My love affair with the guitar started with a song. Now, I’m writing this post at age 54 and some of you reading it may not have heard of the song, but it is a classic. The song was called “The House Of The Rising Sun”. I just loved this song and it was the motivating factor in learning guitar chords.
I could of picked thousands of songs that were a lot easier, but at the time, I didn’t know any better. This song uses the chords Am, C, D, F and E. I persisted and did learn the song and along the way learnt a lot more about the guitar. In the overall reality of things, I probably couldn’t have picked a harder song when I started to learn guitar chords. Although the Am, C, D and E are reasonably basic, the F chord can be quite difficult for beginners. In fact, along with Bb and B, it is still one of my most “hated” chords today.
My advice is to start with three easy chords and I suggest either D, A and G or G, C and D. The first set are the major chords in the key of D and the second the major chords in the key of G. Generally speaking you should be able to sing along to whatever song you choose in one of these keys, so pick the key that suits your voice best. Singing along whilst learning can really help you get rhythm and will motivate you to learn the guitar much more. I really believe that doing it this way will help you no end to learn guitar chords properly.
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Many beginner guitar players, anxious to get through the hard stuff and start playing ask if they really need chords to learn guitar. There’s also the question of how many chords are really necessary. Some people have actually bought their first guitar, downloaded some tabs and learned to play them. So for people who have been able to learn guitar without chords, the question is whether they can just keep going in this way.