Learning guitar chords can be frustrating at times. From missing notes to misplacing strumming patterns, all guitar players experience frustration from time to time while learning their instrument.
However, the advantages of playing guitar far outweigh its downsides. Playing music provides a relaxing outlet, can bring people together, and helps develop deeper understandings of our world.
1. G Major
G Major chords have long been revered as one of the most soothing and enjoyable sounds, often inducing feelings of calmness and happiness in listeners. Additionally, this chord has long been used as the root note in uptempo dancefloor fillers due to its versatility in sound ranging from soppy ballads to drum n bass and trap music genres.
G major features an F# sharp note, so to play it properly it requires an extra finger on the left hand. In order to develop one’s understanding of its scale and intervals it’s essential to practice ascending and descending scales as well as inversions of chords.
Start practicing the G major scale by placing your index finger on the fifth fret, adding in middle finger on sixth fret, ring finger on seventh and pinkie finger on eighth. When you feel comfortable, combine both hands. You may need to move your thumb around a bit in order to reach some notes.
2. C Major
Practice these scale positions until they feel and sound natural to you; each scale position has a distinct finger pattern: for instance, when playing position one your index finger should move down to play B and up again to play C (this makes it easier to remember sharps (#) are one fret above their respective notes while flats () are one fret below them).
Major chords are constructed from the first, third and fifth notes of any given scale; therefore learning major scales is an ideal place to start when learning guitar.
3. D Major
Love Yourself by Justin Bieber is an ideal song for practicing fingerpicking and muted slap techniques, as well as chord progressions in D Major scale containing D – E – F# – G – A – B. This key signature contains two sharps to build diatonic chords from this scale.
As with other major scales, the D Major scale can be created using stacking thirds to form triad chords. To do this, start from the first note (D), count up three notes until reaching the second one and repeat this process three more times until reaching seventh note of D Major scale. When descending this scale simply reverse note names back down until returning back to starting point (D). This method of playing D Major scale is known as Solfege system and helps memorize scale degrees and sounds more easily.
4. E Major
E Major is a major scale with four black keys, known as sharps. But as with all major scales, E Major shares its pattern of whole and half steps with three other keys. By counting out these other signatures you can gain insight into chord and scale patterns without learning additional fingerings.
E chord is an integral component of rock and blues music, from Patsy Cline’s classic country tunes to modern hits by Miranda Lambert and Reba McEntire; from Otis Redding’s rock standard “(Sittin’ On) The Dock of the Bay” to Nathaniel Rateliff and the Night Sweats’s footstomper “S.O.B”, E chord is an essential chord for any musician.
The most frequent form of this chord voicing is open position, which only requires three fingers and minimal finger acrobatics. However, chords can also be played in other positions to produce unique tones; such voicings may be known by their scale degrees (tonic, supertonic, mediant, subdominant dominant and leading note/tone) and are displayed on chord charts with dots showing where notes should be fretted on a guitar neck.