Hey, how you doing? Justin here. Are you ready?
It's time to learn your first chord which is going to be a D chord.
So let's get that chord diagram up and let's get started.
So you wanna always put your fingers down in finger order.
The 1st finger, finger number one.
This is gonna go in the 2nd fret of the 3rd string.
So you can think there's the 1st fret, there's the 2nd fret,
and it's string 1 would be the thinnest, 2 would be the next one up,
and the 3rd one up will be the 3rd string. So 1st finger is going down.
Remember that we wanna place it right up next to the fret, as well.
Okay? So 1st finger in the 1, 2, 3rd string,
in the 1, 2, 2nd fret.
The 2nd finger is going in the same fret on the thinnest string.
So you wanna put then down your 2nd finger.
You would leave your 1st finger down, normally,
but i'm just using to show you.
Remember you want it, of course, right up next to the fret, if you can.
That means your fingers will be in an angle, of course.
You can't keep them square on,
otherwise your 1st finger's gonna be back too far.
You can see the fingers are at a bit of an angle there.
That's totally fine. So 1st finger first,
2nd finger down next on the thinner string,
then 3rd finger is gonna reach up to play the 3rd fret of the 2nd string,
So on the string in between your 1st and 2nd fingers.
Now, i'm making that look pretty easy,
but it's very likely the first time you try and do it,
your 3rd finger's gonna be back here somewhere.
You'll find it very difficult to get the 3rd finger right up next to the fret.
That's okay, that's just a normal beginner problem,
is to try and work on that flexibility of the fingers and the stretch there.
So if you're just back here, it's okay, but try and slide that 3rd finger up,
so it's right up next to the fret.
In the first weeks of learning guitar, your fingers are gonna hurt.
There's no way around it, pressing your fingers down on the metal,
it's gonna get a little uncomfortable.
So what you can do to help, is not press down until you really need to.
Now particularly when you're learning chords like this,
you put your 1st finger down first,
but you don't need to press real hard right away.
Just place it down, and then get it in the right position,
but we're not pressing real hard. We wanna leave it there,
I'm not even touching the string down on the metal yet.
I'm just kinda putting it in position.
Then i'm gonna get my 3rd finger down, roughly in position.
Then i'm gonna get my 3rd finger down, and try and get it up there,
and only when i'm ready to play the chord, i'm actually gonna press my fingers down.
Once you've got your fingers in the right position,
you need to test all of the notes in your chord,
and make sure that each note is ringing out clearly.
Now for the D chord, we're not gonna play the thickest 2 strings.
So the 1st note you wanna test is the open 4th string.
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Now you might find that it sounds like this.
(muted note)
In which case it's gonna be the fault of the tip of the 1st finger,
is just up a little bit too high, and it's touching the 4th string.
Cos if it's touching even the smallest amount...the note will be dead.
So you need to bring that 1st finger down just a little bit,
to make sure that your open 4th string is ringing out clearly.
The next note that we'll test will be the 3rd string.
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Okay? So now we're having to press down hard with our fingers at this point.
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If this note sounds like this...
(muted note)
means you're not pressing hard enough. Or your finger is too far back.
(muted note)
You can hear as I move it forward.
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Now we've got our nice clear note.
If that note is muted, it could also be the tip of the 3rd finger,
is up a little bit too high and touching that string, as well.
So you need to really be aware of what fingers are touching where.
The 3rd finger doesn't wanna be touching that 3rd string, or it's gonna mute it.
So we've got that one sounding good.
Got 1st finger sounding good.
Now the note on the 2nd string, played with the 3rd finger.
Again, very common to get this kind of problem with the 3rd finger,
is too far back, so try your best to get it forward.
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It's not really any fingers that might mute that string,
so the most common problem on that 2nd string,
is either not pressing hard enough, or the 3rd finger being too far from the fret.
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The hardest note for most beginners is to get this thinnest string ringing out.
The problem is usually the 3rd finger laying down a little bit too far.
So you need to make sure that you...
i'm just bringing my hand forward a little bit, i'm exaggerating it now,
but bringing the knuckles of my hand here forward a bit,
will help get onto the tip of the 3rd finger there.
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Okay? So that's really the key thing to get this note ringing out clearly,
is the placement of the 3rd finger.
If it's too flat, lying down too much like that,
it just mutes... mutes that thinner string.
So you wanna make sure that they're all right on the tips of the fingers.
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I'm just gonna press really hard for a second
so you can see where the strings are actually touching.
If I just hold my fingers up now,
you can see where those lines are on my fingers.
They're right on the ends. Okay? That's exactly where it'll hurt.
Now, one thing that often concerns beginners
when they're learning their chords for the first time,
is the placement of the thumb.
Now, you'll often see me with my thumb around the top of the guitar neck,
but that's not what I recommend for beginners.
I'd recommend that you keep your thumb right around the back of the guitar.
Now the reason I recommend that for beginners, even though it's not what I do,
is it's really important that you build up the strength in this muscle here,
between your thumb and your 1st finger.
We're gonna need that for doing these things called Barre chords later on,
where we play further up the neck.
If you play like this with your thumb over the top right at the beginning,
that muscle won't get worked at all, and when you come to learn Barre chords,
you'll find it really difficult.
It's a lot easier to learn here with the thumb at the back of the neck.
It'll help give your fingers a good position, as well, anyway.
Hello Ziggy, my dog's finally woken up from her nap and come to join me
right in the middle of a lesson. Thanks Ziggy.
Say hello to the people of the internet and go back to bed.
Would you go back to bed for me?
Could you go back to bed? Come on. I'll play with you later. Come on. Bed.
Thank you for the visit, now go to bed. Bed. Come on. Off you go.
There you go. Good girl.
By keeping your thumb around the back of the neck,
it keeps all your fingers in a nice position,
it'll stop you grabbing the guitar neck too much.
Ideally, you don't want the palm of your hand here,
where your fingers meet the palm of your hand.
Ideally you don't really want that touching the guitar neck at all.
Definitely not with the first few chords that we're learning, in fact.
I know it might look if i'm playing like this, my hand is touching,
but if I just extend my fingers out,
you'll see there's always a little gap between my 1st finger and the guitar neck.
It doesn't want to be touching there. The fingers are there,
and that's for all of the chords.
Like that one, it looks like it is, but if I reveal it,
there is still a very small gap there between the inside knuckle
of my 1st finger and the guitar neck. It doesn't wanna touch.
There might be times later on in your journey where you do do that,
where I use my thumb when I play chords quite often,
but that's not the kind of thing you wanna start off learning.
When it comes time to practice your chord,
i'm gonna give you a little system I call Chord Perfect Practice.
It's got 4 stages. The first one is finger placement.
So we're gonna, first of all, place 1st finger down and then 2nd finger down,
then 3rd finger down.
Still not pressing hard, i'm getting them in the right position.
Now i'm gonna press down and i'm gonna have a go at strumming the chord.
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And now i'm gonna go through and make adjustments
to try and get the chord as perfect as I can.
So I played the 5th string there, I didn't wanna really play that.
So i'm not gonna the thickest 2 strings. Then i'm gonna play the 4th string.
Okay, that's not really working, so let's get the 1st finger down a bit.
There we go.
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Now we got that, that's good. Now 1st finger...
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that one sounding okay. The note on the 2nd string...
okay that's a bit buzzy. Let's try and get the 3rd finger up a little higher.
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Okay, we're going good so far.
Okay that 3rd finger needs to go more on the point.
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Okay we've got it, we've made our adjustments, the chord sounding good.
And then the last part, we just wanna do a strum,
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and we wanna tell ourselves,
"Hand, this is how I want you to go when we're playing the D chord".
Okay? Really try and make a mental picture of where your fingers are,
what it feels like, what it looks like, as you do that final strum.
Really reinforce the correct finger placement for that individual chord.