You
Hi, I'm Rick Plunkett and welcome to my video beginning chords and strumming
What we're going to do in this video is show you how as a beginning guitar player how you can go from?
Literally your first few weeks of playing and just learning the first major
Minor and seventh chords and how to really apply them literally into a band setting in a short period of time
Let's start by tuning up starting with the high E string or the first string
The second string B
The third string G
The fourth string D
The fifth string a
and the sixth string E
or low E
First thing that we're going to do now is I'm going to show you some major chords
Okay, we're going to start with the a major chord, and we're going to go through the chords
Alphabetically to G so we'll do a B C D E F and G and I'll explain the fingerings for each one
Starting with the a chord a major chord and let me just note that it's a good idea to get in the habit of using
The pinky and as often as possible you want to strengthen that pinky, and I'll show you why later on in the video
Starting with the the second fret second string pinky finger
The next finger on the third string second fret
The next finger on the fourth string second fret and since it's an a major chord
Your bottom note is going to be a that's called the root or the tonic note
It's very important to remember that your finger placement
Should be as close as possible to just before the fret of course these are the frets these lines going up and down the neck
You want your finger placement just before each fretted note that you're going to play
I'll show you an example of what it sounds like if you're in the wrong position on a lower string
You hear that buzzing
That's what happens when you're when you're not fretted in the right place
And also the note will be a little bit flat you want to make sure that your fingers are just before the fret right in front
So that a major chord, and if this is a little too fast for you, you can always refer to the book for fingerings
Okay, that's a major. Let's show you B major next
Move that same pattern up two frets up the neck one
two
And then you're going to put your first finger on the first string second fret holding all four strings down
Now you're not going to play the bottom a string
Your first note will be actually f sharp, which is the fourth string fourth fret
And make sure all your notes sound
And if it doesn't if you're having trouble holding the fret
If you're having trouble holding all the strings down at first just keep working on it. You'll have to develop the muscles in your hand
If you sound like that just keep working on it
B major
Let me show you C major first finger second string first fret
Second finger fourth string second fret
Third finger fifth string third fret
Your bottom note will be the fifth string third fret C for C major
Okay, let's show you D major second finger
First string second fret
First finger placed on the third string second fret
And your third finger on the second string third fret
D major
You'll start with a D string
That's what your D major should sound like
Let's look at E major first finger third string first fret
third finger
fourth string second fret
Second finger or middle finger fifth string second fret
You're going to engage all the strings on the E major chord because your bottom string is E and your top string is also E
E major
Now let's do F
Third finger fourth string third fret
Second finger third string second fret
Now what you're going to do is you're going to hold
Or bar the first and second strings at the first fret together. You're going to hold them down with your first finger
Four strings starting with your fourth. You're going to engage the first second third and fourth strings leaving silent the fifth and sixth strings
F major
G major
Let's look at G major second finger fifth string second fret
Third finger sixth string third fret and the fourth finger first string third fret
You can play it this way
Or you can use the different fingers
Just by trading them out first finger
On the fifth string second fret second finger on the sixth string third fret and the third string on the first
Excuse me the third finger on the first string third fret. It's a little bit easier to play it this way
But again, you want to get used to using that pinky
It's a good idea to strengthen that pinky up
So i'll run through all the chords again starting with A
A
B
C
D
E
F
And G
Now we're going to make a little music i'm going to take uh three chords
Of those and we're going to play what's called a three chord progression
And uh, i'm going to use C. I'm going to use G and D
And we're just going to play these three chords together so you can get used to changing chords
And uh making a little bit of music with it. This is a very commonly used
Progression you've probably heard this in lots of different songs and lots of different applications
I'll just play it for you now
So
Now let's look at some minor chords
We'll do the same thing we did with the major chords starting with A and going through all the chords to G
The difference between a minor and a major chord is that one note in the minor chord is flat
I'll show you A major first and then how to get A minor
Remember the fingerings for A major
You're just flatting one note for the A minor taking the pinky off and putting the first finger on the second string first fret
That gives you your minor A major
A minor
Okay
now
I want to remember to use the pinky so we'll be in this position the uh
Second third and fourth strings
B minor is the same as B major by moving it up two frets
Putting the first string, excuse me, the first finger on the first string second fret
B minor C minor is exactly the same just up one fret
C minor
Let's look at D minor
first string first finger
first fret
second string
second fret second string excuse me second finger third string second fret
third finger second string third fret
same notes same strings
I should say as the D major
D minor let's look at E minor
Third finger fourth string second fret
Second finger fifth string second fret and just like the E major you're going to use all the strings in the E minor
Just like that
Let's look at F minor
Third finger
fourth string third fret and what you're going to do just like with the uh the the F major
The F minor you're going to have to bar three strings
Remember in the F major this was the fingering and you only barred two
well, you're going to remove the second finger and
Take it up with the the first finger
Notice how my second finger is assisting the first finger and holding the strings down
And G minor is the same thing
Is the same position?
But up two frets
One two for G minor
Let's run through those again one more time A minor
B minor
B minor C minor
D minor
E minor
F minor and G minor
Now let's do a progression adding a minor chord and if you'll notice that the minor chords have a characteristic of kind of a sadness
about them
Major chords are much brighter sounding but when you add a minor it adds kind of a sadness listen to the A major
and then the A minor
Very characteristic A minor excuse me. Just minor chords are very distinctive in their sound
So this progression i'll pull
A minor
C major and G major and we'll use the same strumming technique as we used in the first progression
Yeah
So
Now let's look at a different chord form a seventh chord
Seventh chords are predominantly used in blues. Oh, they're used in just about every style of music that there is
Um, but uh, I think most commonly used in blues. They have a very distinctive, uh, blues sound
Um, let's start with uh, A7
We'll make it. I'll show you the uh, the A major first
And I'll show you how to get the A7 all you need to do is remove your third your third finger
Your third finger that's kind of impractical to play it that way this is a much easier way to play it
Keep in mind that there are lots of different ways to play each chord. This is one way to play an A7
You can use whichever fingers you want
Let's show you B7 now for B7 you're going to have to bar
Five strings to hold that down
So you've got your your
Fourth finger on the second string fourth fret your third finger on the fourth string fourth fret
And your first finger
will be barring
The fifth fourth third second and first strings at the second fret
And note note also once again how my second finger is assisting the first finger and holding those strings down
And don't be discouraged if you can't
Sound every note right away. It takes a little bit of time to build up the muscles in the hand
Especially for these bar chords
so
A7
B7
C7
And D7
Third finger first string second fret
second finger
Third string second fret first finger
second string first fret
Four strings starting with the fourth string
D7
Again there are lots of different ways to play each chord. I'm just showing you some basics. Let's look at E7
E7 is simply an E major
So remember the E major chord with your pinky added
On the second string third fret
It's up to you whether you want to play that high E or stop it right there at the at the D
It doesn't really matter whatever you want to do
We're gonna let's look at the F7
First finger first and second strings first fret
Your second finger on the third string second fret
second fret
Your third finger on the fourth string third fret then you're going to kind of stretch your pinky out
Here to the fourth fret second string might be a little tough for you
It's important on some chords, especially chords where you have to stretch two or three frets to
Place your thumb in the very back. You'll see
Place your thumb right in the middle of the back of the neck rather than wrapping your thumb around the neck
It's very difficult to play those chords that way so that kind of opens up your hand to be able to stretch
Okay
F7 it's a little more challenging of a chord
Good to work on that one. That one really will using that a lot will strengthen your pinky, which is a good idea again
And you could for the g7 just slide that up
And play it in this position, but i'll show you an even more commonly used a basic g7 chord with your second finger
fifth string second fret
Third finger sixth string third fret and then your first finger on the first string first fret
For your g7
Let's look at some strumming techniques now in the first progression. We'll use those same chords again
C
G
And D major
Those are all majors C major G major and D major and rather than just doing a four down strokes
We're going to do a down up stroke, okay, here's how it goes
You'll notice first of all that my hand will be constantly going down
And up although I won't be striking the strings every time. Let me show you what I mean
So placing the chord changes
Um
Now let's uh strum through the progression using the minor chord and we'll see how that sounds
It was a minor c major g major
So
Now you can do a little variation on that strum and you can add a few beats or a few notes if you want to
Thank you. Let me give you a demonstration
So
Let's look at another strumming technique commonly used in a harder rock or heavier rock
It's just a heavy down stroke
I'll take a progression a g and d major
And i'll show you what I mean
So
Now let me show you another uh picking technique. This is called muting and this is used very commonly in a harder and heavy rock
You want to place the the palm of your hand your right hand
Just on the strings. You don't want to press them down. You're not pushing down. You're just resting. So your your elbow should be right over
Uh the body of your guitar just so that your palm rests on the strings near the bridge
And I hold my pick between the first finger and the thumb
Uh, some people prefer to hold between the first and second fingers and the thumb again as whatever is most comfortable for you
I think when I first started playing I held it this way
But I I realized that I could get a lot more free movement by holding the pick just between these two fingers
Like that and experiment with this
Okay
So you're going to be resting your palm on the strings near the bridge
And picking simultaneously
simultaneously like this
So
Now let's take some of those seventh chords that we looked at earlier
And let's do a blues progression. This is uh generally called a 12 chord blues progression
Um, the kind of strumming i'm going to use is the same muting that I just used
And we're going to apply some of the seventh chords. Uh, the chords will be
e7
a7
And b7 and i'll do variations on those so uh, watch what I do I
Played heavily off of the the root string or the tonic string for each chord
I'll play the e part again with the e chord notice i'm hitting heavily the e string with the pick
Here same thing when I change chords to a no longer on the e string but now on the a string
And then changing to b
Back to a and then back to e
And here's what that sounds like with the band
So
We're going to look at one final way to play chords and uh, that's called bar chords bar chords are basically uh,
Chord fingerings that are slid and moved to different locations on the neck
Um, we'll go back to the major chords. Let's take for instance e major
And it's very important for a bar chord
To leave your first finger free because that's the finger that's going to actually be barring your chord. Let's look at e major for example
You can play all the forms or all the chords from e
All the way back through uh through e again with the bar chords playing up the neck for instance
e major
Then sliding it up one fret
And barring all six strings with your first finger makes that e major f major
And again it might be difficult for you at first to be able to hold all all six strings down
Again, it does take practice and it takes exercise
e major
F major i'm going to slide that up two frets to g major
A major at the fifth fret
Then to the seventh fret for b major
To the eighth fret for c major
Um
The tenth fret for d major
And then playing the octave form of the e major chord
E major at the 12th fret
Now you'll notice when I start to get up to the higher frets the frets are a lot closer together
So it becomes more difficult to fit all your fingers within the frets
So it may not be as practical to pray to to to play these particular
Forms up that high on the neck
You can take care of that. You can change that let's look at
The fingering of the a major chord
The second fret and we'll slide that form up and we'll bar that all the way up the neck in the same way we did
the e major fingering
a major
up two frets
And instead of having to bar all six strings, you're only going to need to bar
five strings because
The fifth string will be the roots or the tonic note of each of those chords second fret is b major
Third fret c major
Fifth fret d major
And seventh fret e major
So that gives you an option if it's impractical for you to play an e major at the 12th fret
And you can play down here at the seventh fret using the a major fingering split up to the seventh fret
Like so
Let me show you a chord progression using
The three bar chords. I'll use the same chords as I used in our first progression, which was c major
G major and d major
And I use the bar chord forms for those three chords to play the progression and i'm going to use the the muted
picking strumming technique
Okay
So
Now as you get into playing maybe heavier rock or blues
Sometimes you don't need the first and second strings to sound you don't need a full chord
So what you can do is kind of cheat
Instead of using these three fingers to hold down
All the strings what you can do is just engage the third finger and hold down two or three strings. These are kind of what are called
rock chords or triads
There's that same progression played
Like this
So there you have it
Everything that you've learned in this video
major chords minor chords
Seventh chords the introduction into bar chords and the few strumming techniques that we looked at
That literally will enable you to grow as a musician for years to come
So keep practicing the key is persistence. Don't get discouraged if you can't finger those bar chords right away
The key is keep practicing and don't give up. Good luck to you
So