When you are first learning your basic open chords, it's easy to get stuck in a loop of just repetitively practicing them as a list of exercises by rote, but without really having a practical goal for those chords in the long view. So here's a good game plan for how to practice beginner open chords:
1) Go online and do a search for "easy open chord guitar songs". Browse some websites and forums until you find songs that you like so it's more rewarding to learn the chords in them instead of just playing exercises. Keep in mind that different people have different ideas about what constitutes "easy", so keep looking until you find songs that include chords you are familiar with (see below).
2) Now do a search for "chords and lyrics", along with a song name if you found any favorites. You'll sometimes find links to guitar tablature or just lyrics of songs, but what you are looking for are song lyrics with chord names above the lines of lyrics, like this:
G C
This is a pretend verse it's really my favorite song
Am D G
It really means nothing but you can sing it all day long
3) Ignore all numbers, slashes, or weird words after chord names and play what's left, keeping any "minor" or "m"s after the basic chord letter name:
Some examples: G7=G, Am7=Am, C5=C, Dm7add9sus4=Dm, D/F#=D, etc. (An exception to this is the B7 chord, which is the only open form of the B chord, so it's worth looking up if you come across it in a song you like). This trick works most of the time and doesn't make the chords sound that different from the original song anyway.
4) Pass by any songs with bar chords (B or F) or chords with flat(♭) or sharp(♯) symbols next to the chord names (F♯m, B♭, C♯, etc.). Different teachers have different ideas about when to start playing bars, but unless you're getting into the intermediate to advanced stage of playing, I feel it's just too early to be playing these chords yet. They are not worth torturing yourself over, and there are plenty of good songs that feature all your open chords (E, A, D, G, C, Em, Am, Dm) to choose from, so just keep looking.
5) Practice the chords using the song as your chord exercise! You don't really have to play any strum patterns if you are just learning your chords - just strum each chord once and try to hear the song in your head or even sing or hum along with the lyrics as the chords come up. On "chords and lyrics" pages, each chord is meant to be played at the same time as the word or syllable that chord is positioned over, so don't sing that word or syllable until the hand is ready on the chord. Pause when needed to set up the next chord, and concentrate on trying to make the song sound like what you know.
6) Rotate between songs often at first whenever one song gets too boring or frustrating to work on - concentrate on having fun at first and making small gains! There is plenty of time later in your guitar journey to go long and push for challenges in your playing. Right now, it's about getting your basics down and nurturing muscle memory into place so your hands eventually take over on the heavy lifting.
There you go! With the wonders of the internets you can go a long time with this exercise before you run out of songs to practice, and if you do you'll probably be an advanced player by then anyway!
Tyson Farmer
www.lessonface.com/TysonFarmer
