Subject: These Chords Have Multiple Personalities...
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, How comfortable are you now with your chord shapes? Have your fingers memorized the five basic major chord shapes, or are you still finding it challenging to wrangle your fingers into those weird (and sometimes uncomfortable) positions on the fingerboard?If that's the case, don't worry. It takes time and practice, and as long as you can remember what the shape looks like on the guitar neck, you will get it. Here they are again... I still remember struggling with G major. That stretch across the fingerboard between my ring and pinky fingers was a bear for a while! But I got it, and if you keep at it, you will, too. Just keep working at it slowly. Practice. Working With Intervals So last week I brought up a new term - intervals. Intervals are specific spaces between two different notes. They don't have to be consecutive notes, like C to D. An interval could be C to G, or C to A for that matter. But in today's lesson, each interval I talk about will be between two consecutive notes. In fact, I'm going to give you a pattern for the major scale that will also allow you to move these chord shapes up the guitar neck. Just like chords are patterns of combined notes, scales are also patterns. The great thing about patterns is once you've learned them, they don't change, and they apply universally in any key. If you know the pattern for a C major scale, then you can play a G major scale using the same pattern. Different notes, but the same intervals. And since they're the same intervals, the scales will sound the same (just using different notes). We can also use these interval spaces to take our movable chord shapes and move them up the guitar neck to play all the major chords using each shape. It's like these chord shapes have multiple personalities - same body, but different sound! Now you wouldn't necessarily use all major chords in a song, but knowing where each chord sits on the neck will make you extremely versatile as a guitarist. In fact, to play proper chord progressions, you need a mix of different chord voicings like major chords, minor chords and diminished chords. Then there are chord substitutions you can use like dominant 7 chords, minor 7 chords and suspended chords. All these voicings are like spices in food - you can use different chords to "change the flavor" of the song. The better you know the fingerboard, the easier it is to know exactly where to find chords that will fit in the songs you play. When you know where chords can be played, then you can pick out the best voicing to use. The starting place for knowing where to place chords on the fingerboard is to learn the major scale pattern. OK, so what's the pattern? The pattern for a major scale is whole step, whole step, half step, whole step, whole step, whole step, half step. A whole step is equal to two frets on your guitar. A half step is equal to one fret. You may have comes across another set of terms that indicate note spacing, and those are tone and semitone. These can be used in place of whole step/half step. They mean the same thing. A tone is equal to two frets, and a semitone is equal to one fret. What this means is you start with the first note in the scale for the key (the root note or tonic). Following the pattern, the next note in the scale will be two frets up from the tonic note. For the third note in the scale, move up two frets from the second note position. And so on... For example, if you are starting with C as your tonic note (in the key of C major), to play a D note you move up two frets. D to E is another two fret (or whole step) interval. E to F is only one fret. So it continues. Here's a diagram to help you visualize the pattern:  Now that you know the pattern for the major scale, you can apply it to these movable chord shapes. When you slide these chords up the fingerboard, just follow the major scale pattern. For example, when you're playing a D major chord shape on the first three strings, if you slide that shape up the neck two frets, you are now playing an E major chord. You're still using the D chord shape, but because you've changed the locations of your fingers, they're now on different notes. Because they're different notes, it's now a different chord. D major is a second inversion, which means the note order that we play from the third string to the first is 5, 1, 3. Again, those numbers indicate the notes from the D major scale, which is D, E, F#, G, A, B and C#. So a D major chord as we play it in the open position has the note order as A, D, F#. Move your fingers up two frets to get the E chord. This E chord will also be a second inversion with note order 5, 1, 3. Now our notes are taken from the E major scale, which is E, F#, G#, A, B, C#, D# (Whew, that's a lot of sharps!). So the E major chord has the notes B, E, G#. Are you starting to get a feel for this? I created this little ebook to show you the fingerboard positions for each major chord using the different chord shapes. You can download the Movable Chords PDF here (right-click to download file). The last five pages a bit more easy to read, so I included them in case you like to print things out. And don't worry. These chord shapes with their split personalities won't require a visit to the psychiatrist! Next week we'll take all this information and I'll show you how to combine major and minor chords to make chord progressions. Get comfortable with these chord shapes and fingerboard positions - these are foundational to making music. Isn't that why we're all here? Rock on! Peace~ Dave 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. 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