Your First Open Chords: Em, G, C, and D

Four chord shapes (Em, G, C, and D) sit under a staggering share of popular music. Learn them and you can accompany yourself through campfire songs, folk, country, pop, and most of classic rock. This lesson puts each shape under your fingers one at a time, then strums all four in a row from tab.

Reading a chord diagram

A chord diagram is a photo of the fretboard stood upright: vertical lines are strings (low E on the left), horizontal lines are frets, and dots show where your fingers go. The numbers in the dots are fingers 1 (index) through 4 (pinky). A circle above the grid means play that string open; an ✕ means don't play it at all.

Build each chord, string by string

Start with E minor: two fingers, and all six strings ring. Place fingers 2 and 3 on the second fret of the A and D strings, then strum slowly enough to hear every string separately. Any note dead or buzzing? Arch your knuckles so each fingertip lands vertically on its tip, and check it's parked right behind the fret wire.

Then G major, which stretches across all six strings, and C major, where your ✕ skills matter: the low E string stays silent. Let your fretting thumb peek over the neck to touch it, or just start your strum from the A string. D major is the tightest cluster: three fingers in a triangle on the thinnest three strings, strumming from the open D string down.

The one-string-at-a-time check is what actually gets chords clean. Strumming and hoping hides which finger is the problem; picking through the chord names the culprit instantly.

Strum all four

Now read the same four shapes as tab; stacked numbers are strummed together. One slow strum per measure, letting each chord ring for four full beats while your hand moves to the next shape:

That four-beat gap is deliberate thinking time, and shrinking it is what the next two lessons are about. First strumming patterns give your picking hand a real job, then lesson 8 drills the changes themselves until the gap disappears.

How to practice this

Two short sessions beat one long one: fingertips are learning to toughen up, and they learn fastest with rest in between. Spend five minutes building chords string-by-string, then five looping the four-chord tab. When a shape lands clean three strums in a row, you're ready for the full beginner chord reference to add Am, A, and E, which reuse the same finger skills.