Chord Diagrams show us where to put our fingers for each chord. Here is the E Major Chord (aka E maj for short).
The white dots show where to put our fingers. In this chord, we strum all six strings on the guitar.
Many beginners feel that chord boxes and TAB can look 'upside down'. Many left handed beginner guitar players feel that chord boxes can appear 'back to front'.
In the video below video, I explain why this can be the case and hopefully help you to understand how to read chord boxes better.
These 5 tips provide the solutions for many smaller problems that crop up most of the time when we first start playing! Here they are:
Don't always press down a chord when first learning it, instead hover it over the strings to engrain that shape in our muscle memory (this helps reduce finger tips pain!)
Sit in a chair that firmly supports your lower back while keeping the elbow of your fretting hand arm tucked into your side (this helps with the wrist + chord placement)
Curl your fingers over, like a 'claw hand', so your finger tips actually fret the note (mainly helping strings ring out clearly)
Position fretting fingers next to the closest metal fret wire going toward your strumming hand, not in the middle of the metal frets or toward the tuning pegs (this helps notes be much easier to play!)
Try leave a gap so that you could place a pencil between your fingers and the bottom of the fretboard, this is the clearance needed to let all strings ring out!
Hopefully this has enabled you to play the E chord and it's sounding great!
Next Up: The A Major Chord & Changes
Well done! Let's jump into the next lesson of the course.