Basic Open Chord Shapes on the Guitar

Video Transcript

"Hi this is Jeff Isbell on behalf of ExpertVillage.com. We’re going to look at basic open chord shapes. Okay, you must know the basic open chord shapes. They are E-A-D-G-C, some people also say F, well they’re wrong, sorry, an F is just a modified E shape. An anemic bar chord if you will. What’s a bar chord? More about those later. Let’s look at the chord shapes. This is an E, I recommend you learn to play it this way and this way. Here’s an A, many people play it like this, it’s how I learned to play it and I think it cost me a lot of time, but I prefer this finger, it’s easy to get to a D or an E from this finger. Also, it’s quite easy to go to the A major 7 and A7 from here. Hold on. What’s all this major 7 and 7 stuff you ask? We’ll get to it. This is your standard D, not much disagreement about how to finger it, unless you have too much time on your hands. G is an odd chord shape, it’s another for which I recommend learning two positions, this one and this one. Why? Sorry this ain’t that lesson, just keep watching. Here’s C, now do us both a favor and don’t go on to the next lesson until you master this one and the one before. "