Get A Fun Start
Learning Guitar
With Easy 2 Chord
Songs
Some beginner guitar students
end up quitting because the initial process of learning to
play can be too slow and not very gratifying. In fact, even
the best video guitar lesson programs risk losing the
interest of young students if they offer too much
information before getting to the fun stuff.
Before jumping into the complete
instruction courses it sometimes makes sense to first learn
to play a few easy chords
that form a simple but familiar song. These chords
should be easy to move between like the C F chords for
example.
The idea is to get a quick taste
of the fun and satisfaction of actually learning a simple
song or two that can be performed for sympathetic friends
and family. If the plan works it will be inspire new students
to hang in with the more tedious but essential lessons of a
full instructional course.
The Minimum Requirements For
Playing 2 Chord Songs
1. Learn to read chord diagrams.
These are neat
little drawings or photos of part of the guitar neck with
dots superimposed on the strings to indicate where to place
your fingers.
2. Locate some 2 chord songs
by googling the phrase “guitar tabs”. These tab websites
will sometimes permit searching the songs by the number of
chords required. Above the words of the songs are written
chord names like C F or Am for example.
Initially be sure to select
songs that you are very familiar with because the melody and
strumming rhythm isn’t always included with the tabs.
3. Look up the chord fingerings
in an online chord chart by visiting our online
animated Chord Finder.
It shows the fingerings to hundreds of common guitar chords.
4. Practice changing smoothly
from one chord to the other. Go as slowly as needed to
be able to change from one chord to the next accurately.
This will seem awkward or maybe even impossible at first.
Just practice these chords for 10 minutes a day. Be sure to
quit before you get too tired and begin to make more
mistakes.
If your fingers ache or become
sore just take a break or even skip a day of practice until
they feel better. Soreness is normal and necessary to
toughen the skin on your finger tips but pain should never
be part of learning to play guitar.
Be extremely patient with
yourself. In just a week or two of practicing 10 to 15
minutes per day you see lots of improvement.
Examples of 2 Chord Songs
-
Tulsa Time by Don Williams
-
Achy Breaky Heart by Billy Ray Cyrus
-
Farmer In The Dell
-
3 Blind Mice
-
Songbird by Oasis
-
Blow The Man Down
-
Clementine
-
Paperback Writer by The Beatles
-
Deep In The Heart Of Texas
The Problem With Two Chord Songs
Sometimes using only two chords
ends up being an over simplification and therefore a
compromise that doesn’t always work perfectly in some songs.
Often a least one more chord is needed to play the key
change found in the middle part of many songs.
Tab websites usually offer
different versions of the same song that utilize more
chords. However, don’t let this be a deterrent to having fun
while learning to play.
An early sense of success can
often generate the motivation and patience required to learn
a more rounded mastery of the guitar. So if you are a
complete beginner try learning a few 2 chord songs first.
