Continue the Quest!
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More Useful Chords
This is part of the "VERY Basic Guitar subset of our "How To Folk" articles. In an effort to "jump start" your enjoyment of Folk music and your ability to join in, no matter what instrument you play, we are providing some very basic notes about guitar chords.
Note: - This part of the Folkarama page, which is dedicated to helping beginners "get into" Folk music and join Folk communities as easily as possible, with simple articles and links to resources that provide hands-on instruction in traditional acoustic instruments.
Folkarama, in turn, contains many references to more extensive articles and resources in Paul Race's CreekDontRise.com site, as well as other related pages.
Previously on "Basic Guitar"
Hopefully, you have already worked your way through these materials:- Meet Your Guitar - a very basic intro to holding, tuning, and picking the guitar.
- Three Magic Chords - a three-part series to introduce enough easy guitar chords to get you started on learning scores of 2-chord songs.
Next Steps
This section will introduce you to the next set of chords you're likely to need if you're playing guitar-based songs. Our first priority is to give you the chords you need to play 3-chord songs in the key of G, a favorite key of Country, Bluegrass, and Folk musicians.
More useful chords will follow, that will help you play more songs in more keys.
By the time you're done with this section, you'll know most of the chords that most acoustic guitar players use most often.
There are chords beyond those, most of which you won't encounter very often, but we will cover them eventually, so you don't get caught having to ask "dumb questions" in the middle of a jam.
Moving Ahead - Once you've got comfortable with D, A7, and G, the next chord you have to learn is C, one that throws a lot of folks at first - sorry about that. But there is a relatively easy workaround you can use for songs in the key of G. Other chords you should know are presented in the pages that follow.
- C and C9 Chord - Learn the C chord, which you will have to learn eventually, and learn a relatively easy substitute you may use for now.
- It's All Relative - Am and Em - The fingerings and most common uses of guitar's easiest minor chords, Am and Em. We also sneak in Am7, Em7, and Bm7 to expand your chord vocabulary.
- A Major - the Fiddler's Friend - Expand your chord arsenal with A major and its BFF, E7.
- E Major, a Cornerstone of Blues and Folk - Learn the key of E, and especially why it is such a popular key for Blues.
- F Major - Set your C Chord Free! - Learning a simplified version of F allows you to play countless songs that were originally written in C the way they were originally played.
Conclusion
Up through this section, we've focused on "root position" guitar chords. Most of them also have "open strings," so there's sound ringing out of your guitar even while you're changing chords. There are many other ways to play the chords we've covered, and there are many other chords that can be played. But if you stay in the Folk, Bluegrass, or Country genres, the chords we've shown so far will give you 95% of what you need.Again, the more you play, sing, practice, and hang, the more you'll get out of it, the faster you'll learn in the future, and the better you'll be at whatever you already do have "under your belt."
Other resources will be listed as I get to them.
Sister Sites
Other sites we started to keep this site from getting too big to be useful include:
- CreekDontRise.com is a repository of articles about Folk music and the instruments on which it has been traditionally played.
The "Acoustic" page includes a long list of articles including maintenance and playing tips on all sorts of traditional acoustic instruments.
RiverboatMusic.com is a buyers' guide for acoustic and traditional instrument from a musician's point of view, focusing on the uses, reliability, and practicality of various instruments, and not just the marketing hype about the shape of the fret markers or whatever.
For instruments like dulcimers that have mostly small manufacturers or cheap imports, we try to tell you what to look for, irrespective of brand.
Momma Don't 'Low includes a free e-mail newsletter that discusses all of those topics above and more. We plan to include other features as time permits.
Note - If you wish to sign up for our newsletter and ask a question at the same time, please click on the Momma Don't 'Low newsletter button to learn more and to get a link to our signup form.
PaulRaceMusic.com is the "landing page" for Paul's own musical endeavors, plus many memoirs and blogs about music and the music business.
ClassicTrainSongs.com describes railroad songs that every train lover should know. Or at least know about.
- SchoolOfTheRock.com has articles about Christian music, Christian music careers and performance, Christian living in general, and vintage saxophones, another of Paul's interests. This site has separate newsletters, etc., by the way - there isn't a lot of overlap with the Momma Don't 'Low(tm) newsletters.
For information about other music collections and projects, check the links at the bottom of this page.
Whatever else you get out of our pages, I hope you come away with some great ideas for "sharing the joy."
And please stay in touch!
- Paul Race
All material, illustrations, and content of this web site is copyrighted (c) 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006,
2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023 by Paul D. Race. All rights reserved.
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