Preface (skip if this isn’t your first time here): 

THERE ARE TOO MANY PEOPLE WHO DON’T KNOW ANYTHING USEFUL ABOUT THE GUITAR!

It’s because no one either showed them anything useful or they never found out the basics of playing guitar.

DON’T BE LIKE THEM! 

Here we are going to talk about those guitar basics in bite-sized chunks. 

Hopefully, this will give you everything necessary to understand how to play the instrument, fix any flaws in your playing, and form ideas on how to change things up in your technique. 

There are 3 ways to read guitar music: Musical Notation, Guitar Tab, and Chord Charts. Yes, there are Lead Sheets and I’m sure other things, but again these posts are for beginners. 

Today we’ll go over chord charts. 

The second most popular way of learning the guitar and the favorite of singer-songwriters everywhere. 

Chord Charts are simple to understand. Let’s take a look. 

The six vertical lines represent the six strings on the guitar. The furthest line to the left is string six (the one closest to your face/ low E string). The furthest one to the right is string one. 

The horizontal lines create the three frets that are normally present on most chord charts. It’s just frets one, two, and three. 

The X’s above the strings mean that you don’t play/strum those strings.

The 0’s, whether it be black or white, mean you play those strings. 

The black 0 means to put your finger on that particular fret.

Looking at the G7 chord above, the black 0 is on string one (the one closest to your leg) on fret one. You will strum three strings (strings one, two, and three). You won’t strum strings four, five, and six because there are X’s over them. Try it out! 

Now try it again with these three chords!