It's a popular misconception that the more chord shapes you learn on guitar the better you will be able to play.
Cost of believing the myth: Every day heaps of guitar chord books are sold around the world to newbie guitar players, some books contain thousands of chord shapes others have cool pictures of famous guitar players sprinkled throughout a book chock full of guitar grids. The latest gadget for learning chords is an electronic pocket chord dictionary where you can dial up any chord shape and hey-presto the shape appears on the screen.
Reality: The reality is that whether you know three chords or three thousand is irrelevant it all comes down to (a) knowing which chords go together to make a successful accompaniment and (b) knowing how to connect the chords musically on the guitar fretboard.
To put it another way... let's say a song only required two chords to create a satisfactory background for a song if you don't know which two chords go together it doesn't matter how many chords you know.
Chord books full of random chord shapes without teaching you the necessary musical skills of how to connect chords together are a waste of time and money, there are many standard chord progression templates that musicians must learn to play and recognize by ear and not one of these templates have ever been presented in a chord book.
Learning isolated chord shapes is the same as learning isolated words the trick in both cases is acquiring the skills to string the material together to enable us to communicate our ideas.
To gain control of your chord playing you must:
1. learn to spell your chords.
2. understand how to create open voiced chords to make your chords easy to play on the guitar.
3. Study voice leading concepts to produce smooth, musically strong chord progressions.
Benefits of going with the reality: Once you learn these skills you will be in control of your rhythm guitar playing, your chords will sound more professional and you will be able to accompany vocalists and other instrumentalist better. so let's take a look at how to get started.
Learning how to spell chords: Each chord is not an unrelated group of notes they are created from scales usually by stacking notes from the scale in thirds although certain types of chords are created by stacking the scale in fourths.
To see this concept in action I will use the "C" scale
C scale: C - D - E - F - G - A - B - C
If I start on the first note "C" then skip one note (D) to select the next note "E", I will have the first two notes of a C major chord. Indicated []
C scale: [C] - D - [E] - F - G - A - B - C
Since the traditional definition of a chord is "three or more notes played together" I will have to continue my leap-frog concept to find the third note of the C chord.
Back to our scale, next step is to hop over the "F" note to land on my third chord tone the "G" note. Indicated []
C scale: [C] - D - [E] - F - [G] - A - B - C
C = C - E - G
You can create other chords from any point in the scale via the same leap-frog style system of playing a note, skipping a note, playing a note etc., until you have the three correct tones.
Here is another example this time starting from the second note of the C scale.
C scale: C - [D] - E - [F] - G - [A] - B - C
The resulting chord structure will produce a D minor chord this time.
Dm = D - F - A
How did I know this chord was a minor chord and not a major chord like the previous chord?
Each major scale produces exactly the same chord structures.
chord 1 = major, 2 = minor. 3 = minor, 4 = major, 5 = major, 6 = minor, 7 = diminished, 8 = major.
No matter what key you are in the chord structure create from each degree of the scale will remain the same.
The really neat thing about learning chords this way is right from the start you will know which chords work together since you will be learning to spell and create chords all constructed from the same scale, try working out a few and playing on your guitar.
Cost of believing the myth: Every day heaps of guitar chord books are sold around the world to newbie guitar players, some books contain thousands of chord shapes others have cool pictures of famous guitar players sprinkled throughout a book chock full of guitar grids. The latest gadget for learning chords is an electronic pocket chord dictionary where you can dial up any chord shape and hey-presto the shape appears on the screen.
Reality: The reality is that whether you know three chords or three thousand is irrelevant it all comes down to (a) knowing which chords go together to make a successful accompaniment and (b) knowing how to connect the chords musically on the guitar fretboard.
To put it another way... let's say a song only required two chords to create a satisfactory background for a song if you don't know which two chords go together it doesn't matter how many chords you know.
Chord books full of random chord shapes without teaching you the necessary musical skills of how to connect chords together are a waste of time and money, there are many standard chord progression templates that musicians must learn to play and recognize by ear and not one of these templates have ever been presented in a chord book.
Learning isolated chord shapes is the same as learning isolated words the trick in both cases is acquiring the skills to string the material together to enable us to communicate our ideas.
To gain control of your chord playing you must:
1. learn to spell your chords.
2. understand how to create open voiced chords to make your chords easy to play on the guitar.
3. Study voice leading concepts to produce smooth, musically strong chord progressions.
Benefits of going with the reality: Once you learn these skills you will be in control of your rhythm guitar playing, your chords will sound more professional and you will be able to accompany vocalists and other instrumentalist better. so let's take a look at how to get started.
Learning how to spell chords: Each chord is not an unrelated group of notes they are created from scales usually by stacking notes from the scale in thirds although certain types of chords are created by stacking the scale in fourths.
To see this concept in action I will use the "C" scale
C scale: C - D - E - F - G - A - B - C
If I start on the first note "C" then skip one note (D) to select the next note "E", I will have the first two notes of a C major chord. Indicated []
C scale: [C] - D - [E] - F - G - A - B - C
Since the traditional definition of a chord is "three or more notes played together" I will have to continue my leap-frog concept to find the third note of the C chord.
Back to our scale, next step is to hop over the "F" note to land on my third chord tone the "G" note. Indicated []
C scale: [C] - D - [E] - F - [G] - A - B - C
C = C - E - G
You can create other chords from any point in the scale via the same leap-frog style system of playing a note, skipping a note, playing a note etc., until you have the three correct tones.
Here is another example this time starting from the second note of the C scale.
C scale: C - [D] - E - [F] - G - [A] - B - C
The resulting chord structure will produce a D minor chord this time.
Dm = D - F - A
How did I know this chord was a minor chord and not a major chord like the previous chord?
Each major scale produces exactly the same chord structures.
chord 1 = major, 2 = minor. 3 = minor, 4 = major, 5 = major, 6 = minor, 7 = diminished, 8 = major.
No matter what key you are in the chord structure create from each degree of the scale will remain the same.
The really neat thing about learning chords this way is right from the start you will know which chords work together since you will be learning to spell and create chords all constructed from the same scale, try working out a few and playing on your guitar.
And now I'd like to invite you to get free access to my "How To Remember 1,000 Songs" eCourse. You can download the course for free at: http://www.guitarcoaching.com
You'll learn about hit song templates, easy chords, simple scales, red hot rhythms, and successful practice strategies in text, audio and video.
From Mike Hayes - The Guitar Coaching Guy & the Express Guitar System
You'll learn about hit song templates, easy chords, simple scales, red hot rhythms, and successful practice strategies in text, audio and video.
From Mike Hayes - The Guitar Coaching Guy & the Express Guitar System
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Mike_P_Hayes
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