For beginners, what order did you learn the chords?

misty

Well-known member
Joined
Jan 27, 2011
Messages
103
Reaction score
0
Location
Brisbane, Australia
For the chords that I know really well so far:
C, F, G7, Am, A7, G, Em7, D, D7, C7, Em, C6, C9, F7, Bb, B

Those are all in first position, the first 4 frets. I am working through the Boot Camp so I am learning more chords, but still don't have them memorised yet.

I also understand about the shapes with mo open strings being movable, but have not memorised them yet. I think I'm doing pretty well for just starting my second week as a ukulele player!
 
For the chords that I know really well so far:
C, F, G7, Am, A7, G, Em7, D, D7, C7, Em, C6, C9, F7, Bb, B

Those are all in first position, the first 4 frets. I am working through the Boot Camp so I am learning more chords, but still don't have them memorised yet.

I also understand about the shapes with mo open strings being movable, but have not memorised them yet. I think I'm doing pretty well for just starting my second week as a ukulele player!

I would say keep working through the boot camp, then learn a few songs... you may or may not learn more chords that way.. but have fun!
 
Yeah the boot camp is good, although moving from C to Cdim to Dmin7 is quite a trick. Same goes for F to Fmin6!
 
You are doing excellent! I am empressed. I don't think I have anymore than that memorized and I have been at this for five months. However I keep skipping class. Keep up the good work!
 
Hi Misty, it sounds like you're off to a good start! We all learn things in different ways. I have a hard time learning via rote memorization, so for me, I found the best way to learn chords was by learning them in the context of actual songs and memorizing the sound. Another thing I do is play the chords through each key - there is a great chart for this on Michael DaSilva's site here (PDF). Take a simple chord progression, e.g. I, IV, V, and play through it in each key.

As for Fretboard Roadmaps - it's a little overwhelming when you're first starting out! The author is one of my teachers and even after taking classes with him I'm still lost at times. But it's a great reference to keep coming back to as you learn more - you will have many "aha!" moments when things finally just click.
 
This book is a great and a bit easier to understand than fretboard roadmaps. It's still over my head but I am picking things up in it.. yeah! You are doing great, enjoy the ride and just relax...
 
The first set of chords I learned were C G Am F and then I practiced "I'm Yours" to get the strumming down. I now know about 10 chords total but, I'm working on finger position and smoother transition. You're doing Great!
 
Aloha Misty and g'Day,
How I learned the chords is not to try and memorize all of them ...it would have driven me crazy....use your chord chart like a dictionary...Learn new songs with different chords(different keys)and
build you chord library in your head...every time you learn a new song, you learn new chords...tryng to remember all the chord is hard to do and most of them you'll never use that often ..at least in the
beginning...when you learn chords with songs method, you play the songs and the repetive playing imprints the chord in your memory easier..and doesnt confuse or clutter with too many of them....hence
it's easier...Good Luck, Happy Strummings and have fun and enjoy!! MM Stan
 
Last edited:
I'm almost certain the first chords I learned were C, Am, G7, and F.

After I could play ONE song, I (prematurely?) took on the task of figuring out the chords to an old song I loved, "I Get the Blues When It Rains," with the help of an online piano emulator. At that point, I knew two songs: one with 3 (C, G7, F) chords and one with 8: C, G7, F, G, Am, C7, D7, Cdim. It took me the better part of two days, but that really cemented a lot in my head, including a few chords I learned but later took out.

After that, I started with Bootcamp, but as I heard patterns I recognized I would look up the chords to that song and see if it really did fit (sometimes transposing them just to have something to play.)
 
I'd say go slow with the bootcamp and really get those chords burnt into your memory. I can see bootcamp being part of my practice routine for along time to come. I've also started on "Learning to play Hawaiian ukulele" 10 easy lessons that was given to my my a UU member. Although I know how to read music and have basic music theory I'm enjoying this book because it has me readin and picking single notes along with strumming and that is something i want to do. So that book is highly recommended by me :)
I'm getting ready to buy a book on chord soloing next. That along with the couple of otherbooks I own and all the free stuff on the internet will keep my busy learning for quite awhile. Of course when Ken Middleton's ebook of easy fingerstyle arrangements comes out I will be all over that also!
 
It's hard for me to say. I started learning on the baritone, and shifted to the concert uke, so I kinda started over. The chord shapes are kind of the same, but they have different names.
 
Uncle Rod's Boot Camp is awesome and a massive challenge! I have a long way to go, but it is already helping me to be smoother at moving between chords.
 
Hi Misty, it sounds like you're off to a good start! We all learn things in different ways. I have a hard time learning via rote memorization, so for me, I found the best way to learn chords was by learning them in the context of actual songs and memorizing the sound. Another thing I do is play the chords through each key - there is a great chart for this on Michael DaSilva's site here (PDF). Take a simple chord progression, e.g. I, IV, V, and play through it in each key.

As for Fretboard Roadmaps - it's a little overwhelming when you're first starting out! The author is one of my teachers and even after taking classes with him I'm still lost at times. But it's a great reference to keep coming back to as you learn more - you will have many "aha!" moments when things finally just click.

I like Jane's approach. Learn the chords by keys. Learn the chord progressions for each key, get the transitions under your fingers and in your ears. When you can hear the chord change it is easy to play a song.
Fred's Roadmap is one of my favorite books, but I believe you need to have the first position chords down pat before moving them around.
 
It sounds like you are progressing quite well. As for learning chords in some order, I am not sure I see much value in just learning chords, other than the handful of most used chords, in the major keys, such as C,G, F, etc. . Most of the people I know and jam with play from downloaded chord sheets or books, where the chord forms are shown, or easily looked up. If I were to memorize a DbMin6 or something today, I would not remember it tomorrow anyway. I have hundreds of downloaded song sheets and I just play through most of them in a somewhat random rotation, playing whatever chords are on them as I get to them. If I like a particular song, I will play it enough to "learn" to play the chords on it without a lot of stopping. If I like it a whole lot, I will them even memorize the chords.
 
Top Bottom