Easy Guitar Songs for Beginners: 12 Songs You Can Play This Week

July 5, 2025by OpenFret Team

Nothing keeps you practicing like playing a song you actually recognize. The good news: a huge number of famous songs use the same handful of beginner chords. Learn five open chords and you've unlocked hundreds of them. Here are twelve to start with, grouped by how many chords you need.

Two-chord songs

If you only know two chords, you can still play real music. “Horse With No Name” by America rocks between Em and a simple D shape for the entire song. “Eleanor Rigby” (Em and C) and “Jane Says” by Jane's Addiction (just G and A) prove you don't need much. Two chords, clean changes, a whole song. Start here.

Three-chord songs

Three chords is where the floodgates open. “Knockin' on Heaven's Door” (G, D, Am, then G, D, C) is about as beginner-friendly as a classic gets. “Sweet Home Alabama” loops D, C, and G the whole way through. “Bad Moon Rising” and “Ring of Fire” run on three chords too, because three chords is all you need. This is the I, IV, and V you can read about in beginner chord progressions.

Four-chord songs

Add a fourth chord and you can play a frankly absurd number of pop songs, because so many of them use the same four-chord loop. “Let It Be,” “With or Without You,” and “No Woman No Cry” all ride the I–V–vi–IV progression. In G that's G, D, Em, C. Learn those four shapes and the changes between them and you've got a setlist.

Capo songs (cheating, but the good kind)

A capo lets you play easy open-chord shapes in a key that fits your voice or matches the recording. “Wonderwall” with a capo on the 2nd fret turns into a few simple shapes you repeat. “Wagon Wheel” (G, D, Em, C) and a pile of singer-songwriter tunes use a capo so the open strings ring out. It's not cheating. Half your favorite records were made this way.

How to learn a song fast

Don't try to play the whole thing at speed on day one. Get the chord shapes under your fingers, then practice only the changes. The moment between chords is where songs fall apart. Play along slow, even at half the record's tempo, and speed up once the changes are clean. If you can't read the chord chart yet, start with how to read guitar tabs.

Want the song to tell you whether you nailed the change? Guitar Quest listens to your real guitar while you play, so you find out in real time whether that G is ringing clean or you're muting the high E.