Subject: How Chords Get Their Names
You are getting this e-mail because you subscribed to it on www.learn-to-play-rock-guitar.com. If you don't want to receive these e-mails any longer, go to the bottom of this message and click on "unsubscribe." Hey there Friend, Last week I walked you through how to turn a major chord into a minor chord by moving a finger down one fret.Today I'm going to scare you with a tiny little five letter word... Theory. Before you go running for the door, stop. Relax. This isn't going to be bad. In fact, a lot of people think theory is all about reading musical scores and the technical aspects of music. Sure, that's part of it, but it all boils down to a very simple idea... Music theory is all about understanding how music makes us feel... If you go back and think about last week's lesson, by changing one note in a major chord shape, we were able to make a happy sounding chord into a sad sounding chord. That is music theory at its core. And you didn't have to read any sheet music! So getting back to how chords are made, let's talk about building a chord from the ground up. We'll start with how a chord gets its name. Here's One of the Keys Let us focus on C major as our test subject... Every chord is named after the key that it comes from. I can hear you right now... "What is this "key" he speaks of?" Well, with regards to chords, a key basically tells us what scale we should use to help us figure out which notes belong in our chords. The key gives us the root note for the chord (also known as the 'tonic'), and we will use this note to identify the chord we're playing. How about an example? Our C major chord uses three notes from the C major scale. Here are the notes from the C major scale: C, D, E, F, G, A, B and C. As you can see, a major scale has seven notes and then starts over. Why did I go from the G note back to A? Well, we only have seven natural notes in the Western scale, A through G. Once we hit G, we start over with A. You can view all the natural notes on each string in the first position here. To give full disclosure, A through G are not the only notes we have at our disposal. There are actually 12 notes we use to make music, but for now the seven will be enough for us to understand the lesson. If we start playing a major scale on a C note, that's our first indicator that we could be using the key of C major. This isn't always true, but we'll save that conversation for another day. Because a C major chord is built by using notes from the C major scale, and because the C major scale is rooted by the C note, this is why we call it a C major chord. Now down to the nitty, gritty. What notes do we use to make a C major chord? Before I tell you, I need to clue you in on one more thing. As I mentioned before, chords are made by combining three notes. However, when you strum a guitar, there's a good likelihood you'll strum more than three strings. The good news is many chord shapes allow for notes to repeat on different strings, so you might hear the same note twice in a chord if you played each string individually. These chord shapes we memorize were developed to work with guitars tuned to standard tuning (E, A, D, G , B, E ascending from lowest pitch). By learning the chord shapes, especially in the first position (the first three frets of the fingerboard), strings that you don't finger will usually sound good with the chord you're playing. Constructing the Chord OK, so back to building the chord. The C major chord is made from combining the C, E and G notes. This is a very specific pattern of notes, and every major chord you play will be made using this pattern. To make a major chord, you look at the scale for the named chord and select the first, third and fifth notes from the scale. You see, each note in a scale is given a number to help identify it. The tonic note is number one, the second note is two and so on until we get back to the tonic note (which would be number 8). Going back to our C major scale, here's how the notes line up: C = 1 (tonic or root note) D = 2 E = 3 (major third) F = 4 G = 5 (perfect fifth) A = 6 B = 7 (C) = 8 (we usually put the eighth note in parentheses to indicate that it is the eighth note, or 'octave') Go back and look at a C major chord chart. If you've learned the natural notes on the fingerboard, you'll immediately see that your third finger is on a C note for the tonic, your middle finger is in an E note (third note from the C major scale) and the open third string G makes up the fifth note from the scale. Here are the links to the major chords again... Your Mission Take a look at both the C major and G major chords for this week. Each of these chords in the first position follow this specific chord formula using the 1, 3, 5 notes from the scale. But if you look at the A, E and D chords, you may notice that the formula has changed. Many regular chords shapes we use don't follow the 1, 3, 5 formula. Again, this is because of how the guitar is tuned. When the notes of a chord show up in a different order, the chord is known as an inversion. Don't worry too much about this today. We'll cover that next week. As long as you are memorizing the chord shapes and developing your muscle memory, you have the functional understanding of chords. That's really all you need in order to play songs. But I like to give you the tools to understand not just how, but why, chords sound the way they do. This will make you a more rounded guitar player and musician. Toughen those fingers, play your chords and keep on rockin'! Peace~ Dave P.S. Reply to this email if you have any questions... Dave "Eddie" Vance is a rock guitar enthusiast and gear nut. He has been playing guitar for over 30 years and enjoys tormenting the neighbors every chance he gets. When he's not slaving for the man, you can find him rocking out with his B.C. Rich Bich guitar, a cold beer and some sweet tunes. He also runs Learn-To-Play-Rock-Guitar.com, but you knew that already! Follow Learn To Play Rock Guitar:I welcome your feedback! Did you like today's message? What other topics would you like to see covered in my e-mails? Please let me know at: dave@learn-to-play-rock-guitar.com As always, please feel free to forward this email to a friend! I review products before recommending them. If you buy a product based on my recommendation, I will receive a commission. However, my emails also contain links that don’t require any investment on your part and are jam-packed with "juicy, guitar learnin' tastiness". We don't rent or share your name with anybody. Feel free to forward this issue to any friends you think would enjoy its contents. They will thank you. So will I.
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