Jon will show how to play Landslide from Fleetwood Mac with an open third fret capo as an aid for learning the finger picking pattern.
Jon will focus on mastering chord shapes and moving them in time. For his verse progression he will move them from C to G over B chord shapes.
C Major
At their core, chords are composed of groups of three notes which form a “triad”, from Latin “tri” meaning three. An open G chord consists of two G’s, three E’s and a D – this makes it easy to see why each chord bears its respective name.
The major scale also features a minor 7th, composed by flattening out and adding the 1st note to the base note. This chord can be found frequently in jazz, neo-soul, R&B music. To add tension or drama to a chord progression a 9th or 11th extension chord may be added (usually written ‘dim’ with an “o” circle) to complete its basic triad chord.
G Major
G Major chord is an extremely flexible chord and can be applied across many genres of music. Notably, it serves as the official key of God Save The Queen (New Zealand’s anthem), while being popularly employed in pop, rock, country metal and classical genres alike.
The G major scale can be divided into two tetrachords (four note segments arranged 2-2-1), making it easier to remember than most other scales with multiple 7 or 8 note patterns.
As soon as you’ve mastered the basic chord shapes, start practicing them slowly with a metronome to ensure each note is played cleanly and using correct finger placement. As soon as this becomes second nature, start speeding them up gradually.
A Minor
Minor chords often add a more melancholic or reflective atmosphere to a song; this is particularly prevalent in classical music.
When writing in a minor key, the tonic of the scale typically plays an essential part. As its most crucial note, the tonic provides a secure starting point and an end note when returning at the end.
As is true of major scales, minor scales come in three varieties: natural, harmonic and melodic. Each variation offers its own set of benefits; for instance, minor pentatonic scale is worth learning as it works particularly well over diatonic iii chords in major keys and v chords in minor keys.
B Major
B Major is a key with five sharps, its relative minor being G-sharp minor and its enharmonic major C-flat major. Although not used as frequently as other keys, its chromaticism lends itself well to various genres of music.
Chord progressions in this key can have an especially dramatic effect when using fifth inversion chord progressions, due to its unique notation: playing higher than root but lower than perfect fifth, thus shortening chord distance and sounding more cohesive. A perfect example is Coldplay’s song “Yellow”, which uses fifth inversion B Major chords for dramatic effect – their song highlights this key perfectly with intense yet dramatic lyrics!
D Major
D Major is an ideal key for chord progressions and playing songs in general, often used to make melodies stronger or to accompany other chord progressions. It features two sharps in its diatonic scale, and it acts as a relative major to B minor.
Building chords from any scale is easy by stacking thirds to form triads; for instance, D Major contains three such triads, D, F# and G. Additionally, you can add 7th notes to these triads to form major or minor 7th chords.
Memorizing the D Major scale and key signature will assist with studying chords in this key. The chart below contains scale degrees (tonic, supertonic, mediant, subdominant, dominant and submediant) as well as solfege syllables for all seven notes in the scale; this will help you recognize them when reading written music.