Acoustic Guitar Chords for Playing

Acoustic Guitar Chords

Guitar chords are very important to music, they help us to identify the characteristics, the harmonic and vertical structures of a song.

With-out chords, we'd be at a lost, for its tonality cant be defined accurately. Having a Root or I chord clearly defined is much easier to recognize the rest of the vertical structures.

Acoustic Guitar Chords Lesson: What Are Chords?

Chords are a combination of vertical notes, which are taken from scales, example the C Major scale. These notes are stacked up and used vertically to form chords. Intervals, the distance from one note to the next, defines the type of shapes that are needed. These vertical structures clearly defines whether a chord has a Major or Minor tonality.

Acoustic Guitar Chords Lesson: Chords and Its Effects

Major chords give a very soothing feeling, it creates an atmosphere of peace, joy and happiness. Minor chords give a very somber sad feeling, it creates a dark feeling. The majority of the pop and popular songs are infused with all these chords. These chords are used to bring about the desired effect for the mood of the song.

Forming Major or Minor Acoustic Guitar Chords and Scales

Refer to Reading Guitar Chord Charts

The basics of this topic can be found at the above reference. What constitutes a Major sounding chord is the presence of the third. Using the 1, 3, 5 of any Major scale gives us a Major triad.

A triad consists of only three notes and in this case we have C, E, and G. we will use the 1,3 5, notes of the scale of C Major, which is C, E, G. Put them together and we have a Major chord. For a Minor sounding chord the third is flattened, C, Eb, G. and we have a C minor chord. Now that we know how to construct the scales and build chords we will now use them for acoustic guitar chords playing.

The 12Bar Blues in Acoustic Guitar Chords Playing

Chords used are A7, D7 and E7. A7 is the Root or I chord, D7 is the sub-dominant or IV chord and the E7 is the dominant. Strumm through these changes and get a feel of it.

Notice that the dominant chords give a very bluessey feeling to it. It is important to practice these acoustic guitar chords and get acquainted with these chord changes.

when you are more confident, start Jamming with your friends. Jamming plays a big part in improving one's guitar playing.

Play this 12 bar structure. It will give you a feel of what a 12 bar cycle is like.

A7 Blues
Refer to the A7 Blues Acoustic Guitar Chords below.

View the diagram and play through the chord changes, note the positions and the sounds the chords produce.

You can use a plectrum for the right hand or your fingers to strum/pluck the strings.

Do not tense the left hand and avoid gripping the neck in a death lock, relax the left fretting hand.

Count off slowly and hold/play the A7 chord for four measures, than go to the D7 chord for two measures.

Next play the A7 chord for two measures, now play the E7 chord for one measure, than the D7 for also one measure and back to A7 one measure and than the E7 chord for one measure.

Visualize the chord shapes, listen to the vertical spread of notes, the intervals between the notes.

Check out some CDs of your favorite guitar players, "Does anything sounds familiar to you?" If you have a friend, try playing the Aminor pentatonic scale over the A Jam blues.

Be creative! Juggle the notes, work out out a solo. Try using wide leaps.

What are Wide Leaps?

These are intervals like the perfect 5ths, perfect 4ths,Octaves.Maj9ths.

Using the Aminor Pentatonic scale as an example, the notes A, C, D, E, G, A. are played out in intervals of 5ths and 4ths.

An example of perfect 5ths-- A - E, D - A, E - C, G - C.

Perfect 4ths-- A - D, D - G, E - A,

The ears love to hear those wide intervals and they break the monotony of listening to the scale approach.

Practice these intervals with the chords/solos along the fretboard, by moving and playing the scales/chords a half step up or down the fretboard.

Major or Minor Chords (Refer to Reading Guitar Chord Charts Part I)

Major Chords

Why do we need Major and Minor type chords in music, is an interesting question I have always been asked.

The types of chords used give color and opens up interesting areas in composition, harmony and acoustic guitar playing.

Major type chords give us a happy relaxed felling, while Minor chords bring on a sad, dark feel.

If you will refer to Reading Guitar Chord Charts Part I and II, we can begin to play some guitar chords.

In the 1st line we see the Cmaj, Dmi, Emi, Fmaj, Gmaj and Cmaj chord positions.

These are useful chords which help you to learn popular songs, worship songs etc.

Knowing them by rote is beneficial to your guitar playing. Observe the guitar shapes and diagrams, the positions are played from the top to the 3rd position.

We will start and learn the first diagram,which covers the Cmaj, Emi, Fmaj, Gmaj chords

||: Cmaj | Cmaj | Emi | Emi | Fmaj | Fmaj | Gmaj :||

Follow the diagrams and begin your way through it.

Hold and strum the chords, hear the difference between the chords.

Refer to the diagram if you are not sure of the shapes.

The two dots at the beginning and at the end means to repeat the seven measures again.

Chords of G,A,D major and B and E minor

The 2nd diagram shows us the above chords.

||: Gmaj | Gmaj | A | A | Dmaj | Dmaj | Bmi | Bmi | Emi | Emi :||

This time work out the G, A, D, Bmi, Emi changes.

Diagram 3 lists the chords of: Emaj, Ami, Amaj, Bmaj, F#mi and Emaj

||: Emaj | Emaj | Ami | Ami | Amaj | Bmaj | F#mi | F#mi | Emaj :||

Play through these chords, put more emphasis on the F#mi, Bmaj and observe the shapes and sound produced.

Diagram 4 has the Dmaj, Emaj, Emi, Gmaj, Amaj, Bmi and Dmaj chords.

||: Dmaj | Emaj | Emi | Gmaj | Amaj | Bmi | Dmaj :||

View the shapes and positions, are the stretches comfortable, are you choking the neck real tight?

Relax and do some simple finger stretching exercises.

Diagram 5 has listed the Dmaj, Emaj, Fmaj, Gmaj chords

||: Dmaj | Dmaj | Emaj | Emaj | Fmaj | Fmaj | Gmaj | Gmaj :||

Note the different positions and shapes used, practice and remember the shapes and positions by rote and apply these chord changes to your guitar playing..

Most of these chords can be found in fake books, guitar playing music and popular songs.

Refer to Reading Guitar Chord Charts Part I

In Reading Guitar Chord Charts Part II, you will find listed all the various required chord types like Major, Major7ths min, min7ths, min7b5 chords, Augmented, Diminished and various other chords to help you along.

All these chord changes are a necessary vocabulary to build. The aspiring guitar player must spend the time to develop this discipline.

When you have fluency in your chords, it will enable you to play many songs.

Forming Scales (Refer to Guitar Scales)

Scales are the basics for improvisation, knowing your fretboard, developing hand coordination etc.

In our cause for acoustic guitar playing, the scales will be a source to draw from when we are playing solos.

It begins with the practicing of scales, and when the ear is in tune with hearing the scales and chords,the choice of notes becomes automatic when playing and I'm sure you can do it with practice.

Go back to Guitar Scales and learn all the scales in sharps and flats.

Practice all the 12 keys. This will make the next lesson easier for you.

After learning these Acoustic Guitar Chords, we can now move to combining these chords and basic scales to form some Acoustic Guitar Solos.

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