Posted in: Guitar by Ian Tamayo on September 7th, 2008 | 0 Comments
Lessons on chords construction.
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.
| ||—|—|-G-| B||—|—|—| G||—|—|—| D||—|—|—| ||—|-B-|—| ||—|—|-G-| |
| Chord Name |
Notes (numeric position) |
Notes | ||
| G | 1 | 3 | 5 | G B D |
| ||—|—|-G-| ||—|—|-D-| G||—|—|—| ||—|-E-|—| ||—|—|-C-| ||—|—|—| |
| Chord Name |
Notes (numeric position) |
Notes | |||
| C2 (also known as Cadd9) | 1 | 3 | 5 | 2 | C E G D |
| ||—|-F#|—| B||—|—|—| G||—|—|—| D||—|—|—| ||—|-B-|—| E||—|—|—| |
| Chord Name |
Notes (numeric position) |
Notes | ||||
| Em9 | 1 | 3b | 5 | 7b | 9 | E G B D F# |
| ||—|-F#|—|—| ||—|—|—|-D#| ||—|—|-A#|—| ||—|—|—|-F#| ||—|-B-|—|—| ||—|—|—|—| |
| Chord Name |
Notes (numeric position) |
Notes | |||
| Bmaj7 | 1 | 3 | 5 | 7 | B D# F# A# |
| ||-F-|—|—| ||-C-|—|—| ||—|—|-Bb| ||—|—|-F-| ||—|—|-Bb| ||-F-|—|—| |
| Chord Name |
Notes (numeric position) |
Notes | ||
| Fsus4 | 1 | 4 | 5 | F Bb C |
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.
| ||—|-F#|—| ||—|—|-D-| ||—|-A-|—| D||—|—|—| ||—|—|—| ||—|—|—| |
| Chord Name |
Notes (numeric position) |
Notes | ||
| D | 1 | 3 | 5 | D F# A |
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)
| ||—|-F#|—| B||—|—|—| ||—|-A-|—| D||—|—|—| ||—|—|—| ||—|—|—| |
| Chord Name |
Notes (numeric position) |
Notes | |||
| D6 | 1 | 3 | 5 | 6 | D F# A B |
We want to get the chord A9 now. Closest similar chord is A7.
| E||—|—|—| ||—|-C#|—| G||—|—|—| ||—|-E-|—| A||—|—|—| ||—|—|—| |
| ||—|—|-G-| ||—|-C#|—| ||—|-A-|—| ||—|-E-|—| A||—|—|—| ||—|—|—| |
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!
| ||—|—|-G-|—| ||—|-C#|—|—| ||—|—|—|-B-| ||—|-E-|—|—| A||—|—|—|—| ||—|—|—|—| |
| Chord Name |
Notes (numeric position) |
Notes | ||||
| A9 | 1 | 3 | 5 | 7b | 9 | A C# E G B |
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
