Hey Friend,
Oh Friday, how I’ve missed you… The anticipation of the weekend always gets me a little giddy!
If you’ve been around me for any length of time, you know my main area of interest is chords, the harmonic aspect of playing guitar.
As I was working though my email yesterday, I came across a gem of an article that expands on some fundamental chord theory you should know.
You know my parents taught me how to to be a good “sharer,” so here’s some good stuff…
The article focuses on playing a four chord progression with different voicings using the CAGED method. CAGED is an easy way to start expanding your playing outside the limits of the first three frets.
If you’re unfamiliar, CAGED allows you to take the five basic chord shapes and move them up and down the guitar neck. You’ll find you can get some really cool sounds by simply sliding an open E or D chord up the neck!
The article talks about playing “capo-free,” and while she doesn’t talk about it, this is where barre chords come into play.
As you can see in EX1, she shows a G shape at the fifth fret to play a C major chord, and the fourth, third and second strings are barred.
This one’s a challenge to play as it’s shown, but the purpose of this exercise is to show you that C major can be played in five different positions using five different shapes.
A couple things about the chord diagrams and sound examples: you’ll notice in the bubbles that represent the chord fingerings, there are numbers and letter “R’s.”
These tell you which scale degree is being fingered. The “R” is the root note, which is the first scale degree, or “1 note.”
The “3" and “5” tell you they’re the third and fifth notes in the scale.
Remember, a major chord uses the 1 3 5 notes from a scale.
That’s why they’re also called a “triad.” Three notes to make up the harmonic tone. Yes, even though you might be playing all six strings, there are still only three scale notes played.
When a note from the scale is doubled up on the strings, it might be a higher pitch, but it’s the same note.
The last sound clip in the article doesn’t line up with the chord chart exercises in the article.
There are four sections of chord charts shown, but sound clips 2 and 3 are the same progressions, #2 being played in the open position (down within the first three frets) and #3 is played higher up on the neck with barre chords.
I just wanted to point that out because the last sound clip is for the “Open-String Shimmer” section of the article, NOT the last chord chart diagram.
I was confused at first, so I wanted to save you the trouble of scratching your head wondering why the diagram and the audio didn’t match up.
Maybe if I had paid better attention to what I was reading, I wouldn’t have been confused…
Anyway, there’s some good information in here, and some interesting sounds to be found when you start moving beyond the first three frets.
Peace~
Dave | 
