Once you are able to play these “pivot finger” progressions with different strumming patterns and transition between the chords smoothly you should be in a good position to start to tackle chord progressions that utilize these 8 common open chords but don’t necessarily have pivot fingers to help the transitions. You can see some basic strumming patterns that can be used for this in our basic strumming patterns resource. This topic of developing different strumming patterns can become quite involved but the way I would approach it at this point is to learn a few different strumming patterns and then be able to apply any of these strumming patterns you have learned to any of the chord progressions we present. I recommend to learn to finger and strum the 8 common chords and as you do this, work your way through playing these progression that utilize pivot fingers.Īs you work on these progressions, you will need to be utilising a strumming pattern to strum the chords with with your right hand and your pick. These progressions should be simpler to pick up than progressions that do not involve using pivot fingers. This means you have one less finger to worry about in finding the next chord as its already in place.Īfter presenting the 8 common open chords below, I’ll include a number of chord progressions that use these chords and involve pivot fingers in the transitions between chords. As you are already fingering the first chord, you can simply keep your pivot finger in place while you adjust your other fingers to the next chord in the progression. These pivot fingers are a finger that does not change fret or string between two consecutive chords.

I recommend starting to learn this with basic chord progressions that involve what we will term “pivot fingers” to make the transitions between chords easier when your first learning to change chords. This skill can take some time to develop. For example, a typical chord progression may hold each chord for say 4 or 8 beats and you will then need to be able to change to the next chord quickly end efficiently so that there is no break in the music between chord changes.

Firstly is to learn to finger the chords with your left hand so you can strum it and have all the appropriate notes ring out.Īfter being able to finger the chord while allowing yourself time to move your fingers to the appropriate fret and position a major skill you will need to learn is to be able to transition between the chords smoothly. There’s a couple of steps involved in learning the chords. We’ll show diagrams for each of these chords below. It is easiest to start by learning 8 common open chords. They are called open because they incorporate open strings with fingered notes as well. Open chords are the first chords people learn on the instrument.

You should be here chords