Chords Archives - Page 5 of 15

A Horse with No Name – Easy 2 Chord Song

Hi Folks, today I’m going to teach you how to play “A horse with no name” by America. It was the bands first single and also their most popular one.

It’s a delightful song to play in all its simplicity. Once you get the hang of the strumming pattern you really get into the flow and the vibe of the song. You’ll love it.

A Horse with No Name – Easy 2 Chord Song

“A horse with no name” is an easy song that is a must song for beginner guitar players. The song contains 2 chords: Em and D6-9/F#. While the D6-9/F# chord name sounds complicated the chord itself is really easy to play.

Em = 022000

D6-9/F# = 2×0200

Here’s how to read chord diagrams and other chord notation like the one above.

A horse with no name – strumming pattern:

The song has two easy to follow strumming patterns:

Em = ↓↓↑↓↓↑

D6-9/F# = ↓↑↓↑↓↑↓↑

Watch the video guitar lesson below to learn the entire song step by step.

Enjoy!

Knocking on Heavens Door Guitar Lesson

By Klaus Crow 5 Comments

Knocking on heavens door - Bob Dylan / Guns 'n Roses - Guitar Lesson

Hi Folks,

Today I’m going to teach you how to play “Knocking on heavens door” by Bob Dylan, also covered by Guns ‘n Roses. This is a great song to learn on the guitar and a “must” to have on your repertoire :)

It’s an easy version for beginners using open chords and a basic strumming pattern to make the learning process as smooth as possible.

How to Play “Knocking on heavens door” on Guitar

Knocking on heavens door is played with 4 chords: G – D – Am – C

You can learn the chords on The 8 Most Important Guitar Chords for Beginners

Here are two basic strumming patterns you can use to play the song:

Basic strumming pattern #1:
/ G ↓↓ D ↓↓ / Am ↓↓↓↓ / G ↓↓ D ↓↓ / C ↓↓↓↓ /

Basic strumming pattern #2:
/ G ↓↓↑ D ↓↓↑ / Am ↓↓↓↑↓↓↓↑ / G ↓↓ D ↓↓ / C ↓↓↓↑↓↓↓↑ /

Watch the video guitar lesson below to learn the entire song step by step.

4 Chord Guitar Songs

By Klaus Crow 5 Comments

Learning to play guitar can seem a bit challenging, but did you know you can play millions of songs with just four easy guitar chords? Yes you can, absolutely!

With 4 simple guitar chords you can play songs from any genre like pop, rock, campfire or 60’s songs. Choose your pick.

4 Chords for Most Songs

The 4 chords, 4 chord progression and 4 chord songs are related to the 80/20 principle. It means that 20% of causes / input (20% of all chords and progressions) leads to 80% of results / output (80% of the songs). The 80/20 principle, als called the Pareto principle, can be applied to all things in life, and for guitar playing we can see it in learning 4 chord songs.

There are a few basic chords that you need to learn. With those basic chords you can build the most common 4-chord-progressions to play almost any song you want.

4 Chord Progressions

You can build a 4 chord progression from the notes of the major scale or natural minor scale. In music we use roman numerals to indicate the order of chords in a chord progression. Let’s take the chords built of the C Major scale for example – The key of C:

I = C Major
ii = D minor
iii = E minor
IV = F Major
V = G Major
vi = A minor
vii = Bdim.

Now one of the most common 4 chord progression is I – V – vi – IV ( 1 – 5 – 6 – 4 ) If we follow the numeral numbers in the key of C we end up with the chord progression: C – G – Am – F. You can follow this chord progression throughout the whole song.

Bar Chord Songs for Beginners and Intermediate

By Klaus Crow 8 Comments

Today I have a great list of songs for learning and improving your bar chords. I’ll also show you how to apply bar chords to a song.

Once you have practiced open chords and spent some fair amount of time learning beginner songs you are ready to learn bar chords. While you can apply bar chords to any song you like, there are typical bar chord songs that are a perfectly suited for the bar chord practitioner.

For your first bar chord song it’s a good idea to use a combination of open chords and bar chords. Bar chords are a bit tricky in the beginning so start with a song and implement bar chords as well as the easier open chords. You can turn any chord into a bar chord, so pick one or two to start with. With practice you can gradually build up the amount of bar chords you put in a song. When you feel comfortable enough you can play your songs using solely bar chords.

There are four main bar chord shapes you can use in your songs: E-shape, A-shape, Em-shape and Am shape (see diagrams below).

The A-shape bar chord can be played in two ways: The A-shape (second diagram on the left) that uses the standard fingering and the A-shape (first diagram on the right) with the alternative fingering which is also a very popular one. Eventually you want to learn both of them.

You can move each bar chord shape up and down the neck which changes the name of the chord. This way you can play the bar chord shape in every key. A full explanation of this can be found in How to Play, Locate, Memorize and Practice Bar Chords

SETTING UP BAR CHORD PROGRESSIONS

By using the E-shape and A-shape you can play each bar chord in two ways. For example: The “C” chord can be played as an E-shape bar chord on the 8th fret or as an A-shape chord on the 3rd fret. They are both C chords only on a different position on the neck. (See Major and Minor Bar Chord Shapes lists below).

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