Guitar chords form the backbone of songs. Learning four of the best chords in key of E can give you the foundation necessary for playing various musical genres and styles.
Beginners should start out by playing chords that are easy to play and require minimal finger stretching, in order to build strength and dexterity on their fingertips as time progresses.
Basic E Chord
One of the first chords most guitarists learn is the basic E chord, as it offers great sound quality while being easy to finger and fitting well with other chords in its key.
This chord is often found in blues music due to its ease in creating hammer-ons with the index finger – something which is commonplace within blues music. Furthermore, this chord makes an excellent basis for building bass lines.
This chord shape can serve as the starting point for more complex triads and whole-string power chords, as it contains all three inversions of an E major triad – so you can move this shape up or down the neck as needed to form different triads. Furthermore, it is an ideal anchor chord for E major pentatonic scale lead guitar lines; also existing within Box 1 of major pentatonic scale gives this chord great versatility in your arsenal.
E Minor Chord
E Minor is one of the easiest chords to learn and features a smooth sound that’s popular with classical guitar composers and heavy metal musicians alike. Additionally, this chord can be used in chord progressions as the relative major (E Major) or dominant chord (G Major), providing powerful harmonic movement in music.
The open E minor chord requires only two fingers for fretting. As its lowest pitch minor chord can only be played using standard tuning, and is heavy with weighty chord tones, practicing this shape with your index finger muting its low E string is key in maintaining harmony in this chord shape.
Once you’ve mastered this shape, try switching back and forth between it and G Major chord to develop the ability to rapidly switch chords without buzzing or creating noises in between chord changes. When this becomes easy for you, progress on to other chords in E.
E Major Chord
E Major is one of the most commonly encountered major chords on a fretboard, featuring E, G# and B as its components. These notes can be combined in many different ways to produce different tones and sounds.
E Major Chord is composed of two components – a major third (G#) and perfect fifth (B). The major third sits four half steps or two whole steps above its root note to produce its characteristic sound; while its perfect fifth complement provides stability and fullness to this chord.
The open E Major Chord provides an excellent starting point for more complex chords. Use it to construct triads and seventh chords or combine it with other chords in key of E to make different progressions. For further music theory exploration check out Uberchord blog!
E Major Scale
E Major chords (or variants thereof) are one of the cornerstones of guitar playing, serving as both root notes of standard tuning instruments and frequently utilized chords when building progressions or solo playing.
This chord consists of the E, G# and B notes of the E Major scale and can be written either simply as E or more commonly as Emaj7/E7.
Since all major scales share an interval formula involving whole and half steps, they can be combined with chords from their same key to create progressions that sound pleasing together. For example, C major and E major chords from different keys work particularly well due to their harmonic relationship as well as open strings on guitar.