By Taura Eruera
Easy Guitar Chords are easy for guitar teachers and experts. But not for legions of beginners who give up when they discover playing easy chords turns out to be more time-intensive and physically demanding than they expected.
In my experience, it's common for guitar players to (innocently) emphasise how easy new guitar chords are for beginners.
This is partly because of their enthusiasm for guitar playing.
It is also partly because their beginner days seem so long ago. And they have forgotten what it's like to be a beginner. They only remember how easy guitar playing is now. And that is the perception of easy guitar that they pass on to (struggling) beginners.
In my experience it's also common for guitar teachers to emphasise the difficulty of playing easy chords.
The most articulate voice in this regard, in my view, is Jamie Andreas of guitarprinciplesdotcom. He can explain in minute detail, the challenges of playing easy guitar chords and changing fluently between them. As well as the secrets of turning physical restrictions into expressive freedoms.
The innocent guitar player and articulate guitar teacher are worlds apart and I will not attempt to reconcile them in this article.
My aim is to simply lay out these so-called easy chords, so that you can make your own judgement and set your own criteria for what is and is not easy.
To do so, I need to explain the vertical and horizontal tab notation used in the guitar world.
I'll take the D Major chord as the reference chord for this outline.
Figure 1:
Name..............D Major
Strings............654321
Frets...............x00232
Fingers............x00132
I'll now explain this vertical string tab notation to you.
Line 1 tells you the name of the chord.
Line 2 indicates the strings from numbers 6 to 1 or from the fattest string to the thinnest.
The Frets line on line 3 indicates which fret on the particular string is played.
A string marked with an X means you do not play it with either hand.
A string marked zero means you leave the string open with no frets pressed or fingered.
A number of 1 or greater means that you will place your finger on that particular fret on that string.
The Fingering line on line 4 tells you which finger to use to play that fret on that string.
The next diagram describes the horizontal string tab for you.
Figure 2:
1|--2-- ...............6|--x--
2|--3-- ...............5|--0--
3|--2-- ...............4|--0--
4|--0-- ...............3|--2--
5|--0-- ...............2|--3--
6|--X-- ...............1|--2--
You will see the horizontal tab in two forms: one with the thinnest string 1 at the top of the tab. The other with the thinnest string at the bottom of the tab.
It's the former you will see more of. Experienced players look at the guitar from the melody note down as in the left hand tab. To beginners it's more natural to look at guitar from the bass note up, because that is what they can see of guitar as they play it.
To summarise, the strings are drawn horizontally and labelled accordingly. Horizontal tab does not allow as well as vertical tab for fingering information.
Now let's lay out the chords that guitarists say is easy and teachers say are hard.
CHORD ONE: D Major In Open Position
Name..............D Major
Strings............654321
Frets...............x00232
Fingers............x00132
1|--2-- ...............6|--x--
2|--3-- ...............5|--0--
3|--2-- ...............4|--0--
4|--0-- ...............3|--2--
5|--0-- ...............2|--3--
6|--X-- ...............1|--2--
CHORD TWO: D Major In 5th Position
Name..............D Major
Strings............654321
Frets...............557775
Fingers............113331
1|--5-- ...............6|--5--
2|--7-- ...............5|--7--
3|--7-- ...............4|--7--
4|--7-- ...............3|--7--
5|--5-- ...............2|--7--
6|--5-- ...............1|--5--
CHORD THREE: D Major In 7th Position
Name...............D Major
Strings.............654321
Frets..............10987710
Fingers.............431114
1|--10- ..............6|--10-
2|--7-- ...............5|--9--
3|--7-- ...............4|--7--
4|--7-- ...............3|--7--
5|--9-- ...............2|--7--
6|--10- ..............1|--10-
CHORD FOUR: D Major In 9th Position
Name...............D Major
Strings.............6 5 4 3 2 1
Frets................10 12 12 11 10 10
Fingers.............1 3 4 2 1 1
1|--10- ...............6|--10-
2|--10- ...............5|--12-
3|--11- ...............4|--12-
4|--12- ...............3|--11-
5|--12- ...............2|--10-
6|--10- ...............1|--10-
These are the standard D Major chords that guitar players and sales people tell you are easy. I invite you to grab your guitar now and try out any one of the above chords with only one question in mind: Is this easy or hard for me to do?
Here is one other D Chord for you to consider.
CHORD FIVE: D Major In Open Position
Name..........D Major
Strings........654321
Frets...........000000
Fingers........000000
1|--0-- ...............6|--0--
2|--0-- ...............5|--0--
3|--0-- ...............4|--0--
4|--0-- ...............3|--0--
5|--0-- ...............2|--0--
6|--0-- ...............1|--0--
Take a close look at this D Chord. Does it look easier or harder than the previous four?
Out of all the easy guitar chords discussed on this page, which looks the easiest to you? And why.
Taura Eruera is an author of several books on guitar, harmony, rhythm and melody. He has clocked up thousands of hours of class and private guitar teaching. His guitar practice in Auckland, New Zealand now focuses more on helping regular people play their first three guitar songs in their first lesson with learn easy guitar [http://www.learneasyguitar.com] insights and results like [http://www.squidoo.com/easy_guitar_chords/]easy guitar chords.
Article Source: Easy Guitar Chords - Easy or Hard You Decide
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