In music, a chord is formed when a musician plays two or more notes (also called pitches) at one time. To a beginning guitarist this may seem daunting or confusing because there can be a misunderstanding that a note equals a fingered fret. That's not the case. Open strings count, too! In fact, if you just strum all six strings open, you'll have played a G Major 6add9 chord (G 6add9). Don't be put off by the letters and numbers combination, if you're just starting out. Pretty soon it'll all make sense.

Although chord naming can get convoluted, we'll start out with the basic qualities: major and minor. Eventually we'll get to the fancy stuff like augmented, diminished, and suspended.

There are twelve note values and they are described as being half or whole steps apart. For instance, moving from C to C# consists of a half step, while moving from C to D consists of a whole step.

The most common chords are triads which simply means they're made up of three notes. The major and minor triads are built on thirds. A third is simply three half steps from note to note.

Every chord (triad or otherwise) has a root, the note the chord is built upon. In normal form (also called uninverted), the root is the bass note, or lowest note, of the chord. Sometimes the root is not the lowest pitch played in a chord, in which case the chord is inverted. Major and minor chords add a third and a fifth to complete their form. For instance, a C major chord consists of the root, C, third, E, and fifth, G.

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