Hang 'Em High, Leave 'Em Open [Beginner]

You walk into the saloon, dust off your boots and sit down at the table where the daily poker game is going on. Winning a hand or two you start to feel lucky. You throw down the ultimate bet, all or nothing plus $100. Laying it all on the line you wait with anticipation as the dealer flips out the card that is to be the river. A seven...well that doesn't help at all. Looks like you owe the fella who beat you all your chips and $100, but you don't have the extra $100. Your chance at the flush was foiled. So what do you do?

Well you challenge him to a guitar battle of course. Can't play any songs? Oh crap. Another foil in your plan and this isn't looking good for you. Looks like you need to learn a few chords to get you rolling right? Welcome to Open Chords/Cowboy Chords.

Cowboy chord is just another name for an open chord. I like calling them cowboy chords because if you can't play a country song without a G chord in there somewhere, then you aren't playing a country song. The definition of an open chord is simply a chord that is being played in the open position (the first 4 frets) and generally have an open string, or strings, within the chord structure. Let's look at the tab for our first chord, the mighty G chord. (If you missed the lesson on reading tabs, you can check it out here.) Also, as a reminder, we are in standard tuning.

----3---- (p)
----0----
----0----
----0----
----2---- (i)
----3----(m)

What are those random letters off to the side? I don't know, I'm your guitar teacher not Einstein. Ok, only joking. I really am Einstein, or at the very least, a distant relative. What those letters indicate is what finger you use to fret the chord. This is the system we're gonna go by. If you know the latin names, ignore those. We're going for simplicity here and we're gonna make our own system. There's no reason the thumb should be indicated by a p, in my opinion. So this is our secret code system. T stands for thumb, I stands for index, M for middle, R for ring, and P for pinkie. This system is our system...it makes us feel accomplished right?

Back to the chords. What you're going to really focus on when learning your first chords is really trying to make sure all notes within the chord are heard crisply and clearly. If you are just learning guitar for the very first time, you should put great importance on proper fret hand technique. This involves curving your fingers around the fret board and using the tips your fingers to fret the notes. Let's do an exercise. Hold your left hand out in front of your face, parallel to the floor with your palm down. (If you are a left handed guitar maestro, just use the opposite hand mentioned) Now with your right hand make a sideways "T" by placing the palm of your right hand on the tips of your left hand fingers. Now make a mental note, when fretting individual notes with one finger at a time, the tip of your left hand fingers that are touching your right hand palm should be the only part of your fingers that touch the fretboard when playing guitar. That sounds like a really complicated sentence when I read that back, but I cannot stress enough that as a new gutiarist, you need to form proper technique. It is much easier to correct this now than later. I myself had a problem of being apathetic towards my approach in the beginning and it took me 4 years to correct what I improperly learned in one. When you fret with the tip of your finger, you have complete control over the note. So really curve those fingers around and press firmly on the strings. When you fail to curve your fingers around for proper intonation, you also set yourself up for the muting of other strings and messy transitions to other chords. Speaking of other chords let's learn another one, the open "C" chord.

----0----
----1----(i)
----0----
----2----(m)
----3----(r)
----x----

So Mike, I've read your little write up about all the note names and how to read tabs...so did I really miss the part about the 'x' note? Fear not my friends, there is no 'x' note, you don't need an extra digit to fret it or anything like that. All the 'x' means is that the string marked will not be played when playing this chord. When strumming a chord like this one, you should focus on picking/strumming only the strings needed to play said chord. If you were to properly fret the chord on the neck, but pick all six strings, you would not be playing a 'C' chord anymore, but a 'C/E' chord. Take your time when learning to strum chords that do not require all six strings to be strummed. Your playing will gain clarity and structure if you can play without just going Sex Pistols on the guitar and beating the living out of the strings. If you're going for that sound though, then it was nice having you along for the ride, but after I give a list of chords at the end of the lesson, you'll more than likely be done with this series. Only joking, sort of....

Moving on, let's look at a few more chords and add to our weapon choices.

The D chord: A real finger twister. This one will take some time to get down.

----2----(m)                                    
----3----(r)  
----2----(i)

----0----

----x----

----x----

The A chord: Squeeze those fingers in.

----0----

----2----(r)

----2----(m)

----2----(i)

----0----

----x----

The E chord: Another twister rolling through the town.

----0----

----0----

----1----(i)

----2----(r)

----2----(m)

----0----

You think you can take on the fella you owe $100 to now? You have five chords to do something with now. I would suggest taking all the chord shapes one at a time and nailing down your ability to effectively fret all the chords clean and clear (and under control). Then, and only then, start to switch chords. First try just two chords back and forth. Then throw in a third chord. Once you can cleanly switch through three at the time, go for the gold and do all five chords. Try to make it interesting by alternating your pattern of chords that you are using to practice with. Try G, C, D, A, E....and then go through the list backwards. Then completely mix up your list and practice the chord switching until you feel like you can, at the drop of a hat, play these chords. You need to get to the point where if I yell E at you, you should be able to instantly play an E. The chords played in this fashion will not sound like a song or viable chord progression, but it won't be long and you'll figure out a progression or two just by stumbling around with the chords.

Finally! We played something! Now we've got the ball rolling and we're on our way to impressing the oppostie sex with our campfire-strumming-while-your-friends-tell-lame-jokes mastery. The next lesson will be sort-of a part 2 to this lesson where we will learn about more open chord shapes, but of the minor variety and we will play our first chord progressions.