Teaching yourself chords

One way you can use to teach yourself guitar chords is to print out the chord charts you are using and play a chord - say C major - for four beats, then another chord for four more beats, then another, and so on for all the chords you have on your chart. Change the order in which you play the chords to get your chord changing technique up to scratch.

The first chords you will be learning will be open chords in the first position on the fretboard. If you do not have some songs to learn but you want to learn some chords, start with simple ones like E major and A major. Practicing the changes between these two will get your fingers into guitar chord mode.

Learning chords as you need them for songs, and using a chord dictionary as your resource makes you reliant on the chord charts for the fingerings you need and on the sheet music or tab for the chords you use for any song. There is nothing wrong with this way of learning chords. It's just that you can learn some basic ideas behind the use of chords in music and, if you like, you can learn the locations of the notes on the guitar fretboard which will give you the freedom to choose which notes in which position you use to make up your chords.

However you learn guitar chords, it's always easier with someone showing you the chord fingerings on video: