I’m sure you remember the first five or so chords you learned on guitar, and I’m willing to bet they were open chords. You most likely then moved on to barre chords after negociating the pesky F Major one and probably never looked back.
The great thing about standard tuning on the guitar is its unmatched flexibility when it comes to chords, especially open chords, so what I’d like to do here is revisit the first few frets but this time we’re going to learn some slightly more advanced open chords, which are probably more befitting of where you’re at now.
Why learn more open chords?
There are a number of benefits to learning these more advanced open chords. First of all, chords exercise your fretting hand in a different way than scales do, and some of these are quite tricky to pull off. Open chords generally have a full, lush sound and may even inspire a new song or riff; besides, guitarists generally don’t know enough chords so learning a few more definitely won’t hurt.
How to remember chords
I have two main ways of learning and remembering chords, one is physical and the other is mental. The first is to press down slightly harder than you normally would – I don’t know why this works but it does. The second is to find a use for the new chord because chances are you’ll remember it if you can use it in a song or riff you’re working on. Don’t worry about learning them all as simply playing through them is a great workout for your fretting hand and will have a knock-on effect on all the other chords you know.
Let’s get stuck in.
