The Guitar is a really fascinating instrument to learn. In my opinion it is one of the only instruments that you can learn – to the point of being able to strum a simple tune – within a couple of weeks or less. This makes the guitar so appealing to people. They pick up the guitar, get shown a few chords and straightaway music can be heard. With most other instruments this is not the case and takes months of work before you can start to hear music.Learning the guitar is also different to most other instruments in the fact that you do not need to learn how to read music. Written music notation is like another language and it takes time to learn. With most other instruments you learn to read music notation at the same time as you learn your chosen instrument. This means you have two things to concentrate on meaning the time taken to get anywhere is doubled at the very least.The way you can learn the guitar without the need for music notation is thanks to the nice layout of the strings and frets. This is easily transposed onto paper in the form of boxes. The box is split vertically by 6 lines representing the 6 strings. Horizontal lines represent the frets and dots on these boxes represent where to place your fingers. These are called chord charts or chord boxes and you need no knowledge of the guitar at all to play these. Of course, your fingers will, at first, be reluctant to go exactly where you tell them, but given a bit of practice your fingers will start to remember these chords shapes very quickly. The second method is guitar tab, which is represented by 6 horizontal lines. It looks a small like standard music notation but rather than notes, numbers appear on any of the 6 strings. The 6 lines represent the 6 strings and the numbers represent which fret to place your finger on. Once again, you need no knowledge of the guitar to know this and subsequently anyone can pick it up immediately.Guitar tab is everywhere. Being it is so simple and basic there are thousands of resources on the internet that tabs can be viewed online – of course, there is no guarantees they are right and often are littered with mistakes from the people writing them out. Having said that, it can be a really excellent guide of how to play a song – with no knowledge of the guitar.Guitar tab books are readily available and it is simple to increase your knowledge of the guitar with guitar theory books, your favourite band’s album songbook and much more.The fascinating thing is that I believe the guitar then becomes one of the most complicated instruments to master. On most instruments you can play a single note in one place only. On the guitar you can play a single note in several places. This can add confusion. This also applies to chords as well – a single chord can be voiced in many ways and in many different locations on the guitar. Either way, the guitar is a fantastic leisure activity, and its simplicity in learning your favourite songs to sing along provides hours of entertainment and enjoyment.

To learn to play guitar is hard and simple at the same time. The guitar is a fascinating instrument. It is very hard to master in some areas but you will also find wells of simple to play but nice sounding treasures among the strings.

In this learn to play guitar article I will give some examples of simple to play guitar chords and progressions. I will use guitar tab to help you find the notes on your guitar.

In this article i will only use the first four strings on the guitar. In the guitar tab staff notation I will also use only the first four lines. The first string is the thinnest string on the guitar or the E-string.

The first guitar tab progression will be in the key of D. The chords of the progression is Dmaj7 and Em7. Here is the guitar tab:

1. –2—0—
2. –2—0—
3. –2—0—
4. –0—0—

The guitar chord progression above can be used as a small intro in a song in the key of D. It can also end a song or be used as a break between verses in a song. You can repeat the progression to make it last longer.

The next example will use the first chord and a Gm6 as the second chord. This small passage can also be used as an intro in a song if you like it:

1. –2—0—
2. –2—3—
3. –2—3—
4. –0—0—

The following example will use just one chord, the D chord and it will be went two frets up. When you go the chord up it will not be D anymore. It will change into a E7 or if you want E/D. This means that you play an E-chord with the note D as a bass note.

The chords in this guitar chord progression will be D and E7. Try it!

1. –2—4—
2. –3—5—
3. –2—4—
4. –0—0—

When you go the chord up the two frets you don’t need to lift you left hand fingers. Just release the pressure of your left hand fingers a bit and slide up to the new position.

This method of sliding to new positions can be used when you change between chords. Many times you can keep one or more of your fingers on your fingerboard and slide when you change to new chords. This will make it simpler to find the chord and will speed up the chord change.

Our last small guitar chord progression will use the same progression with just a different way to play the E7 chord.

Remember that all these chord progressions can be repeated over and over as intros or something else in the key of D on your guitar.

1. –2—0—
2. –3—0—
3. –2—1—
4. –0—0—

Observe that you can slide with you first finger that you hoopefully have pressed down on the second fret of the third string when you play D. When you change to the second chord you can slide to the first fret.

The above progressions use the open D-string as a fundament so to speak and this bass note makes an illusion of peace in the chord progressions. In tonal music this bass note is called a pedal point.

If you like finger picking on your guitar I will give you a pattern that can be used with these chords. I will use the common classical guitar symbols for the right hand fingers. P denotes the thumb, i the first finger, m the middle finger and a the ring finger.

1. –a———–a—
2. ———-m——-
3. ——i———–
4. –p—————

I hope you will find this small learn to play guitar lesson helpful. There are a lot of chord progressions that sounds nice but are very simple to play. In other words, I will be back!