Building Guitar Chords For Beginners - Ditch the Chord Dictionary

Guitarists need to know how to play chords, that's a fact, but how many guitarists know how to build a chord?

Imagine playing with a band and you were asked to play a C# minor 7th with a flat 5th and you didn't have your chord book with you, what would you do?

If you know how guitar chords are formed then it wouldn't be a problem to you.

So instead of lugging around a big fat chord directory, containing thousands of chord diagrams, most of which you'll never play anyway, learn about the formation of chords and save yourself some weightlifting.

Guitarists spend around 80% of there time playing rhythm guitar, so knowing how to build chords is very beneficial, and a useful skill to learn.

For this introduction I will focus on the two most common types of chord, the major and minor.

The easiest way to understand how a chord is formed is by first looking at the major scale. A scale is just a series of notes played one after the other, there are lots of different and exotic types, but the major scale is the basis of all western music and so it will be wise to get very familiar with it.

The easiest major scale to start with is the C major scale. If you wanted to play a C scale on a piano, just play eight white notes one after the other, starting from the white key directly to the left of a pair of black keys. This is the note C, and the notes that follow it are in alphabetical order. D E F G A B C. This is called one octave of a C major scale.

Unfortunately, on the guitar neck, the fretboard has no black notes to help us with finding our way around.

There are ways of remembering the positions of the notes but for now I will tell you where the notes are. Be sure to say the names of the notes to yourself as you play them. This will definitely help your playing in the long run.

The C note on the guitar is found on the 5th string at the 3rd fret position, there are plenty of others, but we'll start our studies with this one. Play that note, the C note, using your third finger to fret it, then follow with the open D string, then 2nd fret of the D string which is an E note, using your 2nd finger.

Next in the scale is F, this is found on the 3rd fret of the 4th or D string, follow this with the open G string, then fret the 2nd fret of that string using your 2nd finger, which gives you an A note. Two more are left, the B note can be played by plucking the open B string, and the last C which is the octave of our first note, is the first fret of the B string. Fret this using your 1st finger. There you have a C major scale.

You should play this scale a few hundred times to really get the pattern into your fingers and the sound into your ears. Don't worry, you don't have to play these all in one practice session!

So how do we now form a guitar chord using the info we have learned, you may ask.

Each of the notes of the major scale are numbered from 1 to 7, in the case of the C major scale the notes are C D E F G A B.

To form a major chord just play the 1st note C, together with the 3rd note E, and combine both with the 5th note G.

There you have just played a C major chord.

It is the 3rd note which determines the 'flavour' of the chord, if its major or minor. To form the minor chord, as before combine the 1st note C, but in the case of the 3rd note don't play the E, drop it down 1 fret and play Eb! then add a G note, the 5th. Then you have a minor chord. Get your ears used to the sound of the major and minor chords. You'll discover that the major chord has a bright and happy sound, whereas the minor chord is much sadder sounding.

This formula can be moved or transposed (musical term for moved) to any key. Just play the 1st note of the scale with the 3rd and the 5th notes and you will have a major chord. Flatten the 3rd note by one fret or a semi-tone (muso for one fret!) and you will have formed a minor chord.

This is just the first step in the study of guitar chords, and how to build and play them. I will be adding more articles covering chord theory in the near future. Until then, keep learning, keep on plucking and most of all keep enjoying your playing.

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