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Easy Guitar Songs for Beginners

In this lesson we got a list with the best easy guitar songs for beginners that will get you started on the right track. I’ve put together a great list of simple songs to play on guitar that are great to strum and sing along with.

We got easy acoustic and electric guitar songs, basic fingerstyle tunes, riffs, and guitar intros for you. For 2024 and 2025 these are still timeless and the perfect ones to start out with. It’s all here!

How to Play Easy Songs on the Guitar

For an easy guitar song you need two, three or four basic open chords and an easy chord progression like G – C, G – C – D or Em – G – C – D. The songs have a simple rhythm and strumming pattern in 4/4, 3/4 or 2/4 time and usually played with a capo to transpose the song to the appropriate key. Finally you need a list of very easy songs to play on the guitar, that’s where this post comes in.

When you learn the songs I recommend you follow the order of the list. You can find the video lessons, chords and tabs further down this post.

Enjoy!

What are Easy Guitar Songs for Beginners?

1. A horse with no name – America

One could argue that “Horse with no name” is the easiest guitar song ever as far as guitar chords concerns with only two chords for the entire song. The chords are Em (022000) and D6-9/F# (2×0200). While the name of the second chord sounds overwhelming, it’s actually a really easy chord to play. The song also contains 2 different strumming patterns that are quite simple and straight forward. Strumming pattern #1 = ↓↓↑ (2x) Strumming pattern #2 = ↓↑ (4x)

2. I still haven’t found what I’m looking for – U2

This classic U2 ballad uses only three basic chords C, F and G. “I still haven’t found what I’m looking for” is also perfect for beginners due to it’s slow tempo. You can strum the song with a basic 4 down strums per measure which sounds perfectly fine with this song or you can try a bit more musical strumming pattern that I’ll explain in the video lesson.

3. Have you ever seen the rain – CCR

The verses for “Have you ever seen the rain” is a perfect beginner workout with only two chords for the verse C and G and it starts with four measures on C, then two measures on G, two measures on C and repeat. For the chorus they play | F | G | C | Am | (2x) | F | G | C | You can play an easy down-up-down-up-down-up-down-up strumming pattern throughout the song.

4. Sweet Caroline – Neil Diamond

Sweet Caroline is Neil Diamond’s most famous song that is really fun to play. It can be simplified without having to compromise too much. The chord progression is as follows: Verse: / A / D / A / E / Prechorus: / A / A6 / E / D / E / Chorus: / E / D / D / E (2) D ↓— The strumming pattern for the song is just simply down-down-up throughout the entire song.

5. Zombie – Cranberries

“Zombie” by the Irish rockband The Cranberries is a great easy rock song to play. It contains four super easy chords: Em – Cmaj7 – G6 – D6-9/F#.

| Em = 022000 | Cmaj7 = x32000 | G6 = 320000 | D6-9/F# = 2×0200 |

While the strumming pattern for the song is a little bit more varying it can be played with simple eight note down strums on each chord | ↓↓↓↓↓↓↓↓ | throughout the song. The chords and the strumming pattern make the song instantly recognizable. Try it and you’ll see.

6. Dreams – Fleetwoodmac

The legendary “Dreams” from Fleetwoodmac sang by Stevie Nicks is a beautiful song with only two chords Fmaj7 and Gmaj6 following with a simple chord progression playing one measure for each chord throughout the song: | Fmaj7 = xx3210 | Gmaj6 = 320000 | or play the Gmaj6 by moving the Fmaj7 chord up to the third fret | Gmaj6 = xx5430 | For the strumming pattern can play down-up-down-up-down-up-down-up ↓↑↓↑↓↑↓↑ Practice thoroughly on the chord-changes and you’ve got a great beginner song.

7. Three little birds – Bob Marley

“Three Little Birds” is a song by Bob Marley and The Wailers. This song is a real classic and contains 3 easy open chords A – D – E. In the chorus only the chords A and D are played and the E major chord is added to the verse. The strumming pattern is a reggae beat that means you play four down strums on the after beat for each measure / bar. Count 1 and play the down strum, count 2 and down strum and so on. 1 ↓ 2 ↓ 3 ↓ 4 ↓

8. Love me do – The Beatles

There is no easy guitar song list complete without a Beatles song. “Love me do” was their official debut single and was released in October 1962. This song can be played with three chords G – C – D and you can add a G7 chord if you want to get fancy. The strumming pattern is a basic 4/4 strumming pattern: down-down-up-up-down-up ↓↓↑↑↓↑.

9. Stand by me – Ben E King

“Stand by me” by me, one of the most famous songs ever covered by many artists from every generation that followed, is always on the top 10 list of easy guitar songs. The chords for the song are G – Em – C – D, also referred to as the I – VI – IV – V chord progression, which is a very common chord structure for many popular 4 chord songs. The strumming pattern for the song is down-slap-down-slap ↓-x-↓-x

10. Knocking on heavens door – Bob Dylan

Bob Dylan’s classic “Knocking on heavens door” has become an easy rock song due to the cover version of Guns ‘n Roses. The chord progression for the song is | G D | Am | G D | C | and can be simplified by just playing two down strokes on G and D and four down strokes on Am and C.

Check out the Songs List Categories below or scroll right to the Easy Beginner Guitar Songs via the green button:

Easy Guitar Songs List Categories.

How to Play and Apply Sus2 and Sus4 Chords

By Klaus Crow 20 Comments

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Sus2 and sus4 chords are very often used in music to embellish chords and chord progressions.

It’s an easy way of adding some extra flavor to a chord and give you a little space to mess around with that chord.

Especially when you have to play a chord for several consecutive measures in a song and you don’t want to get bored out of your mind, it’s nice to implement a sus4 or sus2 here and there to spice things up a bit.

Chord Analysis

To understand what a sus chord really is and how it operates you have to know a little bit of music theory. A normal major chord consists of the root, 3rd and 5th notes of the major scale (1-3-5). If we take the C major scale for example: C D E F G A B C and you take the root (1st), 3rd and 5th note of that scale you get C-E-G. The minor chord consists of the root, flat 3rd and 5th notes of the major scale (1-b3-5) and becomes C-Eb-G. Here’s where the sus chords comes in…

The sus4 chord consists of the root, 4th and 5th notes of the major scale (1-4-5) = C F G. You can see that the sus4 chord (“sus” stands for “suspended”.) replaces the third with the fourth note.

The sus2 chord consists of the root, 2nd and 5th notes of the major scale (1-2-5) = C D G. The sus2 chord replaces the third with the second note.

By removing the 3rd in a chord, the chord becomes neither major nor minor, as the 3rd determines the happy major or sad minor sound. Therefor sus chords can be applied to both major and minor chords.

Chords in practice

Suspended chords have the tendency to resolve. The four and fifth in a sus4 chord creates tension and so does the second and root in a sus2 chord. That’s why sus chords are often played in combination with their parent chord.

How to Benefit from The Circle of Fifths and Fourths

By Klaus Crow 15 Comments

The circle (or cycle) of fifths, also called the cycle of fourths is a diagram that gives all kind of handy information on key signatures, chords and scales in a quick and clear manner.

Besides that, it’s an awesome practice tool to improve your guitar playing.

The circle displays all 12 notes of the chromatic scale (those are all the notes in western music) and moves clockwise in intervals of fifths.

An interval of a fifth is equal to 7 semitones or 7 frets on the guitar.

Counter-clockwise the circle moves in intervals of fourths which is equal to 5 semitones or 5 frets.

The circle of fifths is generally used for the study of classical music whereas the cycle of fourth is more often used for the analysis of jazz music, but let that not stop you because there is so much to gain from the circle for any style of music. Make it part of your knowledge of music theory. It will help you in many ways.

Let’s check it out:

Recognizing key signatures
The cycle of fifths is an easy way of finding the key signature of a song. The cycle will show you how many sharps or flats each key contains. At the top the key of C has no sharps or flats. Turn one step clockwise each time and the sharps add up. Next to C on the cycle you’ll find the key of G which has 1 sharp, then D has 2 sharps, A has 3 sharps and so on.

If you go anti-clockwise one step each time the flats up. To left of C you’ll find F which has 1 flat, then Bb has 2 flats, Eb has 3 flats, Ab has 4 flats and so on.

This is useful also and especially if you can’t read music. When you see a music score which makes no sense to you, but you see 3 sharps in the beginning of the note staff, you’ll know that the song is in the key of “A”. Continue Reading

9 Blues Guitar Chords to Rock The House!

By Klaus Crow 16 Comments

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The dominant 7th chord is the most common used chord in blues. But also the ninth and thirteenth chords are found regularly in blues music to give that extra flavor to a chord progression. They add a little bit of jazz flavor.

Choosing the right blues chords can make your blues rhythm playing sound fresh and full of color.

Playing these blues chords in different positions will give you a unique sound every time again and makes playing rhythm much more fun and challenging.

The blues chords shown below are all in the key of A, however they are moveable chords so they can be played in every key. The red dot indicates the root note. In the diagrams below all red notes are “A” notes. If you would move all the chords up a whole step then the chords are in the key of B.

If you want the chords to be in the key of E, then move the entire chord so that the red dot (root note) lands on the “E” note.

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