In this video
Welcome to this lesson showing the FIRST song that I recommend all beginners learn on guitar!
We'll learn this song using just the E major and A major chords, which will also give you the skills to play the other songs at Level 1 of the Andy Guitar Beginners Course.
Watch the video below to learn the song, and play along with Andy to the FULL song towards the end of this video!
Song 1 - 'For What It's Worth' tutorial & play through
Introduction to Chord Diagrams aka Chord Boxes
Each string is shown by a horizontal line. We number these strings 1 to 6 from the thinnest to the thickest.
This is the E major chord. Each number tell you which finger to place down; 1 being index, 2 is middle and 3 is ring finger.
This is the 2nd chord we'll learn, the A major chord. Notice the 1st finger is on the same string as it is in the E major chord.
If you're still really struggling after watching the video and using these notes above - no problem! Try this lesson from my full Beginners Guitar Course as a little pre workout, then come back to this when you're ready!
Strumming
The intro of the song we're going for uses something called 'Spreads', which is just one strum per chord on beat 1 of each bar.
Intro & after chorus
The verses and chorus use the same chord sequence but we strum on the beat, so 4 strums per chord repeated until the breaks post chorus.
Verses & chorus strumming
I first taught this song in my popular "Play 10 songs with 2 chords " video, which is now the most watched video on YouTube! It shows you the 2 easiest chords to play on guitar, which will give you the skills to play the other songs included in Songs for Beginner Level 1
If you need more help or want to make faster progress as a beginner, you may wish to checkout the more detailed lessons at Level 1 of Andy's complete Beginners Course, where the chords, changes, strumming etc are broken down into separate videos.