4 Basic Guitar Chords Every Beginner Should Master

Rami N.

Misc

1 minute read

If you're like me, the first song that you learned to play on guitar was Come as You Are by Nirvana. You probably didn't care about what key the song was in or what notes you were actually playing; you just wanted to play along, have fun and emulate your favorite band as best you could. To get there quick, a lot of people--myself included--took the easy way out and learned to read tabs, the musical equivalent to paint-by-numbers. While taking these shortcuts does have its advantages, in the long run, you'll realize that there is some basic theory that every aspiring rocker needs to know.

One of the first things you need to do to up your musical game is to learn the names of the basic chords and practice switching between them comfortably. The four chords you should be practicing are at the base of dozens of smash hits. So take notes if you need to, memorize their names and what they look like, and you could be on your way to making your own #1 hit.