Good note of caution about changing the string gauge too much, will have to look into that on my acoustic.

I personally like the sound of an older set of strings on an acoustic guitar. It gives it a sort of folk-like sound. I guess thats all style preference though.

Another note to readers: be careful about changing the gauge of strings on your guitar by too much. Your guitar was probably setup to accept a specific gauge and if you put on a lighter or heavier set it can cause the guitar neck to bow which can mess with your action, intonation, and sometimes cause fret buzz. However, if you do put on some lighter strings and you like them you can take your guitar into a shop to have it re-setup, or you can attempt to do it yourself by adjusting the truss rod.

The strings with the X’s at the top should not be played at all as part of that chord.

The numbers at the bottom of the chord grid charts indicate a suggested fingering for the left (or fretting) hand for that chord, where the finger numbering goes: 1 = index finger, 2 = middle finger, 3 = ring finger, 4 = little finger/pinky.

There are dashes on the open strings (i.e. the ones with O’s at the top) since those strings are not to be held down at any fret, so there is no finger number to use on that string.

So if you read the first chord grid for C Major, the open strings are the top (highest) and third strings. The numbers at the bottom reading from left to right (lowest to highest), and including the dashes are: - 3 2 - 1 -, this means:

- : lowest string not sounded (’X’ at the top), so no fret held down
3 : 5th string held down at the 3rd fret with the ring finger
2 : 4th string held down at the 2nd fret with the middle finger
- : 3rd string has an ‘O’ at the top, so is open, with no fret being held down
1 : 2nd string held down at the 1st fret with the index finger
- : 1st string has an ‘O’ at the top, so is open, with no fret being held down

Hope this helps.

Since this post was aimed at beginners learning chord changes, it seemed best to use this particular F major shape, it also fits in well with changing to it from the C major chord.

Learning barre chords is a very useful step on from that, I did a post about it previously, which you can see in the learning barre chords post in this category.

If you can play the ‘F’ shape barre chord though, there should be no issue switching from G major to F major - you would just play the full G major barre chord at the 3rd fret, and then slide this same shape down to the 1st fret for F major.

For this change, I think it makes it easier if you use the ‘3-2-4′ fingering for the G major chord, rather than the regular ‘2-1-3′ fingering.

Have a look at the G major chord on the chart above. Finger 3 is on the bottom (lowest sounding) string at the 3rd fret, and finger 4 (pinky) is on the top string (highest sounding), also at the 3rd fret. Finger 2 is on the 5th string at the 2nd fret.

Finger 1 is not used in this fingering of the G major chord, and this is good for switching to other chords.

Begin with exercise 4 above, but start off on the G major chord, with fingering as above. When you come to switch to the C major chord, fingers 2 & 3 just slide across one string each, and finger 1 just comes down on the 2nd string. Just practise that change for a while.

On exercise 5, again, look at it as starting off from C major, then going to F major. Finger 1 is already in position pretty much, you just need to bring fingers 2 & 3 across by one string again.

So then you’re practising:

G major -> C major ; C major -> F major

after a bit more practise, you should find that you can go

G major -> F major

in one go - you might start forming the C major chord as you move away from G major, but it turns right to F major.

If you’re using the regular ‘2-1-3′ fingering for G major, it can be a bit tricker, as finger 1 has to come across from the 5th string to the top two strings, which is why I suggest the G major fingering outlined above.

Hope this helps!