A major chord consists of three separate notes joined together into an unbroken sequence; sometimes these chords are known as triads.
Most often, major chords will play one fret higher than minor chords – making understanding music theory for guitar essential to creating effective music arrangements.
Curling your fingers correctly is key to creating clear chords, as is strumming only the upper strings.
A Major
A major is one of the most frequently played guitar chords. It can be found across genres and is relatively straightforward to score due to not involving fifth or sixth strings.
Making an A chord that sounds very high and bright by barring the second fret of the fourth string with your pointer finger produces an A chord with a very prominent sound, while using your middle and ring fingers to produce one by leaving open the top string can produce one that sounds much fuller sounding A chord.
Once you’ve mastered root position A major, explore it in some different keys and take notice of any patterns created and their connections with one another. Chord patterns like these will become important when learning more advanced major chords like major 7th chords (using first, third and fifth notes of major scale as their basis), major 9th chords and major 13th chords – each can be created differently due to using 1st, 3rd and 5th notes from major scale to form them in various ways.
C Major
It is one of the first major chords you will likely learn on guitar, and one of the more stable chords, making it ideal for building progressions upon.
Similar to A minor, D major is a major triad chord with an excellent perfect fifth note that can be used as the foundation of other minor and major chords, progressions and harmonic structures.
To play this major chord, place your index finger on the second fret of the middle string and your ring finger on its first. Leave all other three strings open – use the underside of your first finger to mute outer strings for a percussive strumming sound!
Barrar both first and second strings to create an alternative version of this shape, creating a fuller-sounding bass note for this chord, especially useful when playing major chords higher up on the neck.
E Major
The key of E is an expressive one, perfect for conveying powerful desires and positive sentiments. This key contains four sharps and three natural notes.
E Major is one of the initial chords most guitarists learn in CAGED pattern and one of their first chords to learn. It starts by using an open E string as the root note before moving up fretboard using basic fingering pattern: index finger to play 4th fret, middle finger 5th fret and pinky finger playing 6th fret respectively.
All other strings are played openly; keep your fingers curved as you progress up the scale to avoid flat spots on the fretboard. As with other CAGED patterns, this fingering works well for most chords in E Major including major seventh chords and half-diminished seventh chords; for the latter use similar fingering to above but add an extra string in order to form the seventh chord.
G Major
The G major chord is one of the easiest and most accessible guitar chords to learn. Beginners frequently start off learning this chord first as it offers fullness to music composition. Beginners may use this chord for creating many types of songs while advanced guitarists use it as an entryway into more complicated chords.
This G major voicing has only one root note and requires three fingers to play it, making it simple and energetic on acoustic guitar. Usually found with a capo at the second fret or higher and having great energy that sounds great acoustically, it may also be substituted with other chords using these root notes such as G sus 4 or G add 9 chords.
Another variation of an open G major chord involves using four fingers, placing your index fingers at the third frets on all four strings and adding an extra seventh, creating a Cmaj7 chord (with an extra ninth being added on G string). Since G major contains notes G, B and D it makes this technique quite adaptable.