The guitar is a brilliant instrument, and it makes a versatile accompaniment that delivers several sound effects. You can create various effects from strumming patterns to delicate finger picking styles. To produce music, a guitarist must have an active vocabulary of chords from where he/she can draw and use while playing the guitar. There are lots of guitar chords, but you do not need to know all of them. Once you learn few chords and become familiar with the music, you can develop from the chords you already know.
The following are some of the tips for learning guitar chords:
Begin with open chords:
These chords are one of the basic chords which all guitarists need to know. Open chords are played with one or two stings without being fretted. You use only the first three frets of the guitar. For example in an Em chord, four open stings need to be played. Open chords are one of the easiest to learn, and once you master them, you can start to learn Barre chords. Try to memorize the shape and practice the positioning of your fingers. An open chord will provide you with a distinct sound as opposed to the other chords that have no open strings.
Learn to tune the guitar:
Once you know how to tune a guitar, you will be familiar with the various sounds produced by it. If you happen to be a beginner and if you are not sure about how each string in the guitar must sound, you can get an electric tuner and use that to tune your guitar. You can start by tuning one of the strings with the help of a tuner or a piano and then tune the rest of the strings based on the tuned string. Once you are comfortable with the tuner, start to tune by ears.
Practicing for perfection:
Unless you practice the chords, you will not be able to master them. The positioning of your fingers is quite essential to get the right sound. Just because you are placing your fingers in the right place, it doesn’t mean that the sound the chord will be accurate. If you feel that you hear a tone that does not sound correctly, you need to make some adjustments on your fingers. Make sure that you push the tips of your fingers into the fretboard so that you do not mute the strings that are adjacent to ones you intend on playing. To quickly move your fingers on the fretboard of the guitar you can change the position of your thumb at the neck of the guitar.
Get the right resources:
You need not worry about not having proper guitar teacher. There are plenty of videos on YouTube from where you can learn many chords and strumming patterns. There are many sites which provide the chords along with the lyrics of the songs. You can use such chords and practice.