An acoustic guitar chord is several notes all played at once. There are a lot of different acoustic guitar chords, but if you can learn a few basic ones, you can then play hundreds, if not thousands, of songs. There are some of the major chords, which have a brighter sound whilst the minor chords have a darker or sadder sound.

The chords that you play on a guitar are notated using chord diagrams and those for the acoustic guitar are similar in ways to guitar tabs. The main difference however being that the lines, which represent the strings on the acoustic guitar, run vertically instead of horizontally. Often when you first look at a chord diagram all you will see before you is a grid.

The lines, which are vertical in the grid as previously mentioned, represent the strings on the guitar, whilst the horizontal lines represent the frets. As well as these lines, there are also dots and numbers (along the base of the grid) and these have specific meanings that need to be adhered to if you want to get the right sound out of your instrument. The dots on these notations represent the position in which your fingers should be placed when pressing down on the strings. As for the numbers, these represent a different finger on your hand with which you will play the strings on the guitar. Number relates to a person's index finger, whilst Number 2 relates to the middle finger. Then Number 3 relates to a person's ring finger and Number 4 relates to your small finger.

However, if a Zero appears in the notations this means that no finger should be placed on the string and it should be left open. But, if there is a letter "T", this actually denotes that the guitarist should place their thumb on the string in question.

Now we have explained a little about what makes up an acoustic guitar chord now let us show you the positions you should place your fingers in order to play them. The first chord we are looking at is G-Major. To play this particular chord you need to place your middle finger on to the sixth string above the third fret. Then take your index finger and place this on to the fifth string above the second fret and finally take your ring finger and place this on the first string above the third fret. Once you have your fingers in place you need to play, each of the strings in the order shown one at the time (not altogether).

It is important as you play each note that you hear them clearly and you do not hear any kind of buzzing or rattling sounds as you play them. If you do hear something additional then trying pressing down on the fingerboard harder or move the finger in question closer to the fret. Also you should make sure that at no time does any of the fingers touch each other or any of the other strings as this can further cause the sound to be off. Plus play each note individually and do not strum them all at the same time. By following these simple steps, you should find that you are able to the G-Major acoustic guitar chord.

The next chord, which we are going to show you how to play on the acoustic guitar in this article is the one known as E-Minor. For this one you need to place your index finger (No 1) on to the 2nd fret of the 5th String, your middle finger (No 2) on the 2nd fret of the 4th string. But when doing this you need to make sure that each finger has sufficient room between them to ensure that they do not touch each other. If you are unsure about the position of your fingers then try each note out and adjust them until you get the clear sound that you are after. But with this could once you have the sound right rather than playing each note separately you strum them together. As you will notice, the sound made when playing this minor chord is much darker than that when playing the G-Major one.

The other basic acoustic guitar chords that all would be guitarists should learn in the beginning are C-Major, D-Major, A-Major and A-Minor. As well as learning about positioning of the fingers in order to play these chords in order to become really proficient a person should spend a great deal of time practicing them. The more a person's practices then the more likely they are to get their fingers into the right position more quickly and fluidly and so the sound quality they produce as they play will be greatly improved.