Tips to Learn Chord Progressions

After learning the guitar parts, the name of each string, and your first few notes and melodies, the next thing beginners usually learn is their first couple of chords. That is, at least, how I first learned to play guitar. If this sounds like you, we are here to help you over this little hump in the process. You have probably seen any number of ads for guitar programs offering fast results with little effort on the internet. At the same time, I am sure that some of these work all right; many of them are just guys trying to make a buck. I am here to tell you that this is not all that difficult, but it does take a little time on your part, and it is best to avoid making any shortcuts early in your playing experience. Today, I will discuss what has helped my students over the years.

Chord Diagrams

Before moving on, however, I would like to discuss reading chord diagrams since I will use them here. It’s straightforward. Imagine holding the guitar upright, and the fretboard is facing you. You will notice six strings with horizontal lines for the frets. Any markings in black circles are frets that will be played on a given string and fret. An “X” above the string means that the string is not played. A “0” above the string indicates that the string is played open. An arc or a black line across several strings represents your barre that frets across those strings. That’s about the gist of it. Not so hard, right? Here is an example to give you an idea:

The First Chords

The next step after reading chord charts is learning our first few chords. For the purposes of this lesson, we will mainly be focusing on chords related to the keys of G and C major. These are open-position chords, meaning they use open strings and the first few frets on the neck. If you have a capo, you can use these shapes in any key signature. Now, I have recently noticed the CAGED system floating around on the internet. It seems handy, but it’s not how I learned, and it’s not how I teach. I prefer to learn things as they are instead of trying to remember mnemonic devices, but that’s for you to decide.

Try to Get a Good Sound

Now we have your first couple of chords. The first thing to do here is to try to get a good sound out of every note in each chord. Do not worry about playing through progressions just yet. Take each chord, play each letter in the chord individually while holding the chord, and see which notes are muted or don’t sound great. You will inevitably make these mistakes initially, and the only way to correct the problems is through practice. There are a few things to keep in mind, however, about getting a good sound. Let’s go over some of these.

Now Take These Steps

First and foremost, sit up straight. Slouching is normal at first, but when you slouch, your arms take funny positions and cause lousy technique and an ominous tone. Second, imagine that you are gripping a tennis ball. That should be more or less how your hand looks when grabbing the guitar. You will take liberties with this later on, but it’s good to establish good posture and form early. Third, avoid bending the joint at the tip of your finger. You will get into that later, but for the purposes of these first few chords, it’s bad form and can cause unwanted muting. And last, make sure you are only using the tips of your fingers to fret notes.

Progressions

Now, let’s move on to some progressions. The most important thing here is to take this slowly. Take a metronome and set it to somewhere around 40-50 BPM. Go slower if you must. Take the progression two chords at a time, and make sure you nail each transition. For example, if we are practicing the progression above, your practice would look something like this: G > C > G > C > G > C Please each chord four times before moving on to the next one. Don’t worry about strumming patterns right now.

Moving Forward

Next, go to the next pair of chords. C to Em, then Em to Am, and lastly, Am back to G. Make sure each transition is clean and there is no hesitation. Remember that there is no rush here! Good sound and good tempo is the most important thing to take away from this. It is much more challenging to retrain someone with bad habits than to establish good practices early on. When you finally feel comfortable enough with each one of these transitions. Go ahead and try the whole progression. See if you can get through it without stumbling. If you find that you are struggling a little too much, go ahead and lower the BPM a bit.

Add More Chords

Next, let’s go ahead and add a few more chords to your library. F major does not use any open strings, but it is close enough that we can add it to our library here. With these seven chords, we can now play many songs, believe it or not! Let’s go ahead and add a few more progressions for you to practice.

G - Em - Am - D
C - Am - Dm - G
Em - C - G - D
Am - F - C - G

Make sure you practice these using the same steps I listed earlier.

The Importance of Music Theory

Lastly, I would like to highlight the importance of learning music theory. Guitar players often neglect this side of things and wind up playing catch-up later on. Nip this in the bud early! Also, go ahead and learn a bunch of songs. This is the best way to absorb and understand what works and what does not in music. Thanks for reading, and I hope you enjoyed this lesson!

About the Author

Marc-Andre Seguin is the webmaster, “brains behind,” and teacher on JazzGuitarLessons.net, the #1 online resource for learning jazz guitar. He draws from his experience both as a professional jazz guitarist and professional jazz teacher to help thousands of people from all around the world know the craft of jazz guitar.