The first chord that we are going to work on is an E major chord.
We're going to get into why it is called a major chord versus a minor chord etcetera in a later lesson.
Right now we want to get you playing.
Take what you know so far and let's get started on that chord.
First we are going to take our third finger and we are going to place it on the second fret.
On the A string or the fifth string.
The we are going to take our fourth finger and we are going to place it on the D string or fourth string.
Then we are going to take our second finger and place it on the first fret on the G string.
Then go ahead and strum down using your pick
and you have your E chord.
Let's do that one more time.
You have got your third finger on your A string second fret.
Your fourth finger on your D string second fret and you've got your second finger on your G string first fret.
You are going to strum all of the strings.
There is your E chord.
Now if you look at the diagram this included in the supplemental materials you will see a list of the string names.
The strings go from the first one being your high E string or your first string and then they go this way. They go lower.
You are going to see an E, a colon and a zero.
What that means is you're not playing you are not fretting a note on that string but you are playing it when you see a zero.
If you go down that list to your G string. You are going to notice a G a colon and then a one.
That is basically telling you that you want to play first fret on your G string.
The next number over after the dash is the finger number.
That is how you read those diagrams.
There are a lot of different ways to read chord diagrams in later lessons we will be getting into different ways to look at that
but for right now this is a good easy way to go back and remember how to play the chord.
When you are first learning chords I found it really helpful to do what I've started to call chord pushups
although they are not really a pushup.
Basically what you are doing is you are getting your hand in position
you are strumming the chord you are making sure it's clean then you take your hand off and shake it out.
Get your hand in position again strum and make sure it's clean.
When you are first learning these chords it is totally fine to do that twenty, thirty times
because what you might find is that as you are fretting these chords or these notes you might have these strings that are
not in the right places and maybe you are deadening some strings if you have a finger in the wrong place etcetera.
Doing this just continually reminds your brain and your muscles and trains you to start playing those correctly.
A note about your thumb.
When you are starting to play this chord and really any chord do not let your thumb come up over the neck.
I am able to make it work but I have been playing guitar for fourteen years.
When you are starting and this is a review from the last lesson
but you want the joint of your thumb to be right on the hump of the neck.
That is going to give you the most leverage to play this thing correctly and give you the most strength.
You also want to make sure that your thumb isn't too far over either side and if you are going to lay your fingers out like this
you want your thumb to always be directly between your first finger and your second finger behind the neck.
That just gives you a lot of strength.
So here is your E chord.
Let's move to the A chord in just a second.