The first chord to learn on the guitar will always be the Cmajor chord ” C-F-G-Am” but as a new guitar player, my advice will always be to start from the beginning, first guitar lessons what to expert.
The chords learned on the guitar are not the most difficult, the most difficult on the guitar is understanding what is a chord and how chords are created and used.
This is why in this blog I will show the first chords to learn on guitar, how each chord is built, and how to play them on your instrument.
What is a chord and how to build it?
A chord is a combination of 3+ different notes playing simultaneously on the guitar or other instruments, while the arrangement that musicians used to play a song is called chord progressions or suite d’accord.
In music in general there are only 7(seven) main notes which they called scales, these notes are C-D-E-F-G-A-B these seven notes are the root of any music.
Chords are used to create melodies. The most frequent note played is called triad, a group of 3 notes playing simultaneously and each note creates a different sound.
The triad consists of a root note which is the name of the code, followed by the third note of the musical scale and the fifth note
Formula= I-II-V( The root, the third note and the fifth note) EX: C=C-E-G
The chords can have different natures which means they can be minor, major, 6th, 7th, augmented, etc.
How to play the first chords learned on the guitar
Music is created by using different triads called chords, each chord has its own nature and is played differently. But how to play your first chords learn on the guitar?
Let’s say you have your guitar and know a few notes or chords and want to start playing a song on the guitar, the first chord will be the first note of the musical scale followed by the fourth note and the fifth note.
Formula: I-IV-V(The first chord, follow by the fourth chord and the fifth chord) EX:Cmajor= C-F-G
You might say that this looks like the first formula when I was talking about building a chord, but it is not the same.
The first formula on how to build a chord which was I-III-V, however when playing a song the formula is I-IV-V.
This can be a little confusing but there is a formula for every chord you want to play when playing guitar, I will talk about different types of chords in a future blog.
The formula I-II-V is also called natural chord while the formula I-IV-V is called basic guitar chords
First chords to learn on guitar
After you have learned and applied the formula above, it will be easier to play your first chord progressions which are the ones listed at the beginning of this blog, I-IV-V-VI, Cmajor=C-F-G Am.
Remember you are using the basic chord formula, in the basic chord formula, each note is a different chord.
At first, you will need to learn all the chords on the guitar before you can use them to play a song
example: C chord, D chord, E Chord, F chord, G chord, A chord, B chord
Each chord are using the same formula and the formula is I-III-V, but the difference when moving the note on the scale everything will change because instruments are using a chromatic scale which is a twelve-set of note pitches.
What is a chromatic scale?
A chromatic scale is a set of twelve musical alphabet notes arranged one after the other using the same interval. Each degree of the scale is separated by a half-step interval so the chromatic scale covers all black and white keys on the keyboard. Google chromatic scale. to learn more
Natural major scale: C-D-E-F-G-A-B
Chromatic Scale: C-C#-D-D#-E-F-F#-G-G#-A-A#-B
Guitar, keyboard, or must instruments are using the chromatic scale.
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First chords to learn on guitar Formula