Overview
Additional Tips / Q&A
Help me. I would really like to learn to play my favorite songs with guitar, but it’s too difficult and time-consuming.
No need to worry, friend, we are here to help you. Check out the Community Guide “Step by Step Guide to your first song” in the Community section! This will get you nicely started. Only 10 minutes a day will get you rocking with your friends in a week.
Do I have to be able to play guitar in order to play with FC?
No – the FourChords Instant Play Method takes you through the very first steps of guitar playing with “the Step-by-Step Guide to Your First Guitar Song” which you find in the Community Guides section. What you need is desire to play and a little patience and practising.
Are these songs licensed?
Yes, we pay all the necessary copyright fees, FourChords is an artist-friendly service.
Help me, whenever I strum a chord, there is irritating amount of string buzz.
Check that your left hand fingers are pressing the strings down right behind the frets, not on top of them. Some string buzz is always acceptable.
I’m having trouble letting all chord notes ring out properly. There seems to be some kind of strange string muting happening.
Most likely you are not curling your fingers enough. Check each finger joint for enough bend. You may aid finger curl by placing your thumb in the center behind the neck.
Help – the song tempo is too fast for me!
Slow down the tempo by clicking on the metronome icon and then choosing DOWN.
I love the song but I can’t play the chords….
Choose an easier skill level and play with half chords or single strings if you like. Practise the chords with our video tutorials. You can also try transposing the song into another key, which means you may be able to use chords you already know. Transpose option appears at the bottom of the play screen, right between the search bar and the tempo selection, whenever you pause the song or click on playback window area.
My friend is singing but it´s too high for her
Luckily, FC has a transpose feature to cover these situations. For a more effortless singing experience, most songs can be transposed either up or down by a perfect fifth (7 semitones).
My favorite songs are missing from your song catalogue
Please send us a song suggestion at [email protected]!
We are constantly updating our song catalogue
FC is not tracking my playing
FC does not track your performance. We believe that music comes from the heart and does not have to be tracked always.
Where do I connect my guitar?
You don’t connect your guitar into your computer. FC does not track your playing, so you do not need any cables or other gadgets to start playing. All you need is your acoustic or electric guitar.
What aren’t there riffs in the songs?
FourChords is all about the greatness of songs and the awesomeness of playing songs with your guitar. All great songs are based on chords, no matter how technical and riff-based the original versions are.
There are other great apps that give you detailed instructions on how to nail the riffs and solos. With FourChords we invite you to pick up your guitar and to enjoy playing the songs you love with intuitive chords that get you sounding great in a fast, fun and easy way.
Why do we focus on chords?
We want to make guitar playing accessible and rewarding for as many people as we can. With our chord-based method you can get to the essence of some of the world’s best songs quickly. Once you master the 11 Basic Chords you can find in FourChords, you can enjoy playing some of the world’s best songs in a satisfying way.
Best of all, you’ll soon have a great starting point for composing your own songs as well. When you are ready to try it, just pick 2-4 chords to play in a sequence, start humming a melody, add a few words and you are on your way to writing your first own song.
If your are more advanced player, you can use Pro Chords – 73 additional chords that spice up the songs. And once the song you picked is on, playing riffs and creating your own strumming patterns on top of it is not forbidden either. Just have fun and experiment!
Why aren’t you using original chords in song X?
Our musicians have rearranged the songs into easy-to-play versions, which can be mastered by beginners easily. The whole FC song catalogue can be played with 11 chords only. As you progress, you can always add your own fingerpicking patterns, riffs etc. to the song!
How can I adjust the backing track settings?
Go to the playback window, choose SETTINGS and you should see a whole lot of options that you play around with. You can change the melody sound, mute the guitar track and adjust the backing track to better match your liking.
If I can play just a couple of chords, what songs can I play?
FC contains a clever search function, which you may find helpful here. It’s located in the lower right corner in the song list view. You can do a basic search for songs and artists, and additionally, limit these searches to contain only songs with specific chords. Choose the chords that you can play, for example A, E and C and you’ll get a list of the songs that can be played with those chords. (note that all the chords are activated in the default setting).