When I first started playing guitar, about 12 years ago, I tried learning songs with individual notes (think “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, etc.), as opposed to full chords, because it was tough to play the chords.

However, as time went on, I found that chords were the basis for every song I wanted to learn to play, so I couldn’t stay away from learning them for long!

If you want to get a head start learning the chords that will have the highest impact on your song-playing abilities, these are the 5 most popular chords to learn on guitar:

• C Major
• G Major
• D Major
• E Major
• A Major

While the order of importance of these chords is widely-debated, most anyone would agree that learning these chords (and being able to transition between them quickly) will get on you on track to playing 100′s, maybe 1,000′s, of popular songs.

To learn to play each chord, check out ChordBook’s interactive chord charts. They should help you learn the fingerings, but you’ll have to practice to learn how you prefer to switch between the chords quickly enough to play in a flowing manner.

Enjoy learning the top 5 guitar chords!