How many chords do you actually need to know? Let’s see what is your goal. If all you want is to strum accompaniment to an odd pop song then 10 chords is good enough. These would be for example A, Am, B7, C, D, Dm, E, Em, F, G

There are plenty of famous songs that use just two chords. Paperback Writer by Beatles, Songbird by Oasis, John Lennon’s Working Class Hero, Jambalaya by Hank Williams are the first that I could recall now. Not to mention the 3 or 4 chord songs. The simple fact is that it is not the number of chords that makes you are better or worst guitarist.

However, if your goal is to play jazz, then you need to know a bunch of chords that are never used in a pop song. So different styles require different skills. You don’t have to master them all. Start with the style that you like the most and learn the chords that your favorite songs use.

At some point, it can be a bit boring to learn guitar chords and that is exactly why we have built this sound recognition based guitar chord game. First free levels will teach you the most common chord shapes.