the guitar may be up in arms at the thought of beginners trying to learn F major as one of the first three chords they learn. Don't worry, though-we're not going to be playing the barred version of F major that gives so many new guitarists fits. Instead, we're going to play a mysterious-sounding F major variation that has a very Spanish sound.
E major is easy: place your index finger on the 1st fret of the 3rd string. Then, place your ring finger on the 2nd fret of the 4th string. Finally, place your middle finger on the 2nd fret of the 5th string.
Go ahead and strum all six strings at once-the sound you get when you hold those three notes down and strum is the E major chord.
To get to our special beginner's F major chord, just keep your fingers in the same E major shape, but slide all your fingers up one fret in the direction of the soundhole.
Strum all six strings. What do you get? While it's technically an F major flat 4 in Third Inversion, you don't need to worry about all that just yet. All you need to be concerned about is the fact that this chord ROCKS. It sounds great, and it sounds very cool when played directly after our initial E major chord.
Finally, for the A minor chord, we're going to make the same familiar shape with our fretting fingers, but we're going to make that shape on different strings.
Fret the 1st fret of the 2nd string with your index finger. Then, fret the 2nd fret of the 3rd string with your ring finger. Finally, fret the 2nd fret of the 4th string with your middle finger.
For A minor, you only need to strum strings 1 through 5. Leave the low 6 string out of your strum.
Notice that A minor looks exactly like E major, but the fingers are just shifted one string each. The switch from E major to A minor is a little harder than the slide from E major to our special F, but with a little patient and attentive practice, you'll have it no problem.
Now, you can just play those chords in every variation to your heart's content! Explore these three different chord sounds, and mix and match them as you like.
