Em Guitar Chord

Learn how to play an E minor guitar chord in this video lesson. There are three different notes in an Em guitar chord, these are E – root note, B – perfect 5th, and G – minor 3rd. This guitar lesson shows you both open position and bar shapes for E minor chords:

The open position E minor guitar chord contains four strings that are played open (E, G, B, e), which means you are only fretting two strings to hold down this chord, which should be pretty easy. Here is the chord diagram for this:

E minor guitar chord
After you master this, it’s time to try an Em bar chord shape, starting at the seventh fret of the A string (an E note). Here is the guitar chord diagram:

Em bar chord

Finally, we examine an octave E minor guitar chord played at the twelfth fret position on your guitar:

Em bar chord

This is essentially a full barre shape for an Em guitar chord, using your index finger to hold down the strings on the 12th fret. You can get a free printable guitar chords book right here!

G Guitar Chord

The G major guitar chord is one of the most lush and full sounding chords you can play on your guitar due to the fact that there are up to three open strings ringing out when you play it at the open position. G major chords are made up from the notes G (root note), B (major 3rd) and D (perfect 5th). Watch this video for how to play a G major chord:

As you will see in this video, there are several options for holding a G major guitar chord:

G major chord

Using the pinky instead of the ring finger on high e string:

G chord variation

Including the third fret of B (a D note) instead of open B:

G guitar chord

Try all of these variations to see which ones feel the best to hold for you and to discover what chord sounds the best to you. After this we move on to a G major barre chord, beginning at the third fret of the E string just like the open chord version.

G major barre chord diagram:

G guitar chord

Now after you learn this barre chord we take a look at the other one, which begins at the 10th fret of the A string. This lesson then shows you a “D-shaped” G major chord that is played on the G B and e strings only. This lesson finishes with showing you how to play the intro melody to this guitar chord lesson.

The melody simply plays the notes of a G major (Ionian) scale against a repeating open G string. The notes in the scale are G A B C D E F#, but we are starting at a G note and going backwards when playing this little melody.

G major intro melody guitar TAB:

G melody guitar TAB
This melody sounds great, especially when it ends with a full open G major chord. Take it slow at first until you have the picking clean, and make sure to let that open G string ring out nice and clear the whole time as it adds a nice contrast to the G major scale notes!