“A” Guitar Chord: A Definitive Guide to the key of “A” on Guitar

In today’s post everything is “A” Okay… Without any further fluff lets get into the A guitar chord, and how it’s played up the neck.

What You Will Be Learning In Today’s Free Lesson:

• Learn 5 different ways to play the “A” chord on guitar.
• Learn 5 different ways to play the “A” Major scale.
• Learn what notes make up the A Major scale.
• Learn what notes make up the A Major chord.
• Learn 3 famous chord progressions in the key of A Major

A Guitar Chord Chart

Before we dive in to chord charts, and how to play the A Chord. Let’s quickly take a look into what is happening behind the theory of playing guitar chords.

First and foremost we must take a look at the full A Major guitar scale.

A, B, C♯, D, E, F♯, and G♯

So right off the bat we can see that there are 3 sharps in the key of A Major.

The A major chord is generated from A, C#, and E

Below is a simple illustration of 5 different ways you can play an A Chord on guitar all the way from the open position to the 12th fret.

Learning chords in this manner will allow you to make use of the fret board as a whole much earlier on in your playing.

I highly recommend learning these chord voicing, as you will notice in other posts that these shapes are interchangeable across the neck depending on what key you are playing in.

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A Guitar Chord 5th fret to 12th fret

Next up, let’s take a look at how to play an A major scale across the guitar neck.

I can remember getting stuck on 1 chord shape, and maybe 1 scale pattern. Learning 5 at a time will completely unlock the fret board for you allowing freedom to play horizontally across the neck. Super Awesome! Check out below for the 5 scale positions!

3 Common Chord Progressions in The Key Of A Major

1. 1, 4, 5 This would be a 12 bar Blues. This 12 bar in the key of A would look like this. A – A – A – A – D – D – A – A – E – E- D- A

2. Here is another popular chord progression in the key of A

A – F#m – D – E

If you are unfamiliar with the chords, please check out my basic guitar chords post.

3. Our 3rd popular chord progression used in pop music frequently, and that would be the
V–vi–IV–I E – F#m – D – A

I hope that this post has given you more insight into the key of A on the guitar.

Which chord shapes will you start learning first?

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