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How to Tune Your Guitar

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Open-Position Chords

Guitar Chord Basics

A chord is a combination of three or more notes sounded at the same time. Since guitars have six strings, guitar chords can have up to six notes. There are two fundamental types of chords that you’ll learn as a beginning guitarist: open-position chords and barre chords.

Open-position chords: Chords played with a combination of fretted notes and open strings. These chords can be played only within the first three frets of the guitar neck.
Barre chords: Chords that do not use open strings. Barre chords can be played anywhere on the fretboard, not just within the first three frets.

All open-position and barre chords are named based on their root note and chord type.

Root note: The root note of a chord is usually (but not always) the lowest note in the chord. A chord whose root note is A is an A chord.
Chord type: The five main types of chords are major, minor, 7th, minor 7th, and major 7th. A chord’s type describes the chord’s sound, or mood.

Chords are named by taking the root and adding the chord type: an “Am7” is an A minor 7th chord. Different types of chord have different sounds or moods, shown in the following table. For instance, the Am7 chord has a sound that combines a 7th chord with the sad sound of a minor chord.

Chord Type	Sound / Mood	Symbol
Major	Positive, cheerful	M (or none)
Minor	Dark, sad, sorrowful	m
7th	Bluesy, funky	7
Major 7th	Jazzier, mellower version of a major chord	M7
Minor 7th	Jazzier, mellower version of a minor chord	m7

Guitar Chord Diagrams

To play most instruments, you need to be able to read standard musical notation. But not so for guitar—you can learn to play guitar without knowing how to read music at all.

Chord diagrams are chord cheat sheets: they show you where to put your fingers and which strings to play. Guitar chords can be written with standard notation, but chord diagrams are much faster and easier. Each diagram shows the first four frets vertically, as if your guitar were leaning up against a wall. Symbols and numbers show which strings you should play, at which fret, and with which finger: