Guitar chords for beginners: Looking for basic guitar chords? Here's an easy guitar lesson on partial chords that'll kickstart your plan to learn the guitar!

In the video above, I'll teach you a few partial chords to help you on your way. Some people may call this "cheating," but it's not cheating. This is about taking a smart and incremental approach to learning the guitar! In the short article below, I go on about a little of the psychology behind why this method is helpful, versus a traditional approach to learning my favorite instrument.

Most of the time guitar students (and teachers alike!) tend to reach for a handful of notes when trying to play basic guitar chords. The problem with this approach is that it has a very high failure rate. Most of the time, when you're learning your first guitar chords, there's a formula. It goes like this: the more fingers you engage to play a chord, the more likely you are to experience failure in the end result.

Now, some of us are highly motivated to learn the guitar. As a result, this motivation insulates us from these disappointing moments by creating a much higher tolerance for failure. But not everyone is as motivated or as tolerant of failure. For these folks, failure can create a demotivational spiral that ends in an unfortunate but understandable conclusion: "I can't do it."

You know what? You can do this, and I hope you'll see in the video on this page that approaching the guitar with partial chords and chord "cheats" is a perfectly acceptable and wonderful way to learn the guitar. The point is not how many fingers you have on the guitar. The point is that you are learning to play! You may be starting with basic guitar chords, but this approach can lead you to a lifelong journey of playing and enjoying the guitar.