If you want to play as many of your favorite songs as possible, learning the basic chords of which there are 10 or 15 will help. The background of songs are made up of chords which are accompanied by other instruments. Now, you are probably asking what is a chord. The chord is three or more musical notes which are played together.

On a guitar this would mean three strings are strummed if there are three notes in the chord you want to play. On a guitar the number of notes that may be played in a chord is at the most six because this is the number of strings. There are three groups of chords – Minor, Major and Seventh. Of these three each one has its own mood. The minor chords are melancholy. The major chords are steady and the seventh chords are upbeat and less stable.

Although everyone does not agree that there exists a standard number of chords, there is an overall consensus that from 8 to 18 chords exists that every one who plays the guitar must know. These are the chords that are used in everything from country to jazz to rock. These chords should be the first ones learned. By learning them you will be able to play more songs and get more pleasure from playing.

So what are the basic chords we are talking about? They are the minor and major chords of A, D,E, and the major chords of G and C. The chords are made by not pressing some of the strings in the chord out. In other words do not press that string(s) down with your finger when you fret. Fret means to hold the strings on the neck of the guitar with the fingers on one hand while the other hand strums. Leaving one or more strings out while pressing on the others is called an open chord.

Open chords are much easier to learn for the beginner. The basic chords are A Major, A Minor, C Major, D Major, D Minor, E Major, E Minor, F Major and G Major. By using a basic guitar chords chart you can see each chord and where your fingers go to make that chord. This is the way many people taught themselves to play the guitar.

When you begin to learn the chords the most used method is to learn the chord families. The notes of the family are mixed to produce chords that are the basics of many songs that people are playing today. This makes learning more fun when you think of it in this way and the families are learned much easier than just choosing chords randomly. You will be playing in no time.

There are many songs that are based on three chords. The process of studying and trying every chord you can find is going to do nothing more than confuse you. When learning to play the guitar for the first time mastering the easy chords is the step you need to learn in order to start playing right away. There are some places that have over 1200 chords which is by far too many for the beginning player and probably for many accomplished players.

If you want to be able to start playing in a few days, trying to learn all of these chords is not going to help. Using the basic guitar chords chart will allow you to look at the information until you learn it and you will know where your fingers are supposed to go and the music will be flowing in a few days.