But you don’t always have to play chords that way, in fact you can use either the third or fifth note as the lowest tone and it will still sound fine.

Before we get into that, let’s back up and look at things in a bit more detail:

Major Chord Primer

First of all let’s talk about how to construct a chord. For the purposes of this post I’m just going to talk about major chords, but the same principles apply with other types of chords as well.

A major chord essentially consists of three notes. These three notes are often called a triad (“tri” meaning three).

The first note is the note that gives the chord it’s name. For example if we’re playing a C chord, the root note is C. The second note of our chord is the third note of the C major scale, which is E. The last note we need is the 5th note of the scale, which is G. So our C major triad consists of C E and G, played like this:

–x–
–x–
–0– G
–2– E
–3– C
–x–

You could turn this into a four or five note chord by playing the C and/or E on the top two strings, but for now we’re just going to concern ouselves with the triad.

1st Inversion

To get the first inversion of a chord, you move the root note from the lowest note to the highest. In this case, the order of the notes from bottom to top will be, E G C, like this:

–x–
–1– C
–0– G
–2– E
–x–
–x–

Try playing this on your guitar to get a sense of the difference in sound between a chord in root position and 1st inversion. The difference in sound is subtle but noticeable. Being able to hear different inversions is a fairly advanced ear training skill that will help you a lot when learning songs by ear.

2nd Inversion

The second inversion of a chord involves putting the 5th note of the chord on the bottom, with the root note next and the third on top. In our example it would be G C E:

–0– E
–1– C
–0– G
–x–
–x–
–x–

Again, try playing the second inversion and listen for the differences in sound between root position, first inversion and second inversion.

There is actually a third inversion that involves seventh chords, but that will be the topic for another post. Until then have some fun figuring the root, 1st and 2nd inversions of different chords on your guitar and I catch up with you all later.

Seventh chords are used in all kinds of music, but they’re most commonly found in rock, blues and jazz.

Putting the Pieces Together

A typical major chord is built on three tones, the root, third and fifth of a given major scale. In the case of a G major scale, the notes will be G B and D.

Seventh chords add one more note – you guessed it, the 7th. In this post we’ll look at the three most common types of 7th chords, the dominant 7th, the major 7th and the minor 7th.

Dominant 7th chords

Dominant 7th chords use the root, third and fifth notes of the major scale and add a flat seventh. In the G major scale the seventh note is F#, to get the flat 7th bring the F# down a semitone to F and you get a dominant seventh chord of G B D and F.

G Dominant 7th Chord, Open

I’ve repeated some of the major chord tones to give you 6 notes and a full open G7 chord.

Major Seventh Chords

Major seventh chords are constructed in exactly the same way as a dominant seventh chord except that the 7th note is not flattened. So a Gmaj7 chord uses the notes G B D and F#. It looks like this:

G Major 7th Guitar Chord

This is a slightly more dissonant-sounding chord, but it can add an interesting tone colour to a song when played in the right context.

Minor Seventh Chords

Minor seventh chords use the root, flat third, 5th and flat 7th notes of the chord you’re playing. So a G minor 7th chord is made up of G, Bb, D and F.

You’ll often see this chord played as a barre chord. To do this, cover all six strings at the 3rd fret with the first finger on your left hand, place your third finger on the 5th string, 5th fret and your fourth finger on the 2nd string, 6th fret:

G Minor 7th Guitar Chord

This one is a bit difficult, but as with anything, you’ll get used to it with practice. Play around with the different types of 7th chords and get used to the different sounds.

Adding 7th chords to your songwriting repertoire can really boost your creative options.

I mean the standard C, A, G, E and D chords (some call them “cowboy chords” in reference to their use in country and western music) that a lot of people learn when they start taking guitar lessons.

These chords are great by themselves, you can play a lot of songs with just 2, 3 or 4 chords.

However, after listening to the same old open chords for awhile they can sound repetitive and lose their appeal. The secret is in…

Giving your chords a voice

One way to add a little flavor to your playing is to add some different voicing to your chords.

This is where the CAGED chord system comes in.

As you’ll soon discover, the traditional open chord shapes can be used all over the fretboard.

The way you do this is by turning them into barre chords while retaining their unique shape.

A barre chord frets all six strings at a given position with the first finger of your left hand, then using the remaining three fingers to form the shape of the chord: C, A, G, E or D.

We use the chord shapes to create new chords anywhere on the fretboard

To make this a little clearer let’s start with the “A” chord shape. An open A chord is played like this:

A Major, Open Chord

Let’s move that shape up three frets and see what we get.

Use your first finger on your left hand to cover all six strings at the 3rd fret. Press hard, this will be a bit difficult if you’ve never played barre chords before. Use you second finger on the 4th string 5th fret. Your third finger goes on the 3rd string, 5th fret and your baby finger covers the 2nd string, 5th fret.

C Major, 3rd Fret Barre Chord

–3– G
–5– E
–5– C
–5– G
–3– C
–X–

And, viola – we have a C major chord. Move it up two more frets and you’ve got a D chord.

D Major, 5th Fret Barre Chord

–5– A
–7– F#
–7– D
–7– A
–5– D
–X–

You can move this chord shape anywhere on the fretboard you’d like to play a major chord.

For every fret you move up the fretboard, you’re raising the pitch of the chord by one semitone. From the open A chord, moving up one fret gives you an A# or Bb chord. Up another fret gives you a B chord and so on.

Now you can play any major chord you want. Try playing a C or D major chord using the “A” shape and compare the way it sounds compared to the open C or D shape. It’s the same chord but the different voicing adds a bit of pizzazz.

Now these guys have really beat me to the punch here, I mean, if I had the time and resources of SongPond, Songsterr, JamPlay, Song Surgeon and Singing Success then this would be the product I’d be putting out.

Clearly that’s never going to happen.

*update 23 Sep* Singing Success has been added to the line up! That’s pushed the launch date back to the 7th of October, so if you haven’t already click here to sign up to the pre-release mailing list.

For people who just want to hang out, and jam around the BBQ

The selection of songs is all about being able to play them in front of other people, around a BBQ, campfire, at a party, on the bus, ok so it doesn’t have to be a BBQ but that’s a good place to start.

What would you feel good about playing in front of your friends at a BBQ? Always on my Mind, Sultans of Swing, No Woman No Cry, Under The Bridge, Wonderwall?

These songs are not only included in the package, but they are only the tip of the iceberg!

Click here to sign up to the pre-release mailing list at BBQ-Guitar.com

It takes whatever you’re searching for and tries to bring back pages that contain backing tracks for guitar songs. Ones you can actually listen to, or download as mp3.

I was spending a bunch of time going to each website to see if they had the track I was after, and you’re probably like me… when you’ve got some time to be playing your guitar you don’t want to be spending time playing your computer.

How to use it

Type in any artist or song name into the search box… and click “search”

Example: fade to black

These free backing tracks are great for just jamming over. Load up an effects program, Guitar Rig is my favorite but Garageband will do I guess, hook your guitar up; use a USB interface or an adapter plugging directly into your line-in. Then your good to go.

It’s good to learn a few solos, or songs note for note but I mainly use these tracks for practice – you just need to find the key the song was written in and then start messing around.

Post the sites you use to find backing tracks in the comments and I’ll add them to the engine.

Over the next few weeks I’ll be concentrating on getting the main topics filled out and linked up to all the material we already have here.

So under Acoustic Guitar you’ll get easy access to all the lessons to help you play the acoustic guitar, and lessons for learning music theory will be under the Music Theory menu.

Those pages will develop over time and your feedback is going to be really helpful to me so I know what you’re struggling with and where I can help out the most…

which brings me to the next new thing…

Everything is now a “post” which means you can comment on it, leave feedback, ask questions and make suggestions. There are also some easy sharing buttons at the beginning and end of each lesson, so if you like something make sure you share the love and give it a Stumble, thumbs up or tweet it from the rooftops.

Another way to find the right lesson for you, is to go through the categories or months in the Archives, read through the Popular posts down there on the left, or if you’ve found a great lesson take a look at the Related Articles at the end of the post.

I hope you enjoy the new look and all the new lessons I’m putting together for you.

Keep in touch by signing up for free updates over on the left, give us a like on Facebook, or follow Instant Guitarist on Twitter.

Take it easy,
Adam.

You’ll have an understanding of how the scales are made and how to play them as a basic 6th string shape in any key.

First, let’s take a look at the possible notes we can have, this is the Chromatic Scale, because it includes all of them:

A scale is just a collection of notes that sound “good” when played together, its governed by some musical theory but we’ll just dive in and learn some guitar scales.

The Minor Pentatonic Guitar Scale

This is a 5 note scale, and the way we build it is to apply a simple pattern to the Chromatic scale above. It also has a really easy corresponding shape on the guitar, we’ll take a look at that first, then talk about the notes in the scale.

And if you’ve been reading guitar chord diagrams you’ll need to tilt your head to one side to read this properly

This shape can be played anywhere along the neck of the guitar, I’m showing you how you should be using your fingers to play each note, so you start at the bottom left, let’s pretend you’re on the 3rd fret, 6th string… that’s a G.

Place your index finger on the G and play the note, now get your pinky 3 frets up (the number 4 represents your pinky in this case), this will bring you to the 6th fret, 6th string and play that note.

The pattern produces 5 notes, then repeats. We start off with G on the 3rd fret, 6th string, then move one and a half semitones up to an A# (6th string, 6th fret). Then we go a whole tone up to C, another whole tone up to D, then one and a half tones to F and a final whole tone back to G.

The pattern to remember is this

1. One and a Half Tones (represented by TS – Tone Semitone)
2. Whole Tone (represented by T)
3. Whole Tone
4. One and a Half Tones
5. Whole Tone

The Major Scale on Guitar

The Major Scale is easiest to play if you start with your 2nd finger on the root note, then use your pinky finger 2 frets up, come down a string, back one fret from the root note with your index finger, then your 2nd finger one fret up and your pinky finger a further 2 frets up, check out the scale shape below:

It uses the pattern of

If you start on the 3rd fret, the G note, the notes in the scale look like this:

The Minor Scale on Guitar

Here’s the shape for the minor scale on guitar, once you start playing it you’ll notice how moody it sounds, you’ll get some good mileage using these notes in order when you play lead guitar, put a few slides in with a hammer on and you’ll get a nice rich sound out of it.

The pattern follows

If you start on the 5th fret, the A note, the notes in the scale look like this:

Once you’re at least familiar with these patterns you can return to my guide on how to play guitar. We’ll get more in depth on these scales a little later on.

If you’ve never picked up a guitar before, and have no idea where to start, check out my guide on Easy guitar chords for beginners. Then come back here and learn all the major, minor, 7ths, and Barre chords, equip yourself with all the tools you’ll need to play those guitar songs.

After mastering these basics, or even before, you might want to check out my power chords guide, I’ll even teach you how to play the main riff out of “Cocaine” by Eric Clapton, Mint!

If you’re not quite sure how to read the chord diagrams check out the beginner guitar chord lesson for a quick guide.

How to Play the Major Guitar Chords

The open major guitar chords available to you are the A, C, D, E, F and G chords.

“Hey! What happened to the B Chord!?”

I’m getting to that… well kind of. It’s an interesting subject and you may want to sidetrack and quickly check out my blog post on the B Chord Guitar.

Anyway… Major chords are made up of 3 notes, specifically the 1st, 3rd and 5th notes from the major scale. For example the A Major Chord has the A note at the 1st position in the A Major Scale. A C# (C-Sharp) at the 3rd position and an E at the 5th position.

We say the A Major Chord is made up of A, C# and E notes.

Now we want to find a way to play these notes easily on the guitar. It turns out the second string on the guitar is the A string, so when you play it as an open string you’re creating an A note.

So that’s the first piece of the puzzle, now for the C# and E.

The next string down is the D, if you place your first finger on the second fret you’ll be playing an E note, the next string down again is the G, and on the second fret you’ll find another A note, then comes the B string, the second fret will produce a C# and the bottom string can be played open because it’s an E… which fits nicely into the notes for our A major chord.

Pretty simple, huh?

A Major

The A Guitar Chord is relatively easy to play, but quite hard to switch to from other chords for the beginner guitarist.

The A and Asus4 are used as the primary chords for April Sun in Cuba, by Dragon. A fantastic track with an easy but distinctive strumming pattern.

And as we discovered it’s made up from the A, C# and E notes.

C Major

Remember we’re looking for the 1st, 3rd and 5th notes in the Major scale for the Key, in this case C, which gives us the C, D and E notes in the chord.

D Major

The D Major chord has the notes D, E, and F# in it.

Probably most famously used on Stairway to Heaven by Led Zeppelin, flitting between the D Major and Dsus4 just before the solo. Magic!

E Major

E Major is made up of the notes E, F#, and G#

Hey Joe by Jimi Hendrix used the E Major chord as the anchoring point after the intro, the same shape is then used 4 frets up, then 3 before returning to the Open position, then another little lick and into the C, G, D, A chord progression.

F Major

The notes in the F Major Chord are F, G, and A

This is probably the hardest chord for new guitarist. It leads on to the idea of using one finger to “barre” more than one string, so your other fingers are free to play a selection of other notes.

It’s called the F chord for a reason.

G Major

The G Major chord is made up of the notes: G, A#, and C.

Wish You Were Here by Pink Floyd uses the notes from the G chord during the intro to great effect.

Learn the Minor Guitar Chords

The three minor chords you’ll use most often are E minor (Em), D minor (Dm) and A minor (Am).

A Minor Chord is created by taking the 3rd note of the Major Scale and taking it down a semi-tone, this is called the flat note.

For example in the E minor we take the 1st note, which is the E, the third note (G#) is taken down a semi-tone to G and we complete it with the B. So E, G and B.

Here’s the chord diagrams for the three minor chords you should learn how to play.

Open 7th Guitar Chords

7th chords are creating by bringing in the note in the 7th position of the scale, and bringing it down a semi-tone. The Major Scale ends with a half-semitone so it’s easy to work out the 7th note, just go one step below the Key you’re in.

For example in the key of A you’d come down to a G#, then take that down to G, add in the other 2 notes (3rd and 5th position) to get A, C, E and G.

Oh, and by the way these are called Dominant 7ths, not that you really wanted to know… anyway, here’s the chord diagrams for the 7th chords you should learn how to play.

How to Play Barre Chords on Guitar

Barre chords are almost like the cheats way to play any chord on the guitar without having to remember all those different fingerings in the open position. The hard part however is getting used to using your index finger to press down on all the strings… forming a bar…

Trust me, once you learn this you will have opened up a whole field of guitar playing you never knew existed.

You can play barre chords using either the 6th string, or 5th string as the root note. They each have different shapes so I’ll run through the 6th string barre shapes and then the 5th.

The chord you’re playing is determined by the root note (where your index finger is on the 5th or 6th string) and the shape of the chord you’re forming with the rest of your fingers.

Here we go…

6th String Barre Chords

The 6th string barre chords use the E shape, so you remember the E Major, E Minor, E7 from above?

You now want to learn how to play all of those using your 2nd, 3rd and 4th fingers, see below for some diagrams, and remember if you’re barring the 3rd fret at the 6th string, you’re at G.

So you’ll play a G Major by using the E Major chord shape, a G Minor by using the E Minor chord shape, etc…

5th String Barre Chords

The same theory applies to the 5th string barre chords, however they use the A shape chords, check these out:

Hope you enjoyed my guide on learning how to play guitar chords, it’s sure been fun writing it,

Head back to my guide on learning how to play guitar, keep on track, keep up the practice and most of all have FUN playing your guitar!

I’m going to go through some introductory material on perfect pitch, then look at how you can develop perfect pitch for yourself, and finally I’ll give you some more “extra for experts” resources, like perfect pitch software.

As a fellow guitarist, I’m sure you can appreciate the value of obtaining perfect pitch. Think of how much easier your musical endeavors are going to be when you can go from music-idea to music-notation in the blink of an eye. It’s the one thing I hated… when I had a rhythm or little riff in my head and not being able to write it down. I would try to play it on the guitar as soon as I got home and record it to my computer, but it never sounded the same.

Why You Should Learn Perfect Pitch

The biggest problem musicians have is not being able to translate their exact feelings into music. This is why learning the language is so vital. Most people think in words, phrases and sentences, they use their first language (Eg English) to do all their thinking in, it’s no wonder that perfect pitch is so rare, we’re never taught to think in more than one language. When you come up with a musical idea you See it in a Musical Language, it doesn’t have a clean symbol attached to it like a C, D or A, it’s a mixture of sounds, feelings, tone, timbre and pitch.

Perfect Pitch is being able to identify a musical note without a reference note. Basically, you can tell what any sound is in the world and classify it into the seven notes. Soon you will hear car horns, clanging cans, or even laughter as musical notes.

Another form of language is Relative pitch. Relative pitch is being able to figure out notes while having a reference note there for you. You can probably figure out if a given note is higher or lower than the C note when someone plays that note and the C note in succession. This takes little training, but is vital in helping you learn perfect pitch.

Can You Learn Perfect Pitch?

First thing’s first. Perfect Pitch is attainable. Believing that it some special gift you are born with will make it almost impossible to learn. When you were little, you weren’t born with the ability to distinguish the difference between blue and green; you have to learn that skill. Colors are just different wavelengths of light that your eye differentiates. Musical notes are just different wavelengths of sound that you must train your ear to distinguish.

Perfect Pitch Techniques

What I’d like you to do is hum a C note (scary isn’t it?), don’t worry if you don’t know how. Just try to hum what you think a C sounds like. Hum it a few times.

Now actually play a C note on your guitar. See how close you were. Listen to the C on your guitar. How does it make you feel? What emotions are attached to the sound? What does the note make you visualize? What does it remind you of? What makes the C note special? What makes it different? Keep listening to the C note for a few minutes. You’ll want to repeat this exercise a few times a day over the next few days. It should only take about 5 minutes.

It’s time to get your mind ready to memorize what you visualized. Just relax and be calm this is a piece of cake.

Ok now play random single, long notes on your guitar. Try to dissect each sound as it hits your ear. What makes one note different from the other? You are training your ear acuity. You are training your ear to be sensitive to the little changes in sound waves. Again, try this a few times a day for a few days. You will notice that your ear is more sensitive and can pick up things you wouldn’t have normally heard.

Don’t try to make yourself attach a symbol to the different notes just yet, wait until you can marry the notes from your practice to the random note on the guitar, once you are confident in your head that it’s the same note you heard when doing your exercise, when it has that same feeling, that’s when you start saying “that’s a C!”.

Tips for Perfect Pitch Training

To learn perfect pitch, don’t learn notes relative to other notes when doing your exercise. This is only useful for relative pitch and may hinder your perfect pitch education.

Practice; just as you inadvertently practiced learning colors at a young age, you must now consciously practice these techniques.

I am sure that every now and then you hear a song that reminds you of another song. This is because the two songs use the same notes, but in different ways. A good exercise is to play a song that you know starts with that note. Every time you hear that note you will think of that song and immediately identify it.

Your guitar or piano is your best friend. It is the ultimate reference point when you are unsure of which note is being played. Try to get a friend to play a random note and see if you can identify the note and the octave. You will see yourself get closer and closer to the correct note until you can easily identify and sound that enters your ear.

Try to think of everything as practice. Identify the notes in people’s voices. Try to figure out what note a click of the fingers is. Whenever you hear music or sounds, try to figure out what notes and what patterns are used.

Pick a pitch that you are comfortable with. The human ear is more sensitive to mid-range frequencies rather than high or low frequencies. Also, this will help you find your range with your voice.

The better you get at identifying sounds, the more you will want to identify more sounds, and in turn practice more and more. These techniques, if used correctly, can help you make huge gains in learning perfect pitch.

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If you’ll just take the time to follow this simple … yet revolutionary … system, you too can enjoy all the benefits of Absolute and Relative Pitch:

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This guide on Easy guitar chords for beginners covers how to read chord diagrams and the easiest of the Open Major Chords. For a full set of guitar chords check out my Learn how to play guitar chords guide.

How to read chord diagrams

Ok, so it’s pretty easy once you know how… here’s our E Major Chord, played in the open position:

You’ll see across the top the names of the strings, the terminology is weird no matter how you look at it… It start at the Low E which is the top string and also referred to as the 6th string.

Let’s break it down… the Low E makes a low sound, so it’s that thick string closest to your face. Cool?

And it’s called the 6th string because we count from the bottom: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6… most guitars have 6 strings.

Then we’ve got the fret numbers running down the left hand side, this tells you which fret to place your fingers in.

The 1st fret is the fret closest to the tuning pegs, or head of the guitar, and it counts up from there.

The O under the letter for each string tells you to play that string but leave it open, you don’t need a finger on any fret. If you don’t need to play the string you’ll see a red X here.

Then come the Fingers, number 1 refers to your index finger, 2 is your middle finger, 3 is your ring finger and 4 is your pinky.

I’d say most beginners have trouble using their pinky in chords because it’s tricky to push down with the right amount of pressure and get it in the right position, obviously we don’t use our pinky’s enough in everyday situations.

So that’s basically it, for the E Major chord above you place your index finger in the 1st fret on the G string (3rd string from the bottom), then place your 2nd finger in the 2nd fret on the A string, and your third finger just below it on the D string.

Have a go and see what it sounds like…

The Easiest Guitar Chords for Beginners

It’s true that not all guitar chords were born equal, some are harder to play than others.

For example most beginners have trouble playing the F chord, I remember using an F word quite a lot when I was learning it, but you’ll probably be able to play the E, G, C and D chords no problem. The A chord is a little harder, but not by much.

So you already know how to read the guitar chord diagram, now it’s just a matter of placing your fingers in the right position, with the right amount of pressure and being careful not to be touching any of the open strings.

Sounds tough, and it is, if you’re having troubles check out a list of the Top 10 Common Mistakes when Learning Guitar Chords you’ll pick up heaps of advice from the struggles many students before you have had.

Where to next?

Now that you’ve got the basics down, you’re ready to learn the rest, continue on and learn how to play guitar chords filling in the gaps with all the open major, minor, 7th and Barre chords.

Go on, I bet you’re ready for it!