Realistically, you can’t expect yourself to be a genius playing guitar chords if you’re just learning how to play the acoustic guitar. Everyone who plays the guitar, even the famous ones like B.B. King, Eddie Van Halen, Jimi Hendrix, and Slash all had to start with basic, simple, and easy acoustic guitar chords for beginners.

The truth is these basic chords lay down the foundation for all succeeding lessons. So once you have mastered the easiest chords, you’ll be well on your way to learning intermediate and then more advanced chords.

You may find that you breeze through the basic chords which is great however if you want to be really good at learning guitar chords, you need to acquaint yourself with the basic anatomy of an acoustic guitar.

You need to keep in mind that the chords are usually show in a pattern that’s printed making it important to learn how to read chords charts.

The main component of an acoustic guitar that you will be working closely with are your guitar’s strings and the fingerboard of your guitar.

Your acoustic guitar will most likely have 6 strings, although I have a few guitar playing friends who have 12 string guitars.

A right handed guitar player holding their guitar facing away from them will have the six strings starting with the top as Low E, A, D, G, B, High E. Just like in the image to the right.

Going down the neck of your guitar you will have metal bars that cross the neck at specific locations. These are called Frets and allow you to change notes while you’re playing.

If you play or pluck each individual string without placing any fingers on the strings they are called open strings. When you place a finger on one of the strings at a fret it will give you a specific note.

Example: When you put your finger on the first fret holding the low or high E string down it will produce the note F. If you move that finger down one more fret so that it’s on the second fret and pluck it you will hear a F# or F Sharp. Holding the string down at the third fret will produce a G note.

The diagram on the left shows a G chord. The black dots show where to place your fingers and the blank circles at the top of the chart show which strings to play open. Open means you don’t put a finger on that string. So this combination will product a G chord and is just one of many ways to play a G chord and is the most basic.

Now if you wanted to play a D chord you would use the finger positioning shown in the diagram on the right. Again the black dots are where you place your fingers and the blank white dot is played open.

The other two strings in this case don’t get played at all. So when you see a chart like this one and it has no black dots on a string or no white dot above the string it doesn’t get plucked.

Here is a diagram of the basic chords I learned first. Learning these simple chords allowed me to learn dozens and dozens of songs I have loved over the years.

Do you feel overwhelmed already. Don’t fret, ‘pun intended’ it’s not as hard as most people tend to think it is. Although the ends of one’s fingers can get a bit tender when first learning but you can soon get over that as you practice.

There are hundreds of combinations that make up chords at various positions along the fret board but concentrate on the basics and you’ll find it less frustrating or overwhelming.

There are options for learning how to play guitar today. I started with books and chord charts I picked up at a local guitar shop. I also learn a ton of cool stuff at local guitar jams but where I learned the most is from online sites such as Jamorama.com, Jamplay.com and YouTube.com.

I do prefer the online methods of learning as I do so much better with show and tell than learning from books, but that’s just me. I also tried hiring a guy to teach me but he was an ass and it cost me more than I wanted to pay.

If you’re keen on learning acoustic guitar chords for beginners, you will find these tips indispensable:

1. Take advantage of the power of the Internet. It’s rife with online tutorials and instructional for learning chords. Just be wary of choosing the right website, as there are those that require payments so you can access the lessons. Patience is the key to finding sites that provide free lessons.
2. When it comes to acoustic guitars, it pays to spend time studying the instrument and familiarizing yourself with its different parts. You don’t just play the guitar. Instead, you need to know it like the back of your hand. This is important as it lets you understand how each component of the guitar works together to produce sound.
3. Rather than just strum the strings on your acoustic guitar, try to understand how the tension in the string affects the sound emitted by the guitar. You’d be surprised to find out that the sound differs depending on the length and size of each string.
4. You need to know that there are different ways to play acoustic guitar chords. This allows for versatility. In addition, once you’re able to play chords in various ways, it would be easier for you to transition from one chord to the next.
5. It may be cliché, but practice makes perfect. Hence, devote 20 to 30 minutes each day in practice. Don’t try to learn the chords in one go, or you’d end up frustrated and overwhelmed. It’s impossible to learn everything in one sitting, so make do with the pace you’re most comfortable with and don’t rush yourself.

By following these simple tips, you’d be reading chords like a pro in no time. 

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I let my son cut my hair. Do I look like a rock star now??

If you’re human it’s likely you have to learn things from the basic level first. We aren’t born with all the knowledge and skills we will need through life and that comes to learning to play guitar. Yes, some seem to be born with specific talents and seem like they’ve known since birth, but that’s rare.

I am one who has to struggle and work hard to learn pretty anything in life. Nothing seems to come easy but I have interest and desire which helps me through the learning curve. Learning to play acoustic guitar didn’t come easy at all.

I tried to learn from others many years ago, before the Internet, but was too shy and soon gave up. Well I quit really and didn’t bother with it again for more than 20 years. That’s when the Internet became available to me.

Learned How To Play Guitar Online

In those years of NOT learning guitar I did learn about computers and became a computer instructor. Long story short I met two students who played guitar and my interest was active again. Another student traded a guitar for a computer scanner. So I got a Yamaha acoustic guitar for about $40.

Between my two new guitar playing friends, one country, the other rock, along with the Internet and I learned how to play guitar. I found tons of great beginner stuff online and learned many songs from my past as well as new songs. It was so exciting.

It didn’t take me long, with all the resources, to catch up to their level of playing but I didn’t want to stop there and found a couple of paid guitar learning sites which have helped me to move from beginner to intermediate. I hope to continue and move into the advanced levels.

It takes me a little longer than most as I’m 59 and only started learning when I was 47.

The places I would recommend for learning how to play guitar, acoustic or electric are Jamorama.com or JamPlay.com.

But for the beginner, if money is an issue like it was for me when I started, don’t miss up the learning opportunities on Youtube. I use Youtube almost daily to learn new things like cool licks, riffs and songs.

Using Youtube To Learn To Play Guitar

Money has been an issue for me for many years as I’m not an educated man and for that reason have had a lot of jobs that didn’t pay too well and kept us on a tight budget. So I feel for those who live pay check to pay check.

Jamorama.com or JamPlay.com would be my first choice for learning to play guitar today as I learned a lot of bad habits from friends and free lessons online, however I still learned a lot and eventually learned about and broke the bad habits.

For me it’s a daily thing to go to Youtube and look up a song I want to learn that’s on the radio right now. When I am looking I always add acoustic guitar to the search term plus the word cover. So a search on Youtube might look something like:

something bout a truck cover acoustic guitar

The song is ‘something bout a truck’ I want someone who is playing it as cover tune and I like to add ‘acoustic guitar’ because then I can see their finger action. Just that simple and usually I find what I’m looking for. Then it just a matter of finding the person that does it the best.

Incoming search terms:

• {searchTerms}giutar

In the world we live in today it sometimes shocks us to find some things are still free and without a catch, but it’s true. On of those things is getting free guitar lessons or ecourses online and even songs with guitar chords for you to learn right at home.

I’m just about 60 and didn’t actually learn to play acoustic guitar until I was 47 years old. I tried learning how to play guitar back in the mid 70s and didn’t succeed. I ended up giving up and giving away my guitar and books. I even hired a guy to come to my house to teach me but he just wasn’t a people person and shouldn’t have been trying to teach. I kicked his sorry ass out the door after just three lessons.

It wasn’t until 20 years later when the Internet was available to me that I started finding more and more sites about learning to play guitar and a lot of free guitar related sites. Then along came Youtube and my interest in learning to play acoustic guitar returned like a tidal wave.

The Freedom of Free Guitar Lessons

I have a membership with Jamorama.com so I can learn more and more but prior to that I learned most of what I know because of the free content, including videos, I found online. Youtube is by far my favourite site for both learning and sharing about how to play guitar as a beginner all the way to advanced.

The only downside to using the net for free content is that it’s scattered all over the place meaning you’ll need to go from site to site. But hey, I did it and learned a lot before joining Jamorama to learn more advanced lessons. Wish I had started with them as I spent a lot of time searching for the exact stuff I needed where Jamorama has it all in one place, just like JamPlay.com does.

How To Find Free Guitar Lessons Online

If you don’t think there are a lot of people who want to “learn how to play guitar online” just do a search in Google for that phrase and you’ll find about 60 million pages. Fortunately you don’t have to search through all of those to find the best as Google does a great job of giving us the best content for our search phrase.

Check Out YouTube For Free Guitar Lessons

I go to Youtube.com for free guitar lessons almost every single day. Most of the time it’s to find songs I hear on the radio I like and want to learn. To do this I look for the song, the artist and the word ‘cover’ which usually gets me a list of those doing cover songs. I will also add the word guitar into the search to be sure I find those playing guitar.

I just did a search for “how to play guitar for beginners acoustic” I added the word acoustic because I don’t have an electric guitar and would rather learn things for my Yamaha acoustic guitar.

You can search for ‘learning guitar chords’ as a way to learn more chords. I like looking for ‘guitar riffs’ or ‘guitar licks’ to learn some cool things that impress my guitar jam buddies.

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• simple acoustic guitar riffs