Incite Music

How To Play A G Major Chord On Guitar

The G chord is another of our recommended foundation chords. Therefore the G chord is an important one to learn early on in your guitar journey. It plays the part of the root shape for our major song pattern in the 4 chord pattern. On top of that, there are thousands of songs that don’t fit the 4 chord patterns that still use G chords. 

There are a few different ways to play a G chord but let’s stick to the most common open shape for our chord diagram.

G Chord

As you can see from the chord box you will need fingers 1, 2, and 3 to play this chord. 1 is your index finger and 3 the ring finger. 2 is obviously the finger in between those two.

Looking at the chord diagram we can deduce that:

  1. The second finger presses on the third fret of the thickest E string
  2. Your first finger presses on the second fret of the A string
  3. Your third finger presses on the high e string.


If you are having some trouble putting your third finger on the bottom string just try to get the first and second fingers in the right place first. Try strumming like that without hitting the bottom string. 

A second way to play a G is to have your third finger on the third fret of the B string and the fourth finger on the high e below it. This shape makes it easier to form an F#/B for a very common chord progression in songs like Wonderwall. That’s a much more complex chord that we can get to another time. If you’re just bashing out chords, for now, stick to the simple G.

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