Beginners often start out learning guitar chords on an extremely basic level – just three note chords played at specific intervals – making triads a fantastic foundation for many songs.
Chord diagrams demonstrate which strings and frets are being played, while which fingers are on which frets. Muted strings are indicated with an “x”, while numbers indicate which fingers are playing fretted instruments.
Scales
As you work your way through chords and triads, you may reach a point in which new shapes on the fretboard become apparent to you. At this stage, it’s essential that you learn about intervals and scale positions as part of the learning process.
Scales form the core of all musical languages, so learning them is invaluable regardless of your musical goals – chords or solos alike. Additionally, understanding what intervals make up your chords may prove very helpful for improvising on-the-fly improvisation.
Begin by studying this scale diagram: vertical lines represent strings while the horizontal ones with circles represent frets; numbers denote finger positions on your left hand and “x” indicates muted strings while “O’s” denote open strings – once you understand what’s being represented here you can use this diagram to find new scales to experiment with with chord progressions.
Triads
Triads are three note chords formed by stacking thirds from a root note, forming three note chords that can either stand alone or serve as building blocks for four and five note chords. A standard C major chord consists of C E G; by changing one note higher to D F A you get a D minor triad.
Focusing on root notes and positions will allow you to gain a better understanding of their relationships to one another as well as an expanded knowledge of music theory, as they all relate to one another. Additionally, it will give you an edge when learning different chord forms within music theory.
At their core, most chords are just triads; so familiarizing yourself with their basic shapes will make playing any song on guitar much simpler. Take a look at this list of chord shapes below and identify their root notes for faster playback.
Major
Learning major scale shapes may seem challenging at first, but taking your time and grasping each element fully will pay dividends in terms of chord usage as well as fretboard navigation skills development. Once mastered, these patterns can be used with any chord in their key and used to help navigate up and down the fretboard more smoothly.
Remember that intervals are equal to whole and half steps – two frets (or semitones) represent one whole step, while one fret makes half steps. Intervals can be linked together into multi-octave patterns or alternated to form box patterns; these will prove invaluable as we investigate chords, triads and arpeggios later on; having an excellent understanding of these structures will make them simpler to play at higher speeds.
Minor Scale
No matter the tonality, chords and solos draw their notes from various scales; just as with major scales, we have multiple ways to combine scale positions into chord progressions.
To identify a minor scale on the fretboard, begin at its lowest root note and move one finger at a time up the scale until reaching its highest note in its scale position – this note will serve as the key of your minor scale.
Example: Let’s say we want to find the G pure minor scale with its lowest root notes on strings 6, 3, and 1. To begin our search, we should place our index finger in the 3rd fret of the thickest string and place our other fingers accordingly; their positions on subsequent frets determine where their finger lands on the sixth string – that location determines your RELATIVE minor scale key (please refer to chart below for reference). This pattern will continue across all three strings.