Learning Various Guitar Chords
Learning to play guitar chords is essential to anyone looking to learn to play the guitar. This goes for rhythm or lead players alike. Even a good lead player should be proficient in playing chords to be a well rounded player, and being a good rhythm player will make your lead work that much better, and allow you to fill in rhythm around your lead work.
A chord is essentially a collection of notes that sound together at once. The guitar is very flexible in its ability to play chords and you can even play the same chord (collection of notes) over the entire fretboard using different chord shapes. A shape is basically the way your fingers are used and on which strings they will cover.
Chords are usually what most beginning guitarists will learn first as they are easier to play then learning melodies (lead guitar). You can create your first song really quick with just a few chords, in fact many popular songs utilize just a few chords to shape the rhythm section of the song.
There are different type of chords open chords which most beginners learn first, and where the player utilizes open string along with chorded notes, and bar chords which essentially where you will have no open strings in the chord shape.
Bar chords take a little more dexterity and strength so they are harder for the beginner to play, but you definitely will want to learn them as they open up your playing ability, and you will also learn a ton of chords very quick. This is because once you learn the shape you can move it up and down the fretboard to become a new chord. For example if you are playing a F Major chord at the first fret you can simply slide down one fret utilizing the same chord shape, and you would now be playing a F# or Gb chord.
In the beginning do not worry about speed, you want to build up your strength and sound the chord out cleanly. Speed will come with practice, but learning the proper technique in the beginning is important, and will keep you from carrying bad habits that are harder to break down the road. A good course that you can use to learn chords is on the banner on the right side of the page.
