Among all the chords that you can play on guitar, c chord is one of the easiest one to play. As there is not that much finger stretching involved and there are tons of popular songs that involves C chord, it has become one of the first chords that a beginner learns. Plus once you start learning the chord progression or the circle of 5th, you will see that it is crucial to learn how to play c chord on guitar.
In this article we will be discussing the open position for C AKA the C major chord. You can also play c chord using the barre chord methods as well. Both will use the same notes and same tonality.
Method of playing C chord on Guitar [Open position]
C chord involves only 3 fingers and you use the 2nd string, 4th string and 5th string. As you already know a chord consists of the 1, 3 and 5 of the scale. So, for the C major scale the 1st, 3rd and 5th note is C, E, and G. Here is a step by step instructions on how you can play these notes on your guitar using necessary fingers on your left hand.
- First put your first/index finger on the 1st fret of 2nd This produces the note C.
- Then put your middle finger on 2nd fret of the 4th This produces the note E.
- Put your Ring finger on the 3rd fret of the 5th string which produces the note C again.
- You don’t need to hold any note on the 1st, 3rd and 6th As open strings they produce the notes E, G and E Again.
- As we need C note, E note, and G note to play the C chord, we now have all the chords ready to play.
Now that you know how to play C chord start practicing it couple of time with metronome to get the hang of it.