While some guitarists choose to learn chords by ear, music theory knowledge can give you more freedom when it comes to playing more advanced chords and creating pathways for discovering new ones.
Chords are made up of individual notes joined together to form a chord shape; these chords may be major or minor in nature.
Major
Acoustic guitarists tend to rely heavily on major and natural minor scale chords when it comes to guitar playing, yet popular styles like folk, country and rock require much more. In this lesson we will introduce melodic and harmonic minor scales, triads and seventh chords which give your fretboard depth and color.
This chord chart illustrates the relationship between each key and its triads, seventh chords and dom7ths as well as common progressions for these tones.
To convert this chart to a minor key, focus on flattening out the 3rd note in each row and focus on changing that sound – chords will still fit the same pattern, yet will have different sounds; this change of sound creates the mood of the song whether hopeful or despondent.
Minor
Minor chords are equally as prevalent on guitar. Each type includes a root note, minor third and diminished fifth – these terms don’t need to be memorized but do help you understand how these chords create different atmospheres and emotions.
Example of how relative minor scales work: the sound of an iio chord will have a bitter quality while that of vi chord will be sweeter – therefore it is essential that musicians know how to play relative minor scales correctly.
C melodic minor scale is one of the easiest scales to learn, which you can compare with C harmonic minor scale and memorize to quickly find various minor chords on the fretboard.
Blues
Blues chords don’t present too many challenges for beginners. Instead, it is mostly about creating pathways between chords based on their root notes – something music theory makes easier by showing what combinations work well together.
These chords can be played using either a standard strumming pattern or embellishments such as string bending (see FIGURE 7). When trying out string bending, be careful as it requires great delicacy to execute properly; it will add depth to a chord progression’s sound if executed successfully – so take it slow and practice with patience; it will pay off!
Jazz
Jazz chords differ from traditional triads in that they can include additional notes beyond their root and third triad, creating extended chords with seventh, ninth, or even eleventh notes – such as adding D note for Gsus4.
This gives the chord an added tense sound. To learn these chords doesn’t require you to be a jazz musician, they add sophistication and depth to music of any genre and can help facilitate improvisation or comping with rhythm changes.
Rock
Rock music utilizes only a limited set of open-position chord progressions that sound very similar, often differing only by rhythm guitar riff or lead guitar solo. Therefore, learning these fundamental sequences as building blocks for rock playing will prove helpful.
All these melodies are accessible even for novice guitar players. A chord diagram shows where frets on your neck of your guitar can be found with numbered squares representing finger positions and black circles showing where you must press down; additionally X’s denote muted strings adding more rhythmic interest during strumming.
This song’s riff is simple to learn and instantly recognisable, just focus on rhythmic feel and attitude!