How to Play E Major on Guitar

How to play E Major on the Guitar

For anyone wanting to play the guitar, learning the basic chords is essential to getting your footing. The chord "E Major" ranks among the most basic, and, arguably, the easiest of the chords necessary to start playing songs. With a command of the E Major chord and just one other you can play a handful of songs. Add one more, and the sky's the limit.

The E Major chord is one of the 5 "open" major chords (most commonly E, A, D, G, C) so-called because they take advantage of being able to incorporate open strings (or strings that you play without holding them down at any point on the fret board). The open chords also have the advantage of only requiring the use of three fingers to configure. Another reason the E major chord is so nice to know is because it incorporates the open string of Low E, the lowest note you can play in standard tuning on the guitar which makes for a very powerful sounding chord.

In order to complete this task you need a standard, right-handed, 6-string guitar that is tuned to a standard guitar tuning (E, A, D, G, B, E). There are many sites with instructions on how to correctly tune your guitar. For example: http://www.guitarforbeginners.com/tuning.html Your guitar must be tuned correctly for your E Major chord to sound correct. In step 1, you will learn your finger numbers, become familiar with the string order on the guitar and what the "frets" are.

This Mahalo How To will teach you how to play the standard E Major open chord. It will not take more than a few minutes to learn the basics. Becoming an expert will be determined by how much practice you then apply to what you have learned.

Step 1: Knowing Your Fingers and Knowing Your Guitar

First, for learning guitar chords your fingers usually are numbered, so let's number your fingers. Starting after your thumb, your index finger is your "first finger," your middle finger is your "second finger, and your ring finger is your "third finger" (for future chord instruction, your pinky, as you may have guessed, is your fourth).

Second, you need to be familiar with the string order on the guitar. The lowest sounding string is the E String, which as your are holding the guitar is the top-most string. Moving downward away from the E String is the A String, D String, G String, B String, and the bottom-most is another E String (called the High E for the way it sounds, not it's location).

Lastly, frets. The frets are the raised strips of metal on the neck of the guitar. When you are instructed to play a note at a particular fret, the position of your finger is actually behind that fret (starting at the tuners and moving toward the sound-hole) or, in other words, between the frets. For example, if instructed to place your finger at the second fret you actually position it in between the first and the second fret to achieve the desired sound from the string.

Now that you know these basics let's put your fingers where they need to go.

Step 2: Positioning your fingers and yourself

Begin by getting comfortable. Find a chair that allows you to sit up straight, so that your guitar is perched comfortably on your knee, your right arm is free to move, and most importantly, your left arm and hand are free and your hand is easily able to grasp the neck of the guitar from underneath with your thumb on the back of the neck and your fingers on the strings.

Now for the fun part. Starting at the top-most, Low E string; leave this string open. On the next string down, the A String, use your 2nd finger to press this string down at the 2nd fret. On the next string down, the D String, use your 3rd finger to press this string down at second fret as well, just underneath your 2nd finger. On the next string down, the G String, use your 1st finger to hold this string down at the 1st fret. The last two strings, B and High E remain open.

Congratulations. You are now making an E Major chord. Now let's make it sound good in the next and final step.

Step 3: Making the E Major Chord Sound Right

To insure that your E Major chord is going to sound good there is a simple exercise you can do. Keeping your fingers pressing the strings down as described in step 2, start at the top-most Low E string and pluck only that string. It should ring out loud and clear without any buzzing or interference from your finger on the A String. If it doesn't ring out then your 2nd finger is most likely not in the optimal position. Slightly move your finger so that it is still where it needs to be, just not interfering with the Low E.

Once the Low E String is sounding good repeat this procedure with the next string, the A String, with your 2nd finger still at the 2nd fret. It should ring out loud and clear as well. Then move on to the other strings. Once you have moved through all the strings then start over again to make sure. Repeating this exercise of playing just one string at a time will not only reinforce your finger placement but will aid in the tedious process of building finger strength and building up callouses on your finger tips, both crucial to becoming a better chord player. If you can play through all the strings individually and they all ring true then you can be assured that when you strum the full chord (all 6 strings at once), every note will be sounding and you will be correctly playing an E Major chord on the guitar.

Practicing the the finger placement and strumming through the chord as much as possible will help in your chord playing becoming "automatic" so that one day you will not even have to look at the fret board or even think about what you are doing. For the first month or so of practicing the chord, re-visit the above exercise often.

Featured Video

This video accurately shows the correct finger placement to successfully play an E Major chord on the guitar.

Step 4: Other ways to play E major on the Guitar

There are some other useful ways to play the E Major chord on your guitar. These are referred to as "barre chords" (you may also see this spelled as simply, "bar"). This is a very useful skill to develop early on as only a handful of chords are "open" chords as described above. The rest of the chords are bar chords to some degree (that is, unless you employ a capo, but that's a whole other How To)

When playing in certain keys or in certain locations on the fret board it is often handy to know these alternate fingerings. Also you will notice that the alternate fingerings exhibit distinctly different tambers or "voicings," or in other words, they just sound different from each other while still incorporating the same "notes". This is useful in songwriting for achieving the most appropriate vocal accompaniments.

The technique involves taking your first finger and laying it flat against all six strings thereby achieving the "bar" and using your other three fingers to form a chord. In order to successfully play the E Major bar chords you must know the fingerings for the A major chord, the C major and the D major. At this point it would be a good idea to make sure you have a fingering chart. They are easy to find at any music store or you can readily find them on the internet.

Here's a good one for now.

Or here's one that shows the universal bar formations

Looking at the first chart, the top bar in the pictures represent the guitar's natural "bar" or nut as it's referred to. Now in a bar chord you can think of your first finger as that nut that you can move at will up and down the frets. So in the second chart those are simply the configurations that you can move anywhere up and down the frets to play the various chords

For an example lets try playing an E Major bar chord in the C shape

To play this chord move your bar finger up to the forth fret and form a C Major formation with your second, third, and fourth fingers. To be exact your first finger will span the six strings between the third and forth fret. Your second finger will be on the B string at the 5th fret, third finger on the D string 6th fret, and your fourth finger on the A string 7th fret. As with a regular C chord you do not play the Low E string for this chord. Practice strumming and picking through it as always to begin getting it down.

Lets try the others. Referring to the first chart again if you need to, place your "bar" finger at the seventh fret and form an A major configuration with your other fingers. This is probably the easiest of the E Major bar chords to play

Next, place your bar finger on the second fret and form a D Major configuration with your other fingers

Lastly, place your bar finger on the twelfth fret and form an E Major configuration with your other fingers.

This last one is also a very good one to know because it is relatively easy and there are several other useful chords which you can use this configuration to achieve (including but not limited to F Major, F# Major, G#Major, BbMajor, BMajor)

Getting barre chords down, particularly those employing the open A and open E fingerings, will help get you well on your way to mastering all the major chords.

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