Chords can add harmony to melodies. Guitarists have many options available to them for creating and playing chords using the fretboard’s hand shapes to craft chords of their own.
Are the chords for guitar and piano interchangeable?
Triads
Triads are the building blocks of chords. Each chord consists of three notes stacked atop one another (such as G, B and D). Most songs, from Jason Mraz’s I’m Yours to U2’s With or Without You will contain at least one major and one minor chord.
Musically speaking, each chord type possesses its own expressive qualities. Major triads sound complete and resolved; minor triads have a sadder, lower quality; diminished and flattened chords sound less full while an augmented chord creates fantasy or magical qualities.
With your interval knowledge, you can construct triads from any note on the fretboard. Simply draw its root note onto a staff and add its third and fifth notes above it; triads built using do, re and mi are major while those comprised of fa sol are minor; while ones composed of ti la are diminished.
Sustained Chords
Suspended chords are a form of chord in which the major or minor third is replaced with either a perfect fourth or major second note, creating dissonant sounds that add tension and delay resolution of chord progressions. To master suspended chords effectively in different keys, experiment and play until you gain a comprehensive knowledge of how they work.
Advanced musicians can utilize suspended chords to add depth to their music. For instance, a Csus4 chord can be combined with either G major or C minor scale to produce a sense of movement and release in their pieces.
Suspended chords are an invaluable asset when it comes to improvising music. By including sus2 or sus4 chords into an improvised piece, a musician can express more emotions while creating more complex melodic lines – this tactic has been employed in such iconic songs as Queen’s Crazy Little Thing Called Love or Pinball Wizard to set emotional context and provide depth of emotion throughout their songs.
Added Tones
Added tones, also known as extensions, are chords which include an added seventh note. While added tones can add dissonance into a chord, they also create more interesting and jazzy sounds which do not require resolution.
When performing these types of chords on guitar, it is best to play them an octave apart in order to keep the sound clear and avoid dense and overbearing chords that may make translation to piano easier. This also keeps you away from creating overly complex or dense arrangements of these chords.
Added tone chords aren’t as common, but their distinctive sounds warrant inclusion in your chord repertoire. Notated with add2 or add4 for two-note triads and C6 or C+13 for six-note ones, these add tone chords can all be considered dissonant though some (C6 or C+13) can even be more tonally ambiguous and may sound either major or minor depending on which note is added on to create it.
Rhythm
Chord progressions form the backbone of any song. Once you understand their basic shapes and their positions, you can compose numerous combinations that form songs.
To play this easy progression on guitar, simply fret the root note of each chord with your index finger (or use whatever voicing applies) before strumming in an upbeat rhythm. It’s simple yet fun and sounds fantastic on an acoustic guitar!
Make these voicings even more expressive by adding some suspension – usually indicated with the number written after each chord symbol; for example, C sus 4 indicates using a major third above the root instead of minor third.
An effective way to do this is to follow along with the classic 50s doo-wop chord progression, creating melodies by changing between chords in your rhythmic pattern. Doing this allows you to see how these changes can create melodies within rhythm – telling a tale through music!