Playing Your First Guitar Chords
Like Duolingo, but for Playing Your First Guitar Chords. Tomo turns the whole topic into a game you play five minutes a day, until it actually sticks.
For the part of you with thirty open tabs that never became anything.
A short one: 11 levels across 2 sections, about 22 minutes end to end, roughly 4 days at five minutes a day. It moves through Sounding Clean on Day One and Smooth Switches and Your First Songs. It starts from scratch.
Free forever · No credit card · iPhone & Android
Key ideas in Playing Your First Guitar Chords
- E minor requires holding down only two strings on the second fret while leaving the rest open
- A7 also uses only two fingers on the second fret, leaving the middle G string open between them
- Moving between Em and A7 forms an instantly recognizable, complete musical progression
- Curling your fingers so only the very tips touch the fretboard keeps the pad from resting against adjacent strings
- Flat, lazy fingers collapse onto adjacent open strings and unintentionally choke their sound
- Arching knuckles creates a tunnel for neighboring open strings to ring freely
- Placing your fingertip snug just behind the metal fret wire gives maximum leverage with very light effort
- Pressing in the middle or back of the fret space leads to string buzz unless you squeeze unnecessarily hard
- The fret wire itself anchors the vibrating string length, not your finger pressure alone
- A relaxed, consistent downward sweep across all ringing strings creates a reliable pulse
- Maintaining a steady tempo with simple downstrokes matters far more than trying complex up-and-down strumming patterns early on
- Using the flesh of your thumb or a pick angled smoothly across strings creates an even, full sound
- Vertical lines represent the six strings from thick low E to thin high E
- Horizontal lines represent the metal frets running across the neck
- The thick line at the very top represents the nut at the headstock
- Fingers need to press close behind the fret wire, not centered or far back
You've tried the other tabs
Thirty open tabs. Four facts you actually kept.
You watched. You nodded. By Sunday it was gone.
One answer, then back to scrolling.
Eight weeks. You meant to finish. You didn't.
Tomo gives Playing Your First Guitar Chords the Duolingo treatment: levels, streaks, and quick quizzes that test what you just learned. That game loop is what the tabs above never had, so it's the one you actually finish.
Here's what playing it feels like
A real question from this course. Take your best guess.
How do you place your fingers to play an A7 chord?
Get it right to open this lesson and 10 more in the app.
Where Playing Your First Guitar Chords takes you
Pick up the guitar and start making music right away. Learn the foundational chords, clean fretting technique, and smooth transitions that unlock hundreds of songs.
- 1
Sounding Clean on Day One
- The Two-Chord Groove
- Clean Fretting and Chord Diagrams
- 2
Smooth Switches and Your First Songs
- Changing Chords on the Beat
- The Four-Chord Song Engine
2 sections · 4 units · 11 levels. Built to play, not to enroll.
You pick the voice
Playing Your First Guitar Chords is taught in the The Professor style: clear, structured, thorough. Want a different feel? In the app you can spin up the same topic in any of Tomo's teaching styles. Same facts, totally different vibe.
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Start Playing Your First Guitar Chords today.
Download Tomo, search Playing Your First Guitar Chords, and play your first lesson in under a minute.