Play any pop song in 5 steps

So instead of my usual rants about the compositional limitations of modern music. I thought I would share with all of you some advantages of our modern pop culture and I have compiled a "how to learn pop songs in an instant." to show you all how simple it is. Oh and if don't believe me than check out this video, it's hilarious and gob-smacking. First time I saw it a little part of the creative musician in me died.
5 steps to learn any pop song in history

1. Buy a guitar. Firstly you'll need to be able to sing and buy a guitar - If you can't sing well there's no real point in learning basic guitar chords because it's boring. (Sorry but it's the truth, singing is really the only thing that is different amongst pop songs,if you can't sing it will sound like any number of songs, as you can clearly see from the 4 chords video.
2. Learn to read chord charts - To do this you'll need to go to go here. The dots correspond to where you need to place your fingers and the images read left to right up to down. So the thickest string will be the first line on the left. If there is an x it means that you shouldn't put any fingers down and not strum it, it there is a 'o' then you should strum that string but not put any fingers down. If you see a number to the left of the image then that corresponds to what fret that image starts on considering you can't exactly draw a full guitar with every single fret. Okay so know you know how to read chord charts you'll need to start learning them.

3. Learn the beginner open chords. Next you'll to start learning some chords. A chord is any combination of notes played together. There are better definitions but you don't need to know them to start learning. So the beginner chords on guitar are C Major, A minor, G Major, E minor, D Major, E major, A Major. You will have to learn these chords first as they are the most commonly used and you'll find that there is a large number of songs using just these chords anyway.
4. Find the chords to your favorite songs - After some hours of practicing, training your brain and developing calluses. (you'll bleed at first and it'll hurt but that passes) you're ready to start finding the songs you want to play. So you go to these websites and search for you chords:

Ultimate Guitar
Chordie
911 Tabs
All you need to do is search your song pick one of the chords versions of the song. In general pick the one that has the highest amount of reviews, these are the ones that will actually work and you will recognize almost instantly. You might notice that some of them are actually named as 'tabs', don't click on these. These are for the more advanced players in most cases and will not give you the actual chords just some seemingly complicated pictures to the beginner guitar player. (stayed tuned for a possible "How to read tabs" You'll also see that the chords placed over the lyrics in the song aren't an exact science. So that is where your ears come in. You'll need to listen the song and see when there chord changes and SING along as you play the chords, it really helps.

5. Expand your skills - The next concept you will have to learn is how play all of the other chords in between. A very simple way to do this is to learn how to bar chords. A bar chord is basically where you play the simple chords or open chords and place your whole finger over one of the frets. What this does is that it essentially raises the quality of a chord by a half step (also known as a semi-tone). So if you were to play an E chord with the first fret barred then the chord would turn into an F chord. If you barred the second fret the chord would be an F# and so on. Now you basically know every chord that has ever been used in pop history. There are exceptions of course. Any kind of pop rock band might have more complex chords such as John Mayer who uses some more bluesy chords. Or Queen who use some funky chords but once you learn how to bar almost any songs are open to you. Bar chords can take some mass amounts of time to learn how to do and don't be discouraged. I've known people who simply give up on learning bar chords and simply give up on songs that require them. Don't do this. Persevere and you will get the results, practice makes perfect.


NOTE: In no way does learning in this fashion make you a musician. Becoming a musician takes decades of hard work, dedication and innovation. You must be able to write music, keep improving on your skills and most importantly put your flavor to your music. If you learn 10 pop songs and play them for the rest of your life this doesn't make a musician. Just a poser, you might get a few girls phone numbers because of it but to be a true musician you will need to either do something different or be the best at what you do.

P.S If you want to learn the four chords that axis of awesome use, it's E maj, B Major, C# minor, A Major and REPEAT.