Guitar: General rules for fingering: An Open Learning Guide

The fingerings that are taught here for the individual chords did not come about by chance. They are based on the classical guitar schools and are intended to prepare you now if you want to

By the Pop Culture Files editorial team•Updated September 29, 2026•2 min read•✓ Fact-checked

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The fingerings that are taught here for the individual chords did not come about by chance. They are based on the classical guitar schools and are intended to prepare you now if you want to play fingerstyle later on (e.g. in the melody picking course). A chord should always be played in such a way that the fingers have to move as little as possible when changing the grip.

When changing the 9 chords C, F, G, G7, D, E and A major as well as E and A minor, you always have the same fingerings. The fingering changes will therefore all follow the same pattern.

The root note is almost always where the ring finger is. Later in the folk diploma, when you learn the first plucking patterns, you always know where the bass note is.

Once you have learned a bass line or a picking figure (comes in the folk diploma), you can very easily transfer it to other similarly fingered chords.

Of course there are exceptions, but these can safely wait until you can play all the standard chords with the standard fingerings and have taken advantage of all the learning benefits of the standard fingering.

And if you don't believe it yet: with just a few "mnemonics" you can find all the notes of the C major scale in the first frets. And you won't need more than one lesson to learn it.

From the general fingering rules you can derive a "favorite position" for the fingers for the simple chords.

If a finger is not needed for a certain chord, it can lie in wait hovering above its favorite position. It will probably be needed there again soon.

If you have already learned a different fingering, you should simply learn the standard fingering like a new chord and use it for new songs. As soon as you have noticed the advantages of the standard fingering, you will also use the "new" fingering for the old songs.

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Text adapted from Guitar/General rules for fingering by Wikibooks contributors under CC BY-SA 4.0. Paragraphs have been selected and abridged, and formatting adjusted. This adapted text is shared under the same licence. Contributor history.