| | | Hey Friend,
We take the individual notes in guitar chords for granted.
For most of us, we get shown how to form the chords on the fingerboard and then it's just a matter of memorizing how and where to play the shapes. We don't really get into (nor do we usually need to) which notes make up various chords.
Takes me back in time to before I was bitten and turned into an obsessive guitar vampire...
I remember the early days when I got my first guitar and started lessons with a local guitar instructor. He was quite bit different than the music teacher I had in grade school who taught me violin lessons. My violin teacher wore a jacket and tie, had a proper teaching degree and followed a standard curriculum of instruction.
My guitar teacher was a young guy that wore relaxed, loose-fitting shirts and bell-bottomed blue jeans, little John Lennon glasses, long hair and the unshaven look - he was basically a hippie. Based on pictures from the mid-70s, he fit right in with the music crowd. I'll bet he even had a beaded necklace...
His approach to teaching was a bit more organic. I showed up with a song book and he began teaching right from there. His style was more about me learning to play in the context of a song I like rather than forcing me through a structured step-by-step lesson book.
The first focus was to get me playing the chords found within the songs. A G chord... The C chord... D major...
I learned the chord shapes and the location on the fingerboard for the fingers.
He was helping me create muscle memory so that whenever I pick up a guitar, any guitar, my fingers know exactly where to go to form the chords I need to play songs.
So I learned the how:
- How to play each of the open chords (I didn't get to barre chords for quite some time later)...
- How to do some basic strumming patterns...
- How to read the chord charts on the sheet music so I knew which chords to play in a song...
You know what? That little bit of foundation work was enough to get me into my first band.
What he didn't really teach me was the why:
- Why specific chords are used in in song...
- Why there's a certain order to arrange chords in a progression...
- Why changing one little note in the chord by moving your finger to an adjoining fret completely changes not only the sound of the chord, but the feel of the chord as well...
Did I really need to know any of this?
No, clearly I didn't. I co-created a band knowing only open guitar chords and the basic major scale in the key of C major (although I didn't have a clue about scales or keys at the time).
But had I begun to understand a few of these things in the beginning, it might have accelerated my playing and songwriting skills.
Of course, if that had happened, we probably wouldn't be talking about it now - I would have been much too busy and famous to be sitting here writing about it... LOL!!! ;-)
And that's why I want you to learn this stuff - so you can not only learn how to play guitar chords, but why they sound the way they do, why they interact with other chords and notes in such a way, why you can move them around the guitar neck to get different voicings (the same notes but a different sound).
For example, what is the most important note in a triad (chord)?
Well obviously, you need to understand which notes make up a guitar chord first. Here's a quick recap:
- a triad has three notes
- a chord is named after the root note (the tonic) of a key
- the notes are derived from the scale of the key
- each note is numbered based on it's order in the scale
- a triad is made from the 1, 3, and 5 notes of the scale
There's more to it than that, but dem's da basics...
Most people would argue that the most important note is the root note (tonic) of the chord. And I understand why they choose that note. The tonic is the first note in the key, as well as the scale, the chord is based on.
But here's the kicker - the root note of a chord can (and will) change based on where you play it on the neck. In fact, most of the open chords we learn starting out use a note other than the root.
NOTE: see why it can be important to know what notes you can find in a particular key and scale?
Regardless, the tonic note still ends up being the strongest note coming through, so despite what kind of chord you're playing (major, minor, suspended, etc.), you know what family the chord belongs to. You can tell a D major and a D minor are still D chords.
I say it's the three note that is most important in a chord. Why?
For the majority of the chords you will ever play, whether your jam is a rock, country or blues song, it is the three note that's in charge of changing the emotional feel of the chord. The three note is the one that can change the direction of a song faster than Roadrunner zig-a-zagging across the desert to outrun Coyote.
The three note doesn't just sit there in the chord soup merely rounding out the sound. It actually changes the color and depth of the chord.
Try it for yourself...
Play a D major chord in the open position. That's your index finger on the third string (G) at the second fret (an A note), third finger on the third fret of the B string (that's a D note) and your middle finger on the second fret of the first string (e) for an F# note. Strum from the D string (#4) downward through all four strings and you've played a D major chord. So the notes you're playing in order: D - A - D - F#
How does that sound make you feel? What images come to mind when you hear the chord?
It's hard to put your finger on "why," but I'm betting you heard "happy" when you played the chord.
Now I want you to switch your index and middle fingers. Place your index finger on the first fret, first string playing an F note. Put your middle finger on the third string, second fret (again the A note) and strum from the D string down. The notes are now: D - A - D - F
How did the sound change? What emotion comes out that sound?
I've never had anyone tell me anything but "sad."
Wait a second! We changed the fingering by one fret - one measly fret and it took the emotional range from happy to sad, heights to depths.
That, my friend, is the power of the three note.
So you decide... Is the three note in a chord just a mousy sidekick, or is it an evil genius lurking in the shadows?
Chord Clinic is going to be a blast! Soon, my pretty... Soon...
Peace~
"Wicked Dave"
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