The C Chord (Guitar Lesson BC-132) Guitar for beginners Stage 3

This is Stage 3, Lesson 2 of Justin's Beginner Guitar Course.

This video explains how to play a C Chord and common problems that people have when learning it.

The Justinguitar Beginners Guitar Course, a series of over 100 lessons on guitar for beginners. Text support is on the web site and also in a proper old skool paper book which can be ordered from the web site of your local music store :)

Taught by Justin Sandercoe.

Full support at the justinguitar web site where you will find hundreds of lessons on a wide range of subjects, and all the scales and chords that you will ever need! There is a great forum too to get help, no matter what the problem.

And it is all totally free, no bull. No sample lessons, no memberships, no free ebook. Just tons of great lessons :)

To get help with this lesson (and for further info and tabs), find the Lesson ID in the video title (like ST-667 or whatever) and then look it up on the Lesson Index page of justinguitar.com

http://www.justinguitar.com

Have fun :)

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Hi, How you doing

Justin here

for our lesson: 132

which is the C chord.

The last of the big eight

which is, the main eight
Open Chord shapes that you learn

when you are
starting your guitar journey.

And this is the last one,

this is the C chord.

Now, a lot of people find the C chord
a little awkward.

It's maybe not quite as stretchy
as the G chord.

Well, at least not acrosswise

but it is lengthwise.

It's a little bit funny.

So let's go to a close up

and see if we can sort out
the different ways of getting this stretch.

It is just a matter of practising it.

I've never ever-ever-ever had a student
who's not been able to do it.

I have had students instead
who really struggled

and they felt like
they were never going to do it.

But, if you persevere

you will find that the C chord
is pretty damn easy.

Let's have a look at it.

Here we are looking at the C chord.

Now, hopefully
it doesn't look too bad

but it is a little bit of a stretch.

So, let's go through the problems
and solutions for this chord.

So, first one :

first finger : first fret, second string.

Nothing on the E string,
and nothing on the G string.

There's nothing on the first string,
and nothing on the third string.

Second finger is reaching over here

to the second fret, at the fourth string.

And then, third finger's gonna stretch over here,

to the third fret of the fifth string.

Now, there are a few different tips
we can give you

for getting this stretch nice

First of all,

if you play really square

like this,

it's actually quite difficult to do

with the fingers parallel to the frets.

I can feel that's stretching my hand
doing that right now.

Now, if you look at the way
that I'm doing it,

I'm kind of laying the fingers over
a little bit.

Now, if I took my hand off,

they kind of
that looks like that they are in a line,

they're all kind of touching each other.

And you can see that the angle now
is kind of that way a little bit.

it's actually
they're kind of pointing at my eyes.

Whereas that way
they're pointing at the ceiling.

We just turn it round a little bit like that,

and you get a bit more of a...

It definitely makes it easier to play .
Yeah ?

So this way, you really have to stretch
the distance between your fingers.

Here, you're just changing
how far each finger is reaching out.

That makes a big difference
for that one.

Now, you can probably see
that my thumb is flopping over there.

But actually, we want to get
that thumb behind for you now.

Later on you can use
your thumb over here,

but for you now,
back behind.

Now, the other important thing
with the C chord

is that we want to make sure

that the tip of this third finger

is muting, the sixth string.

So, it shouldn't press down on this string.

The very tip of the finger
just touches the string

and stops it from ringing out.

Now, the thing that you'll find here
with this chord as well,

especially when you're going to do
the strum - pick up - strum,

is that there are quite a few places

where fingers can lean over
and touch other strings. So,

. . .

There is the correct sound for it

Now, the first note,
which is the fifth string,

you're probably not going to have
too much trouble with it.

Pretty straight forward.

The next note,

here which is the fourth string,

it's very likely here that your third finger
is going to be leaning over

and touching that fourth string.

So, that's the first thing
you wanna look out for

is making sure that finger is nice and up.

Then we have the Open G string,

which, of course,

this finger,
if it's leaning over a bit too flat,

will mute that G string.

First finger
should be ok.

Not many people have trouble with that note.

But then,
the open E string

if the first finger is leaning over
a little bit too much

you'll get the open E string muted.

So, really, the trick with C chord is, one :

don't be too squared like this.

Allow your fingers to be
a little bit of an angle.

And also to make sure that
you're really on the points with the fingers.

Don't let them lay down too flat

or you'll just always be muting
the strings next to them.

Ok, I hope you had fun
stretching out for that C chord.

It's a little bit of a tough one

- but it's not that bad -

and it just seems impossible right now,

but, after a week or two,

your fingers will have all limbered up

and it'll be a lot easier.

After a month or two,

you'll wonder why you ever had
a problem with it at all

because it's not that bad
in the grand scheme of guitar chords.