Some chords are easier to learn than others, you might have seen the chord charts before but I want you to go through this entire lesson, and learn each of the four easy guitar chords. Once you've had a chance to master these in your practice session you can add others into the mix.

When learning guitar chords it's easy to give up too soon, I get a lot of emails from people who say they simply can not get their fingers in the right position, or tell me it is impossible to change from one chord to another in time with the music. In all cases I'm able to give them basic practice routines that they can implement over the next 3-4 weeks and without exception they are able to conquer the chords.

I don't think any guitar lesson is complete without applying the theory to a real world example and a practice routine you can use by yourself. We will cover a simple song using just three of the four chords you are about to learn and I will provide a routine for you to add to your daily, or weekly practice schedule that will help solidify this knowledge.

EMaj Open Chord

You'll be using three fingers, your first, second and third fingers to form the E Major Chord. Place your index finger on the 4th string from the top on the 1st fret, your 2nd finger goes on the 2nd string from the top on the 2nd fret and your 3rd finger goes on the 3rd string from the top on the 2nd fret. Strum downwards from the very top string to the very bottom string. All 6 strings should ring clearly, if not check your fingers aren't accidentally touching adjacent strings, and you're applying enough force.

Open Chord: G Major

Place your 1st finger on the 2nd string from the top, 2nd fret. Your 2nd finger on the top string 3rd fret, and your 3rd finger on the bottom string on the 3rd fret.

CMaj Open Chord

The open chord C Major uses just 5 of the strings on your guitar, be careful not to use the Low E String when strumming this one. Place your 1st finger at the 1st fret on the B String, your 2nd finger at the 2nd fret on the D String and your 3rd finger at the 3rd fret on the A String. The Root Note is C which is played as the A String fretted at the 3rd fret.

DMaj Open Chord

Coming down one more string we only play the bottom 4 strings for this chord. Place your 1st finger 4th string down 2nd fret, your 2nd finger on the bottom string 2nd fret and your 3rd finger 5th string down 3rd fret.

Now let's put our theory into practice, we're going to learn Knocking On Heaven's Door by Guns N Roses, it's a simple chord progression of 2 downstrokes of the G Major Chord, moving to 2 downstrokes of the D Major Chord and finishing with 4 downstrokes of the C Major Chord. You can find a backing track to play to by searching Google for "Knocking of Heavens Door backing track".

I want to now give you the tools needed to practice the finger positions, strumming technique and changing between these four guitar chords. Remember to strum from the Root Note down for each chord. So the E and G Major chords start from the top, the C Major from the 2nd string down, and the D Major from the 3rd string down. Choose a sequence to follow for your practice session, for example G-D-C-E, and play each chord four times being mindful to make each note ring out clearly. Spend several minutes getting into the correct position for each chord before doing your four strums, then move onto the next.

Each day change the order of the chords, so if you chose E - G - D - C today, tomorrow you might choose D - C - E - G. The trick is to keep going over this loop until you can change to the next chord without skipping a beat, or without stopping your foot from tapping.

Take these four chords and practice getting your fingers into position, you don't even need to strum them, I used to sit in front of the TV with my guitar just moving my fingers into different chord positions, when I came to play the next day I noticed my speed and finger strength had already improved.