Open A major chord

This video is for the A major or A chord. Let’s hear it. It’s a major chord; it’s got that happy sound. Here’s the minor, there’s that sad sound.

So the A major chord, let’s look at the fingering here. The traditional way that most people start with is three fingers right in a row, all on the same fret. Specifically, the pointer finger goes on the fourth string second fret. The second finger goes on the next string, the third string, also on the second fret. And then the third finger comes in on the second string second fret. So they’re all on the same fret. The open strings are the open first string and the open fifth string. And then you’ll notice on the diagram there’s an X over the sixth string. So just five strings, let’s strum it.

For a lot of people it’s difficult to squeeze these in here. So if you take this fingering, one easy way to change the chord is to take the first finger and the second finger and just flip-flop them. And for some reason it kind of fits a little bit easier now.

And for some folks they see three notes right in a row and they say I’m just going to take the pointer finger and barre them. And that’s a good solution too; the only trick to that one is that open first string because you can’t take the barre and apply it to this note. So you have to find a way to kind of press a barre and then let your finger curl up. And it’s kind of difficult to get it to ring. But if you can make that happen, that’s another way to do it.

So these are all variations on the A major open chord. And as with all chords we have a barre chord that we can do here, you can do one there. You can check back with our chord book to see how to learn to play those.