Beginner Guitar Lesson #1: How to Play A, D, and E Major Chords

So you just bought a guitar—but not just any guitar. THE guitar. You’re gonna be a rockstar. You’re gonna change the WORLD. I hear you. Let’s take over the world—we just need three chords.

To begin the lesson, open A, D, and E Major chords are presented in diagram, tablature, and standard musical notation. What follows are ten levels of exercises designed to increase your knowledge of the shapes, improve hand dexterity and the muscles involved, and activate the connection between mind and hands to allow muscle memory to kick in. All exercises are meant to be repeated in a loop—repeat symbols “||:” and “:||” are included to show this.

Now, I know it’s on your mind. I bet you were planning on losing sleep over it too: Why these chords? Why are they relevant? Do the names ABBA, The Beatles, Bruce Springsteen, U2, and The Who sound familiar? Pretty rockin’ artists, wouldn’t you say? Wanna know their common denominator? They all have popular songs that use these exact three chords—and only those chords.

There might be a few symbols that look unfamiliar to you, and I’m here to help. No worries! Whenever you see a symbol that looks like “/”, that simply means to play in time—to the beat. For this exercise, think of a “/” as strumming the chord once. Whenever you see a symbol that looks like “%”, that means to repeat the previous measure.