The musical alphabet contains seven natural notes – A, B, C, D, E, F and G – known as naturals as they do not contain any sharps or flats. An additional step up from natural notes are accidentals such as D# or Ab.
Chord diagrams contain vertical rows of numbers which should be played simultaneously for an immersive sound experience.
A.
Some chords are commonly known as shapes because they’re easy to learn and move around the fretboard, such as major or minor chords.
Sharps and flats are simply half-step extensions from natural notes; A becomes A# while G is Bb.
Sometimes you’ll come across what is known as a slash chord; pay special attention to these.
B.
Chords are written using just letters and sometimes sharp or flat signs, with qualities like major, minor or diminished depending on their complexity.
Octaves are notes played simultaneously across multiple strings, and can be located by shifting up two strings and right two frets on either string. To find an octave, take these steps.
Sus chords, which do not contain the third note from power chords, can be useful immediately prior to or after an identical major or minor chord.
C.
Fingering is the practice of playing specific strings while muting others – this process is known as fingering.
Chord symbols typically begin with a letter name and may include sharps (#) or flats (). They represent the root note, chord type and any additions/adjustments such as adding sevenths to major or minor triads.
D.
Augmented and Diminished chords utilize the first, flat third, and fifth notes from the major scale for their construction, with one note raised and the other one decreased; their difference being by five degrees; one being raised versus decreased.
Chords marked with a slash symbol (C/E, Cmaj6) indicate that their bass note should differ from that of its root note. Furthermore, this slash also indicates which strings to play and mute when playing any given chord.
E.
A 5 indicates a power chord (a triad with its root note doubled an octave higher), often used in rock music.
Other intervals are indicated with numbers with an abbreviation or musical symbol; for instance, “Asus2” means a sus chord, which are particularly helpful as bridges between major and minor triads.
F.
Guitar chords can consist of just three notes, and chord charts only display this information. However, songs frequently require single notes or additional chords that go beyond what is shown by a root chord.
Extensions refer to things such as adding an 11th or 9th note – for instance slash chords like Dsus4 are examples of extensions while power chords feature extensions too.
G.
We’ll conclude this article by exploring the diminished chord, which is excellent for adding tension to a progression and can make any song sound “heavy”.
If you are unfamiliar with intervals, please read up on them before continuing – this article should make understanding all this new chord information much simpler! Thank you!
H.
Triads with added sixths may simply be indicated with the numeral without “add.” A sixth, perfect fifth and flat ninth are frequently represented as add11.
Sometimes you might come across two letters separated by a forward slash (no relation to Slash the guitarist). This signifies what’s known as a “slash chord”, where one letter represents the root note while the second represents which note should be played for bass guitar.
I.
Naturals in guitar chords are those letters without sharps or flats – these will likely appear most frequently when creating chords.
On occasion, you might come across two notes separated by a slash – this is known as a slash chord! The first letter indicates the root note while the second note represents bass note; additionally augmented and diminished chords use plus signs while sevenths use abbreviations to signify their bass note component.
J.
An occasional chord may include an extension symbol such as a seventh or ninth note to represent its lengthening.
Remember that the musical alphabet extends up to G and then loops back. Once you understand these basics, any note can be identified within a scale; similarly chords consist of three or more notes strung together at specific intervals to form chords.