Playing the Guitar by Learning Guitar Chords

The easiest way to learn how to play the guitar is by learning guitar chords. In most musical notation, you will notice letter symbols above each measure. In some music magazines, you will also notice letter symbols above a lyric line like “C”, “F”, “A” and so on. These letters are what you call guitar chord symbols. Each letter represents a particular chord pattern on the fret board.

There are two possible ways of learning guitar chords. First is to learn it from basic music theory. You can learn the formation of chords by understanding the scale. Essentially, the scale is the succession of eight notes progressing in musical order. It is equivalent to one octave. An octave is the interval of eight degrees between two tones. Each tone has an equivalent degree in number. For example, the notes in the scale of C Major are C, D, E, F, G, A, B, & C. The equivalent degree for C is 1, D is 2, E is 3, F is 4, G is 5, A is 6, B is 7, & the higher C is 8. Now, the basic the formula for forming a chord is 1-3-5 thus, if you will form the chord of C using the formula, you will get C-E-G. However, this will only become beneficial to you if you know how to form the scale of notes on the fret board. Otherwise, knowing the formula will not be of any use to you unless you give yourself ample time to learn the basic music theory, which may take a little time.  But this will pay off for learning guitar chords.

There is another way of learning guitar chords. It is learning by rote. Essentially, it is imitating chord diagrams, which show specifically where you need to position your fingers on the fret board to form a particular chord pattern. By comparison, this is the easiest way of learning guitar chords. Just pick up a guitar, study and memorize some chord diagrams and you are ready to play some of your favorite songs!

There are however, some set backs to this type of learning guitar chords. Since you learned by imitation, you do not know the theory or the explanation behind these chord patterns so it is impossible for you to make any variation and so you are “boxed” in these chord diagrams. It will limit you to simple rhythm strumming or plucking.