Intro to Open Chords

What are open chords? What makes a chord open? Are chords ever shut or closed and if so what time are they open again?

These are all great questions! An open chord is made when at least one open string is used in a chord. If that's not very helpful, let me explain what an open string is.

You know how we learned the string names in a previous lesson? Well, the strings are named for the note that rings out when the string is plucked WITHOUT fretting any notes on the fretboard. These are called 'open' notes. In other words you just pluck the string and don't touch it.

Now if we use at least one of these 'open' notes within a chord shape on the guitar, the chord is considered an 'open chord'.

You can see that the chord below is an 'open chord' as it contains 4 open strings -
E, G, B and e