Hello, this is Mike Hayes and on this video we're going to talk
about how to teach yourself guitar chords; in particular on this
video we're going to look at how to play the G chord in a variety
of easy fingerings.
Now if you've just started out playing guitar you may be confused as to the best way of
playing a G chord; in fact your friends might play the G chord in
a variety of different shapes and you might have looked
up a chord book and seen even different shapes for the G chord.
Now in reality when you're teaching yourself how to play chords
the thing to keep in mind is that each chord has a specific spelling
and once you know the spelling for that chord, when you have
that combination of notes you can play it anywhere on the guitar
at all; so let's begin with some easy G chord shapes and I'll
just explain how this works.
The notes that go to make up a G chord are G, B and D
this is how you spell G chord in music, wherever you have these
three notes G, B and D on the guitar fingerboard you'll be
playing a G chord; in fact, you don't even have to have these
three notes you can have just two of them you could have a G and
a D and you'll have a G chord.
I'm going to start off by showing you two easy G chord shapes, now both of these
shapes only use one finger, so if you're just starting out
on guitar this first shape is a really good one to try, how I'm
playing this shape is by placing my third finger, at the third fret
on the first string, that's all I'm doing with my left
hand, with my right hand I'm strumming the first four strings
... and there's your G chord.
Now, if you'd like a G chord with a nice rich sound that's
good for backing up vocals what I'm going to do is place my third
finger, at the third fret on string six: now, this is a little
bit tricky because what I want to do is block out string five, I
just want to make a click there; ah you'll probably find it's
quite easy to do because if we just let our third finger be a
little bit lazy and lean across that fifth string it'll block it
out.
What I'm going to do with my right hand is strum right down
to the second string; so in reality I'll be strumming five
strings, but I only want four to sound because I'm blocking out
that fifth string, here's my G chord.
Now, these next two ways of playing G chord are aimed at guitar players
who have been playing for a little while; for example you probably
know the D chord shape, but what you might not know is that
if you move this D chord shape up the fingerboard until your
first finger reaches the seventh fret, I'm just keeping the exact
same shape, the d chord shape but now if I play the first three
strings ... I have another way of playing G chord.
So, here's another chord shape that you'll already know if you have playing
a while, I'm just going to take the C chord shape, now I'm going
to move this C chord shape up the fingerboard until my first
finger is at the eight fret.
this time I have to be careful not to strum the first
string or the sixth string but if I move my C chord shape up to
the eight fret and strum the inside four strings that the second,
third, fourth and fifth string I'll have a G chord.
And now I'd like to show you two more G chord shapes that
I find very useful in specific musical situations; ah, for example
if we're playing songs by The Eagles for example this next
G chord shape would be a very useful one to know and I'm playing
this G chord shape by placing my fourth finger at the third fret,
on the first string, my third finger at the third fret on the second
string and my second finger at the third fret on the sixth
string, I'm blocking out the fifth string and I'm strumming all
the six strings, and here's how this G chord sounds ... and in
many instances I would use that G chord shape if I was changing from
G to C and I wanted to create that "Eagles" type guitar sound
ah,I'd have to do if I wanted to change to the C chord I would simply
move my second finger down to the fifth string and we'd be
creating a C2 chord and it sounds like this; here's my G chord
and if I wanted to change to the C2 chord I'd simply move my
second finger down and strum five strings, incidentally with this
C chord I'd be blocking out the fourth string, here's those
two chords again the G to C; and this last G chord I'm playing
by placing my first finger at the third fret on the second string,
my third finger at the fifth fret on the fifth string and my
fourth finger at the fifth fret on the fourth string> And, I find
this is very useful if I'm moving from C to an F2 which incidentally
is going to be the same shape, the exact same shape as this
G chord, so when I move that F2 chord up two frets if becomes
a G chord.
Let's have a listen to how these three chords sound:
C, F(2), G.