Checking your chords: what's buzzing and why
Okay. You've got Em, Am, G, C, and D in your hands now. That's five chords, which is honestly more than plenty of songs need. But if you've been strumming any of them this week you've probably noticed something's off. A string buzzes. A note doesn't ring. Something sounds muffled like you've got a pillow on the strings.
Good. That means you're paying attention. Today we're going to figure out what's actually happening when a chord sounds bad, because "that sounds wrong" isn't useful information by itself. We need to know which string, and why.
The four usual suspects
When a chord sounds bad, it's almost always one of these:
1. A finger's too close to the fret, not behind it. If your finger is sitting right on top of the metal fret wire instead of just behind it, you get a buzz or a dead thud. Move it back a hair. This is the single most common issue I see, week after week, and it's a five-second fix once you know to look for it.
2. A finger's not pressing hard enough. You'll hear this as a weak, thin, half-there note. Press harder, right behind the fret. Your fingertip should feel it. That soreness you've got going is doing something.
3. A different finger is leaning into a string it's not supposed to touch. This one's sneaky. You go to play G and suddenly the high string sounds dead, but the finger that's supposed to be on that string is fine. Check your other fingers. Somebody's knuckle or fingertip is probably resting against a string it has no business touching. Guitar necks are narrow and fingers are round. They bump into things.
4. You're strumming a string you shouldn't be. For some chords, certain strings aren't part of the chord at all and you need to skip them or mute them. This is where a chord diagram earns its keep. Go back and actually look at which strings have an X at the top. That X means don't play it, either by skipping it with your strumming hand or muting it with a finger that's already fretting nearby.
How to actually check this at home
Don't just strum the whole chord and squint at the sound. Break it apart.
Fret the chord like normal. Then pick each string one at a time, slowly, starting from the lowest string to the highest. Listen to each one by itself. If a string sounds bad, stop right there and diagnose it using the four suspects above before moving to the next string.
This is slower than strumming. That's the point. You're isolating the problem instead of guessing at it.
Once every individual string sounds clean, then strum the whole chord. If it still sounds off, something changed between your one-string check and the full strum, usually a finger shifting or your hand tensing up. Go back to checking string by string.
The opinion part
Here's the thing I want to say plainly: this string-by-string checking is boring. It is not exciting. Nobody signs up for guitar lessons dreaming about isolating individual notes in a G chord for the fortieth time.
But this is the stuff that actually sticks. I bought one of those beginner method books years ago, back when I was teaching myself off Kevin's old dreadnought, and I burned through the whole thing in about ten days. Felt great. Then I hit a wall for months, because the book had skipped straight past exactly this kind of foundational, unglamorous work. It handed me chord shapes and songs without ever making me check whether I was actually playing them clean. I didn't know what I didn't know, and I didn't have the tools to fix it when things went wrong, because nobody taught me to slow down and listen string by string.
So when I tell you this feels tedious, I mean it, and I'm telling you to do it anyway. Apps and books that promise you'll be playing a real song by Friday are usually skipping this exact step. You'll get through the song fast and it'll sound bad, and you won't know why, and that's when people quit.
A note on your hands
If a string keeps buzzing no matter what you try, it's worth checking whether your fingernails are getting a little long on your fretting hand. Even a small amount of nail can keep your fingertip from pressing straight down, and it'll feel like you're doing everything right and getting nothing for it. Ten seconds with a nail clipper solves problems that feel like they should take a lesson to fix.
Also, don't grind through pain trying to force a clean sound. Sore fingertips from pressing are normal and part of building calluses. Sharp pain, especially in a joint, means back off and try again later. That's a different problem and pushing through it doesn't build anything useful.
Before next time
Pick one chord you're still fighting with and run the string-by-string check on it every day this week, slow, before you do anything else. Don't try to fix all five chords at once. One chord, clean, beats five chords, muddy.