So, I was thinking about playing guitar, and how difficult it is to practice without giving up. It is hard, mainly because most folks learn a few chords then struggle to put together a few simple tunes to make them feel like they are making progress.

There is also a lot of confusuion for people who have no knowledge at all about music theory, it goes right over my head!

I,III,V,VII, doesn`t mean a lot, especially when you look for simple tunes you know that are written down in tab form or chords.They use A<B<C<D etc. Nothing numerical at all.

So, I started looking at an easier way to learn to play tunes I know. Playing tunes I know was the main thing.I`ve seen lots of stuff on the site, but some of the songs I`ve never heard before, so it makes it (at least for me) difficult.

So I started looking at open tunings on a 6 string I made, and after finding a chord chart realised this was the way forward for me. I realised I could use all the major chords just by barring with one finger. And once I have this off, it would then be easier to use different barre chords for minor chodrs etc.

This is the chart I found   open%20chords%20G%20chart.jpg 

So, there isn`t any numericals here, just G-A. So I have to learn G-A! and then all the minor chords. My memory is terrible......I`m over 50 now so there will be a few out there who will understand my problem.

So, I went to chordie and looked for tunes I know with  2,3 or 4 chords, and the important thing was that they were all majors, thats the simple 1 finger barre chords on the open tuned guitar.

I then added the fret number to the chord. So, where there was a C i added a number 5, a D I added a 7 etc. The reason I did this was purely for ease of use. It`s really easy to learn where the frets are by number. not so easy to remember what the name of the chord is.

And it works! I was actually playing tunes!

The added bonus is that, as I was adding those numbers to the chord charts I found I was also remembering which chords goes with which number.

I also found I was adding chords, or changing chords to suit my voice or to add a little to the songs. 

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I hope this will help anyone, like me, who is,or has found it difficult to play a few simple songs.