Learning to play minor chords is easier than you think. These Classic Rock Hits will help you learn easy minor chords to play alongside the beginner guitar chords that you’ve already learned.
If you haven’t learned how to play these chords yet, I highly recommend starting with my first guitar lesson: The First Seven Songs I Teach All Of My Beginning Guitar Students. After that, move onto the next lesson Easy Songs For Guitar Using Chords G, C & D7. Finally, be sure to check out my guitar lesson, Learn Chords D & A7.
Feeling comfortable with all of those beginner guitar chords already? Then it’s time to jump into one of my favorite rock ballads, Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door.
FIRST SONG
Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door
This song is my favorite way to introduce the Am chord.
Although Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door was originally written and performed by Bob Dylan for a film in 1973; the Eric Clapton and Guns N’ Roses versions are also well known and may be the versions you’re most familiar with. Wikipedia lists about 20 other artists doing their own versions of this song as well. Since this song is a rock ballad, I keep the strum pattern simple by strumming down on each quarter note. Other strum patterns that work with this song involve sixteenth notes which are too complex to get into with beginner guitar players.
SECOND SONG
Brown Eyed Girl – Van Morrison
This song sticks mostly with chords G, C7 and C and only uses the Em chord once. Even still, it’s a great way to get a wary guitar player to try a new chord. The Em chord is a very rewarding chord for a beginner guitar player to play. It only uses 2 fingers, strums all six strings and almost always sounds great.
The challenging and fun aspect of this song is the tablature intro. This will be hard if you or your student haven’t been working on tablature much yet. If I have a student still struggling with tablature, I will have them only learn the first string of the tab intro.
Third Song
Stay Stay Tay- Taylor Swift
My ‘tween and teen female guitar students (almost) all seem to really love Taylor Swift songs. I fought this for a long time until I looked at the music and realized how they could be great as a teaching tool. Stay, Stay, Stay uses the Em chord once every 4 measures so it’s a great way to really learn the chord. This song also occasionally uses the Cadd9 chord. If my student is a real beginner, I cross these out and keep with the basic C chord. If they are ready for new chords, I will teach them Cadd9 and also show them a different way to play the G chord and how it can make switching from G to C much easier.
If you listen the recording, you’ll notice that there’s a ukulele in the song. To emulate this, I like to play the song with a capo on the 5th fret. I teach two versions of this song. Once uses the actual strum pattern and the other uses an easy strum pattern version. The easy strum pattern is half note strums because the song moves fast. Both versions are included in the PDF file for subscribers. Also, If Taylor Swift is what you’re looking for; now is a great time to learn You Belong with Me. You can find this song on my blog post 5 easy pop songs to play on guitar.
FOURTH SONG
Yellow Submarine – The Beatles
I don’t know about you, but I love the Beatles. They are fun songs to play, make fingerstyle arrangements for and to sing. Not only that, but most people know the Beatles and their music. The Yellow Submarine combines the Am and Em chords into one song. It also uses the Cmaj7 chord. This is a great sounding chord that is easy to play because it uses one less finger than the actual C chord.
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