Chords Construction

Have you ever wondered how chords are constructed? Ever asked yourself “what does Aaug, F#m7, Dmaj7, Esus mean?” Well, here are the answers to your questions. In this set of notes, we’ll explain to you the theory of chord construction.

The aim of this lesson is to help you to be able to figure out chords by yourself without always having to depend on the chord chart.

Let’s start by using the C major scales and giving them numbers accordingly.

Note: There isn’t really such a thing as an eighth (8) note. It’s just the first (1) note repeated in the next higher octave.

4 main triads (3 notes chord)

So looking at the table above, you can tell a C chord is actually made up of 3 notes, that is C, E, G. So when we play on any instrument, as long as only this 3 note is present, it is a C chord. With C as the root note, that is in the bass note. Of course there is causes when C is not the root note, we call this inversion. We will discuss this on another topic.

Note: The chord C+ can be written as Caug too, and the chord C- can be written as Cdim or Cº too.

The triads form the basis of the rest of the other chords to come.

Chords with Major triad base

Chords with Minor triad base

As seen above, all this chords are actually build upon the triad. Now can you see what does the number mean? It actually show you what note to put in looking at the C major scales.

For eg, the sixth note of the C major scale is (A), so a C6 will simply be the C major triad (C, E, G) plus the sixth note (A).

Of course this is only for the C major scale, with your knowledge of major scale, just number them accordingly starting from the root note.

D major scale is shown below

Example: D6 = 1, 3, 5, 6 of D major scale (because it is a D6, so use D major scale, not rocket science huh?)
So D, F#, A, B will be the notes forming the D6 chord.

Below is a exercise for you to do before we continue

Now that you have completed the above exercise. You should if you did not do it. If not done, do it now. Just do it. Come on, do it.

To make things easier, we will give you all the scales in the major key below.

Suspended

Note: A suspended chord means taking out the 3rd and replacing it with either a 2nd or 4th.

Note: Csus = Csus4

Chords above 7th

Note: Once you go above 7th, For chords like 9, 11 and 13. You are suppose to play all the notes from 7th and up in that chord.

Half Diminish

Diminish 7th / Full Diminish

Note: Although there are four different chords below, yet actually all of them are the same. However, the root note is change.

Below is another exercise for you to do

Note: A chord with “add” means that you add the number shown only, ignoring the rules for chords above 7th.

Now that you have knowledge of how chords work, we will continue on “Chord Construction Theory (2)” on how to apply this knowledge onto the guitar fretboard.

In this article, we focus on applying our newfound knowledge on chords construction theory with reference to the guitar fretboard.

The notes of the open strings of a guitar in standard tuning.

Below are some example of the common chords we use being applied in the guitar chords, so that you can see how chords constrution theory applied itself on the guitar fretboard.

Note: It doesn’t really matter how many times the same note in different octave appear, as long as all the notes of the chord is present, it’s that chord.

Note: It doesn’t have to be in the correct order also, the only thing to observe is that the root note must always be at the most bass.

In order to create new chords on your guitar, the best method is really to find the most similar chord that you know and convert it to the chord you want.

Below is an example:
1)Write down the numerical position for both the chord you want to find and the chord that is the most similar. In this case I will take the chord “D” to convert to “D6″.
2)Write down the actual notes of the 2 chords.
3)Change whichever necessary to obtain the new chord.

You can see in the example that the “D” chord is made out of (D, F#, A). In order to get the chord “D6″, you will need an additional 6 (B) which form (D, F#, A, B). Remember you’d need to keep (D, F#, A). You see that in the diagram that there are two (D). You can then take out the one that is not part of the bass note and convert it to a (B) as shown. (You need to keep the D in the bass for that is the root note)

Another example:

We want to get the chord A9 now. Closest similar chord is A7.

Above 2 chords are both A7 chord.

As you can see, it’s quite impossible to form “A9″ from the 1st “A7″ chord we have. Since we only one of all the notes except “E”, we can only move that note. But we will have a very difficult time stretching our fingers if we move that note on the first string all the way to the seven fret just to get a “B”. So we look for an alternate A7 chord we are familiar with. “A” is repeated. Therefor take the non-root “A” and move down to a “B”. We are done!

Below are some exercises for you to try.

Find out how to play the chords below:-
G2, Dsus, E6, Am6, B9, Em7add11

Note: For 13th chords, the 11th note can be leave out, or 5th note can be leave out too. (Anyway 7th strings doesn’t exist on most guitar) You don’t have to play the actual original theoretically correct chords all the time. :p