The G chord on guitar is one of the most common chords of all. Along with C, Em and D the G guitar chord pops up again and again.
If you want to learn guitar you must be able to play a G chord, so let’s learn!
In this free lesson you will learn:
How to play the full G chord on guitar correctly
The best G chord for beginner guitarists to use
A simple 1-finger version of the G guitar chord
4 bonus tricks you can use to make your G chords sound better
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Easy ways to play the G chord on guitar
The G chord on guitar is a strange shapebut it will quickly feel familiar as you’ll play it so often.
Note that the full name for G is “G major”, but most people just refer to it as “G”.In it’s full form it looks like this:
G Major
(If you don't understand the above image please read our article "How To Read Guitar Chordboxes In 60 Seconds". It will make everything clear!)
As you can see, this unusual shape requires 4 fingers to play. As a beginner guitarist you’ll find this quite hard as you won’t have much accuracy and control in fingers 3 & 4 yet. Let’s look at some easier alternatives that you can use during the early stages of your guitar journey.
The Best G Chord on Guitar For Beginners
This chord is called “G6” and it’s the version of G chord that I recommend to all my new students:
G6
As you can see, this G chord requires only 2 fingers to play, so it’s significantly easier to play than a normal G chord for a beginner guitarist.
Sure, it doesn’t sound quite as good as a full G chord, but it’s a lot easier to play and as I’ve written elsewhere on the site, in the early days of your guitar journey the most important thing is that you have fun and simply get accustomed to holding and strumming the guitar.
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The Best Easy Versions Of This Chord
Stepping stones are the key to smooth progress
You can perfect and finesse chords later (and for many, many years into the future), but you should know that the most precarious time in your life as a guitarist is when you’re first learning.
If you’re going to stick with the guitar and continue playing it -and I dearly hope that you will-it’s vital that you have fun and enjoy practising.
Lowering the barrier to entry (and slowly increasing it over time) is the key to ensuring you progress in the future AND have fun now. 🙂
And that’s why I recommend you use G6 as your beginner G chord on guitar. The rule is simple: whenever you need to play a G chord on guitar, you play G6 instead.
This G6 chord above offers a great balance between sound quality and ease-of-use and is ideal for the beginner guitarist. After 10-15 hours of practice you should aim to graduate to the following version of G chord:
G Major (3-finger version)
Learning the G chord on guitar is interesting because you can play it in a variety of ways. In this version of G chord you can see that we’ve introduced finger 4 (your little finger). This is a perfectly valid G chord and lots of people play the G chord on guitar like this for their whole life.
However, my preferred version of the G chord on the guitar is the 4-finger version below. It sounds fuller. After another 5-10 hours of practice you should aim to ‘upgrade’ to it by adding on finger number 3, to create a full G Major chord. This was the version of G we saw at the start of the lesson. Here it is again:
G Major (full, 4-finger version)
Hey presto! This is my favourite G chord on guitar and is the one I recommend you learn. It sounds fantastic and if you use G6 as a stepping stone you will have this chord mastered in no time! 🙂
A 1-finger version of G on guitar
This 1-finger version of G is a superb way for kids or adults with learning difficulties to play the G chord on guitar. It doesn’t sound as well-rounded as the 4-finger version of G Major (of course), but it does the job and is very, very easy to play.
G Major (1-finger version)
Common G chords
Here are the most common waysto play a G chord on guitar. Some are tough, but don’t worry, you can use the easy version above until you develop your control and strength to tackle the harder versions!
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G, C, D is “G major” key. G is Root, C is 4th, D is 5th, E minor is 6th. So you have a I,IV, V,VI chords you can use in a chord progression. Some other chords you could learn, to know the whole key, of G major, is Am (II), Bm(III), and F# diminished(VII) .
It turns out that the four magical chords are E, B, C# minor and A. But with so many chords to choose from, why did dozens of hit songs end up with the same four chords? At first glance, it seems strange that so many songs should have the same chords.
For this simplified version of the G chord, you just need Finger 2 on the thickest string on Fret 3 - and let it lay slightly flat, so it mutes String 5.Finger 3 goes down on Fret 3 on the thinnest string.You've got two fingers down and one muted string.
The famous four chords used in many pop song progressions are the I, V, vi and IV chords of a major key. The roman numerals represent the numbers of the major scale we begin a chord from (1, 5, 6, 4) so in C major this would be C, G, Amin, F or in G major it would be G, D, Emin, C.
I've included a link to the chord charts of these famous 4 chord songs you can use for learning these songs. I've also included instructions on where to place your capo, because not all of these songs are in the same key.
The most common way to play the G Major Chord is in the open position, like this: Index finger on the 2nd fret of the A (5th) string. Middle finger on the 3rd fret of the low E (6th) string. Ring finger on the 3rd fret of the E (1st) string.
For instance, a G major chord is made up of the notes G, B, and D; while its relative minor, Em, has the notes E, G, and B. So you can substitute an Em chord for a G major chord, or vice versa, for a smooth but noticeable change in the sound of the progression—and usually you can sing the same melody over either chord.
Since G major (G+B+D) and E minor7 (E+G+B+D) share most of the same notes, including the melody note “do” = G (that I'm singing over the chord), vi (Em) or vi7 (Em7) works nicely as a substitute.
Yes there are definitely several different ways to play the same chord. This lies under playing variations of the chord. Let's use C major for an example to keep it basic. The C major chord in it's 'root' or 'rawest' form consists of the three notes, 'C,E, and G'.
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