1 - E Minor & A Minor
Every new guitarist should be practising their basic chords as soon as possible, because they take time to build the dexterity and strength in the hands. The chords I have chosen to start with are the easiest and are very common in the guitar world - E Minor & A Minor.
E Minor (Em).
Having trouble reading this diagram? Read the guide here’
E Minor - written as Em (the small ‘m’ means minor. Also can be written as a dash or minus E- ).
The Em chord is played using two fingers, shown as the solid circles on the diagram. The hollow circles represent the open strings. These notes need to be heard, so be careful not to touch them with the fingers. As your fingers harden with practice, you will find that the flesh of the finger presses down on the string and doesn’t squash around the string.
You can use other combinations of fingers, but I want you to use your two middle fingers to play these notes.
Once your fingers are in place, test the chord by strumming all the way through each string and listening for ‘dead notes’.
Keep going until you get it - it may take several tries.
Once you have it, repeat the exercise again until you can do it five times in a row.
Now that you’ve just started learning your chords (the big eight), you should practice changing between them as you learn them. When strumming and playing songs you will be making quick chord changes and if you already have them well rehearsed, youíll learn those songs much quicker. Going along with your 4 week program, I have put together some basic chord charts along with some tracks that incorporate the chords as you learn them. This is part 1 and uses the two chords Em and Am from week 1. Reading the chord charts A basic chord chart tells you 2 things: 1.the sequence of the chords in a song 2.how long each chord lasts for Charts can be simple or complicated, depending on how specific they are and how much information theyíre trying to put across. The example below shows an Am chord lasting for four beats and then changing to an Em chord: Am / / / | Em / / / To play this, you can strum the Am chord four times (using downstrokes) and then the Em chord 4 times: Am / / / | Em / / / 1 2 3 4 | 1 2 3 4 Because no specific rhythm is specified, you could play each chord once and hold it for the count of four to make the changes easier: Am / / / | Em / / / 1 ñ - - | 1 - - - If youíre at the very start then begin with the last example. Track 1 ñ Week 1 (?=90bpm) [Chord_Practice_Week1] Em / / / | Em / / / | Am / / / | Am / / / Em / / / | Em / / / | Am / / / | Am / / / Em / / / | Am / / / | Em / / / | Em / / / Am / / / | Am / / / | Em / / / | Em / / / See you next week for part 2, which will be posted on Saturday, the new time. Happy Playing! JW