Guitar chords: where to start, how to read them, every family

Chords are what turn a guitar into an accompaniment. A handful of shapes, played cleanly and changed in time, is enough for your first songs. But learning chords is not collecting finger shapes. It is knowing which ones to learn first, which strings to play, how to read a diagram, how to get from one chord to the next without stopping, and when a barre is worth the effort. This page gives you that order, then a map of every chord family, each with its own page and its own list of chords.

Where to start

Not every guitarist needs the same thing at the same time. Pick the line that matches where you are today.

The first ten chords, in order

Do not learn every chord at once. Learn a small group that songs use all the time, and put them into real progressions. This order adds one new difficulty at a time:

1. Em: two fingers, all six strings ring.
2. E: the same shape plus one finger.
3. A: three fingers packed into one fret.
4. Am: the E shape moved over one string.
5. D: your first four-string chord, which teaches the strumming hand to aim.
6. Dm: D with one note lowered.
7. G: a wide stretch and a full, ringing sound.
8. C: the chord that teaches you where the bass note is.
9. F: first without the full barre, then with it.
10. Bm: the first minor barre, built in layers.

The basic guitar chords page takes these one by one, with the fingering for each.

How to read a chord name

A chord symbol is a letter plus a suffix. The letter is the root, the note the chord is named after. The suffix says which other notes sit on top of it, counted in scale steps from the root. Here is every family on this site, spelled from C:

Two details trip people up. A plain 7 always means the dominant seventh (C7 has B flat), while maj7 means the major seventh (Cmaj7 has B natural). And a slash means a bass note: C/E is a C chord with E as the lowest note.

On a diagram, the vertical lines are the strings and the horizontal ones the frets. A dot is a finger, an O is an open string, an X is a string you do not play. On this site each chord is also written as six characters, read from the thickest string to the thinnest: x32010 is C, with the low E silent. The chord diagram guide covers the rest.

Try it now: four chords, one real progression

Pick up the guitar and play G, D, Em, C, four slow beats on each chord. This one loop sits under a huge number of songs.

Do not chase speed. Chase three things:

• start each chord from the right bass string;
• let every string you play ring clearly;
• keep the beat going, even if the change itself is slow.

When that loop sounds clean, you already understand the main point: chords are not isolated pictures, they are movements made in time. The same idea, with more keys, is on the chord progressions page.

Which strings to play

A common mistake is to strum every chord across all six strings. Each chord has a starting string, and a low string that does not belong to the chord makes it muddy straight away.

The bass is the lowest note you sound. The root is the note that names the chord. Usually they are the same, but not always, and that difference is what chord inversions are about.

Barre chords: a shape that moves

Barre chords scare people, but they are not a punishment. A barre is the first finger laid flat across the strings, acting as a movable nut, so an open shape can slide anywhere on the neck. Open E (022100) becomes F at the first fret (133211) and G at the third (355433). Open Am (x02210) becomes Bm at the second fret (x24432) and Cm at the third (x35543).

Do not start with the full F barre. Play xx321x, then xx3211, and only then 133211. Keep the first finger close to the fret wire, roll it slightly onto its bony edge, relax the shoulder and the wrist, and test string by string before you strum. The barre chords page gives the fret for every major and minor chord.

Every chord family

Once major and minor chords feel familiar, every other family is one or two notes away. Each has its own page, with the formula, the sound, the movable shapes and the full list of chords.

Changing chords cleanly

Knowing a chord is the easy half. The real work starts when you have to move to the next one without breaking the rhythm. Three levers do almost everything:

1. The anchor finger: keep a finger that both chords share in place.
2. The smallest move: move the hand as little as possible.
3. The beat: slow down until the change is clean.

Good first pairs are C to G (x32010 to 320003), G to D (320003 to xx0232), Am to C (x02210 to x32010) and D to A (xx0232 to x02220). Practice them at 60 BPM with the online metronome. If the problem is that you know the chords but songs still fall apart, read I know chords but can't play songs.

To hear a progression doing its job, Bob Dylan's Knockin' on Heaven's Door uses only G, D, Am and C, and Bob Marley's Redemption Song is built on G, Em, C and D.

Capo or barre chord?

A capo moves every open string up by the same distance. You keep the shapes you know, and the song sounds higher. A barre answers a different need: it makes one shape movable and lets you choose exactly which bass note and which part of the neck you want. They do not compete.

The guitar capo chart tells you which fret turns which shape into which chord, and chords in every key lists the chords that belong together.

A ten minute chord routine

A good routine is short, clear and repeatable. The aim is not to cover everything, but to improve a little every day.

1. Minute 1, tune. Check every string with the online guitar tuner.
2. Minutes 2 and 3, two chords alone. Pick two, for example G and D, and play each string one at a time.
3. Minutes 4 and 5, the slow change. Go from G to D with no rhythm, looking for the shortest move.
4. Minutes 6 and 7, at 60 BPM. One bar of G, one bar of D.
5. Minute 8, a third chord. Add C or Em.
6. Minute 9, the loop. G, D, Em, C.
7. Minute 10, music. Play part of a song that uses those chords.

If everything stays clean, add 5 BPM tomorrow. If the sound falls apart, slow down.