Guitar Lesson 6 - Your First Guitar Chord

Before we can continue to learn and master guitar, we really need to have a chord to work with first. The basic chord that we are going to be working with is E Minor. This is a very simple and easy chord to play, and it shouldn't hurt your hand or anything.

To play this chord your going to use your middle and ring fingers. The chord is exactly as shown below.

|----------0------------|e
|----------0------------|b
|----------0------------|g
|----------2------------|d
|----------2------------|a
|----------0------------|e

Remember that 0's mean not to fret anything and to just play the string as it is on its own. Take your middle finger and place it on the 2nd fret of the A string. Your ring finger goes on the 2nd fret of the D string.

Its more important to focus on the clarity of chords than picking them, and so turn your attention to pressing those 2 strings down.

If your fingers start to hurt and you feel the guitar strings cutting into the tips of your fingers, this is typical. Simply take breaks and only work on this stuff for small amounts of time here and there. It gets easier over time.

Now, using a guitar pick or your fingers, strum through the chords DOWNWARD. Keep repeating this, but remember that its more important to make sure that there is no string buzzing than anything.