Tag: guitar chords

Beginners Chords Exercise using C, G and F, with a strumming rhythm and fingerpicking tab

Use the strumming rhythm with the chord progression and chord diagrams to play the strumming exercise. Then for the fingerpicking exercise you will need to follow the tab and play the exercise using all 4 fingers. Holding the suggested chords down won’t help much with this exercise but the chords above the tab will fit if someone else plays those along with the fingerpicking pattern.

The strumming pattern for each chord is Down, Down Up, Up Down Up. D DU UDU.

Intermediate players could play the barre chord F on the right instead of the easier F.

This chord progression of G F C G is could be in the key of C, where I IV and V are C F and G (V IV I V), or it could be in the key of G where the 7th diatonic chord is flattened to a major chord, and the chord progression would be I bVII IV I.

This exercise sheet is from a 21 page pdf ebook called Beginners Guitar Chords, Rhythms & Fingerpicking Exercises – 2025 Edition.

Guitar Chords and Rhythm Worksheet 2

PDF – Guitar Chords and Rhythm Worksheet 2

← Go back to worksheet 1

This exercise sheet is for beginner guitarists and advanced beginners.

Method: Using rhythm 1, play this rhythm for all 4 chords on the sheet in sequence (e.g. Em – down down down up down up, C – down down down up down up etc.). Then repeat it all again. Repeat as much as you want in order to practice.. Then do all this again for rhythms 2 and 3 as seperate exercises.

Extend: You could try rearranging the chords and practice with the same rhythms. You could do different rhythms for each chord, using the example rhythms. You could try different chords with these rhythms. You could play 2 rhythms per chord, either the same one twice or different rhythms back to back.

 

If you have found this exercise sheet useful, you might like the following books:

Beginners Guitar Chords Book (Easy Reading)

Beginners Guitar ebook (Easy Reading)

Guitar Chords and Rhythm Worksheet 1

PDF – Guitar Chords and Rhythm Worksheet 1

Go to worksheet 2 →

This exercise sheet is for beginner guitarists and advanced beginners.

Method: Using rhythm 1, play this rhythm for all 4 chords on the sheet in sequence (e.g. Em – down down down up down, Am – down down down up down etc.). Then repeat it all again. Repeat as much as you want in order to practice.. Then do all this again for rhythms 2 and 3 as seperate exercises.

Extend: You could try rearranging the chords and practice with the same rhythms. You could do different rhythms for each chord. You could try different chords with these rhythms. You could make the chord progression longer (e.g. Em, Am, D, G, Am, G, Am, D).

If you have found this exercise sheet useful, you might like the following books:

Beginners Guitar Chords Book (Easy Reading)

Beginners Guitar ebook (Easy Reading)

Exercises 9-10 – Inside The Book: 50 Acoustic Guitar Chord Exercises for Beginners

These two guitar chords exercises are featured in the book 50 Acoustic Guitar Chord Exercises

On this chords exercise sheet, we will be working with four chords: Em, Edim7, Fmaj7 and Fadd9.

Exercise 9

Whilst we don’t usually play diminished chords at beginners level, this one is not very difficult because it is an open chord, similar to an A7 chord shape with an added finger.

Counting:
1+2+3+4

Exercise 10

Fadd9 is a moveable chord. We sometimes forget about these simple moveable shapes and get stuck playing only barre chords and power chords. Move it up 2 frets and you have Gadd9. Two more frets up and you have Aadd9. Incase you were wondering what an add9 chord is, it’s a full major chord with an added major 2nd or major 9th note added (major 9th and major 2nd are the same notes, but major 9th is an octave higher.

Counting:
1 2 3 4

Video Lesson for Exercises 9-10


Watch on YouTube

← Exercises 7-8
Exercises 11-12 →
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Exercises 7-8 – Inside The Book: 50 Acoustic Guitar Chord Exercises for Beginners

These two guitar chords exercises are featured in the book 50 Acoustic Guitar Chord Exercises

On this chords exercise sheet, we will be working with three chords: A, A7 and Dsus2.

Exercise 7

The first strum is worth 2 beats. You can see that the note is not coloured in and it has a stem, so that makes it a minim, worth 2 beats (also known as a half note because it lasts for half of the bar). This is followed by two cotchets, which are 1 beat each. Here is the counting that you should use for this exercise (strumming on the parts in bold font).

1 2 3 4

Exercise 8

The rhythm for this exercise is almost the same as exercise 7. All we do is add an up strum after beat 3. Here is the counting that you can use to help:

1 2 3 + 4

Video Lesson for Exercises 7-8

← Exercises 5-6
Exercises 9-10 →
Buy The Book →

Exercises 5-6 – Inside The Book: 50 Acoustic Guitar Chord Exercises for Beginners

These two guitar chords exercises are featured in the book 50 Acoustic Guitar Chord Exercises

On this sheet, we start to work on strumming rhythms. Exercise 5 uses C and Am chords and the rhythm is down up down up down down. Exercise 6 uses F and Am chords and the rhythm is down down up down down. On the video I show you how to practice these using a metronome. You could use this sheet and follow this video for a quick 5 minute lesson on practicing the C, Am and F chords, which are fundamental to learn and practice on the guitar.

← Exercises 3-4
Exercises 7-8 →
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Exercises 3-4 – 50 Acoustic Guitar Chord Exercises – Beginners & Grade 1-2

These two guitar chords exercises are featured in the book 50 Acoustic Guitar Chord Exercises

Here are 2 beginners guitar chord exercises using A7, A, C and Cmaj7. There are very simple rhythms in each exercise. Use the video below to help you with knowing how to count them.

← Exercises 1-2
Exercises 5-6 →
Buy The Book →

Exercises 1 and 2 – 50 Acoustic Guitar Chord Exercises – Beginners & Grade 1-2

Here we have 2 guitar chords exercises for beginners. The chords are Cmaj7, Am7 and Am. The first exercise has single strums, lasting for 4 beats, and the second exercise has 2 strums per chord, each lasting for 2 beats.

Here is a video demonstration:

Exercises 3-4 →
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Guitar Chords for The Christmas Song by Nat King Cole

I learned this song and recorded the guitar backing for this video recently and I would like to share the guitar chords with you, and also promote the youtube videos that I used to learn the song.

So for this version, I transposed the guitar chords up 4 semitones (up 4 frets) so that it fitted the vocalist’s range.

Below are the untransposed chords for the original version. As they are all barre chords, they were easy to move up 4 frets without a capo. There are no chords shown for the instrumental part, as this is skipped.

Abm7b5 – Gm7b5 (slide) (xx5666 slide to xx4555)

Dbmaj7 Ebm7

Dbmaj7 Ebm7 Fm7
Gbmaj7-Fm7-Ebm7
Dbmaj7 Abm7-Db9
Bbm7 B9
Dbmaj7 B9
Dbmaj7 Gm7-Gb7
Fmaj7 Gbm7-B9sus4
Emaj7
Ebm7-D9

Dbmaj7 Ebm7 Fm7
Gbmaj7-Fm7-Ebm7
Dbmaj7 Abm7-Db9
Bbm7 B9
Dbmaj7 B9
Dbmaj7 Gm7-Gb7
Fm7-E9-Ebm7-Ab13

Dbmaj7

Abm7 Db9 Gbadd9 Gb
Abm7 Db9 Gbadd9 Gb
Gbm7 B9
Emaj7
Bbm7 A7 Ab7

Dbmaj7 Ebm7 Fm7
Gbmaj7-Fm7-Ebm7
Dbmaj7 Abm7-Db9
Bbm7 B9
Dbmaj7 B9
Dbmaj7 Gm7-Gb7

Fm7-E9-Ebm7-Ab13

Dbmaj7 (and/or jingle bells tune…)

E+B Strings:
13 / / 13 / / 13 16
9 11 13

And here are the briliant videos I used to learn the song:

Sheet 8 – Beginners Guitar Chords – Easy Reading Chord Exercise

Free PDF for this sheet.

On this sheet we are going to use the beginners guitar chords A, D and E.

We are in the key of A and the chords are using the I IV and V (A = 1st, D = 4th, E = 5th) chord positions. The 1 4 5 pattern is very popular and playing them in order like that will sound very familiar.

In the chord exercise, you will need to look underneath the chord diagram to see the strumming pattern, and then play that for the chord. So, you will start with A, strumming 5 strings only (not the top string), and strum Down, Down, Down, Up Down, with the rhythm 1, 2, 3 + 4. Then moving onto the D chord with no gap if you can, or as quickly as you can make it, play the same rhythm for D. Then another quick change to E and this time it’s all 6 strings being played. As there are two E’s in a row, you will be able to easily go from one to the next without stopping because there is no chord change. The rhythm should be continuous, like this: 1, 2, 3 + 4, 1, 2, 3 + 4. Or like this: Down, Down, Down, Up Down, Down, Down, Down, Up Down.

When you have completed the two E chords, you then need to repeat the whole sheet a further 3 times to make 4 times around in total. Again, do a quick change from E back to A with as small of a gap as you can (but don’t go faster – there should still be 1 beat between the last E strum and the first A strum.

 

More sheets like this

This sheet is from an ebook called: Beginners Guitar Chords – Easy Reading PDF Ebook (Premium).

Beginners Guitar Chords – Easy Reading Book

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  • 18 pages (15 sheets with chord exercises)
  • Printable PDF File
  • Guitar book for beginners and teachers
  • Useful for beginners of all ages
  • Exercises with Beginners Chords
  • Chord Progressions
  • Rhythms and rests
  • All of these chords are featured at least once: A, Am, A7, Asus2, B7, C, Cmaj7, Cadd9, D, Dm, E, Em, Em7, F#m, F, G, G6, Gmaj7, G7.

Introduction

This ‘Beginners Guitar Chords’ easy reading book has been written following a year of testing and planning and with the knowledge and experience of over 10 years of guitar teaching.

The book is designed in a large ‘easy reading’ format, to be accessible for primary school age, whilst also being suitable for older children and adults.

The book contains 15 exercise sheets. On each sheet, you read the chords in the same order you would read a book; top left to top right, then bottom left to bottom right. The goal for each sheet is not to leave a gap in between chords, and to play each sheet continuously 4 times in a row. The numbers in the black circles are the finger numbers. These are suggestions as a guide, so other fingers can be used if preferred or more comfortable.

By the end of the book, the beginner guitar player should be ready to start playing songs that have beginners chords in. The student will have build up a good basic understanding of strumming, counting and chord changes.

The book covers most of the beginners chords you need for starting to play songs. It also covers techniques and fundamentals such as strumming, strumming rhythms, rests, repeats, and counting.

Make sure to spend plenty of time on each sheet and try not to work on too many sheets at once if you are new to guitar chords. Get comfortable and confident on each one before moving on and try to limit yourself to no more than 3 sheets per session or lesson. You could tick each sheet as you go along and make notes on the sides where needed. Once you have done more work and practice on the book, you might be able to do more sheets in one lesson or practice session.

The usual info

  • When you purchase this book online, you get a pdf file to keep forever.
  • Please do not redistribute the file or printed book publically or for profit.
  • Teachers can send the PDF file to individual students to practice with.
  • Teachers can print the book or single sheets as required for their students as many times as they like.
  • Feel free to make copies of the PDF file or printed copies, but only for personal or educational use or for keeping backups.

Thanks for reading. I hope you enjoy the book!

Theo Lawrence / TL Music Lessons

This book is listed on my blog learnguitarforfree.com and sold via payhip.com/tlmusiclessons

1st Edition ebook self published in 2019 by Theo Lawrence / TL Music Lessons.

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