Strumming - A Major chord

In a strum there are two types of guitar stroke. They are the up stroke and the down stroke.


             When you play a stroke, you strum across the strings just in front of the bridge of the guitar

with the pick in your strumming hand. When strumming a chord, make sure that you play all

the necessary strings in the chord. The stroke direction will depend on which stroke is

indicated; up or down as shown above. 

 

Position each finger with care,according to the chorddiagram (right). Make sure that each fingertip is placed as close as possible behind thefret. Firstly, pluck across the strings one by one with your pick, checking that each string rings clearly and is not muted or buzzing. Once you are sure that you are holding the A major chord correctly, practise strumming the chord in single downward strokes as

indicated below:

 

Chord Basics

A chord is defined as a combination of three or more notes played together. To examine this, I want to take a look at chord diagrams. Chord diagrams are used to illustrate how a chord is played. They are very easy to use because they look very much like the neck of the guitar. 

so it’s easy to make the connection between strings and fingering. There is also a picture

of the type of chord diagram that appears in most other Guitar learning guides. I want you to

be aware of that form of ‘standard’ chord diagram because you may want to use it when

writing up chords on your own paper.

So, now that you know what a chord diagram looks like and how it matches with the neck of

your guitar, it’s time to come back to what I said earlier about a chord being a combination of

three or more notes played together. Finger placing symbols are added to the chord diagram

so we know which notes to play. To start with, let’s look at your fingers.