Beginner's Guitar Chords: A Minor

Last week's post showed you your first open position E minor chord. Now it's time to learn the second chord in this series, the A minor chord.

Let's start by taking a look at the fingering for the A minor chord. The chord diagram below shows how it's played (learn how to read the diagram). Remember, the numbers on the frets show you which finger is used to play the notes, starting with 1 for your index through 4 for your little finger.

e 0|---|---|---|
B  |-1-|---|---|
G  |---|-3-|---|
D  |---|-2-|---|
A 0|---|---|---|
E x|---|---|---|

To get you started playing with your Am chord you can try Bob Dylan's Knockin' On Heaven's Door. This simple song has a chord progression like this:

G              D            Am
Mama take this badge off of me
G       D          C
I can't use it any-more
...

This progression repeats through the whole song, you can find the tab for it here.

As well as this progression in the key of G you can practice changes between the Am and the Em and C chords, too. It's used with those chords in many songs.

Next week we'll complete this series of beginner's minor chords by learning the Dm chord. Until then, have fun practicing and playing.