Things You'll Need:
- Sheet music
- Guitar
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Step 1
Examine the lines on the guitar chord diagram. There are five horizontal lines and six vertical lines. Focus on the six vertical lines. These lines represent each of the six strings on the guitar. The horizontal lines form a grid which represents the frets that go up and down each string of the guitar.
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Step 2
Read the vertical lines from left to right. These lines represent the strings of the guitar from lowest to highest. The first line represents the low E string and the sixth line represents the high E string.
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Step 3
Know the symbols. There are only three different symbols used in the guitar chord diagrams found in sheet music. The symbols are an X, a white circle and a black circle. The X over a string means that you should not play the string at all. It is not part of the chord. A white circle means the string should be played open. "Open" means to play the string without holding down any frets. The black circle means that you should hold down a specific fret on the corresponding string.
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Step 4
Place your fingers on the guitar frets that correspond to the black circles you see on the grid. You will begin to realize that the chord diagram is laid out exactly like a real guitar. This makes it very easy to visualize the chord just by looking at the diagram.
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Step 5
Strum the guitar strings once all of your fingers are correctly positioned. Each new chord will just be a different series of symbols telling you where to place your fingers on the guitar. Once you have mastered one chord, you have all of the information necessary to play any other chord you come across in sheet music.
