How to Read Guitar Chord Charts

Video Transcript

"Okay, so we just learned how to play C major. If you have it sounding like this, Congratulations! Now we have to understand how to be able to read this chord. So, we know how our hand looks in position. With notation of course we have the C, the E, the G. This C and then the high E on top. We know that, but we can't always write it like this. There's other ways of playing this chord that we will get to later. So, we want to have a chart for it. This is a chord chart with lines making a grid. The lines that are going horizontally are our frets. See? If you remember those first, second and third frets. These numbers, going vertically are our strings. We use the third fret of the A string with our third finger. These are represented from the low string or low E to the high E. Our second finger plays the D string second fret. Keep G open. Our first finger plays the first fret of the B string. Then we have the open high E. Get used to using chord charts. You'll see them in most any book that you get on guitar playing. They'll serve you well until you've memorized your chord shapes."