Category : guitar

Spacey open chords

Open chords (as distinct from open-string chords) are chords that have more open strings then fretted strings. They sound beautiful and they’re easy to play. Their drawback (and their strength) is that they exist in a sound-world of their own. Using them in progressions with standard open-string chords can be tricky.

But doing the work to explore the possibilities can be a lot of fun.

Moving around

Open chord shapes are simple shapes that you move around on the fretboard to create different chords.  For example, take a 2-finger shape and play it at the 3^rd fret. Now move that shape to another fret and play it there.

Example

Here’s a simple power chord shape. Normally, this shape is used on the 6^th and 5^th strings or on the 5^th and 4^th strings. Open strings are rarely used. Here, they’re a necessary part of the chord.

This chord has the power chord shape on the 4^th and 3^rd strings at the 3^rd fret.

Try strumming across all six strings, or across strings 5 to 1. Move the entire shape to different places on the fretboard. You’ll find other sounds you like, and it’ll be easy.

From open-string chords to open chords

By open string chords, I mean these. Just to be perfectly clear…

Try going from the Dmajor open string chord to the open chord above. Now do the same thing with a Dmajsus4 chord (just play the Dmajor, but lift the finger on the high E string).  Which do you like better?

A lot of people like the Dmajsus4, because it has more open strings than the Dmajor. That helps it move more smoothly to the open chord. Depending on what you’re writing, you may not want that smoothness.

Experiment

As always, there’s a lot of experimenting to do. Play the Dmajor or the Dmajsus4, and then move to open chords at different locations on the neck. Place an open chord between two open string chords, or vice-versa.

Take a progression you know and randomly stick open chords between adjacent chords of that progression. You might get something you like. You might not.

Now move the shape to the 2^nd and 3^rd strings and try that at different locations on the fretboard.

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Guitar Extended

I love stomp boxes and editable pedal boards. But the problem is that regardless of what sound you build with them, you still get a guitar sound, and everyone knows it.

Twenty different distortion sounds all point to one thing: overdriven guitar and the particular styles of music that this sound implies. The same applies to any effect: they all lead the imagination in the direction that whoever designed them wants to go.

None of this is a problem if you want to make music that sounds like other music. In fact, you need these tools if you want to do that. But what if you don’t want to do that? What if you want to build your own sound?

Guitar Extended is a blog that can help if you want to go beyond the standard effects that we all find in guitar stores. Check it out.

http://guitarextended.wordpress.com

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7th chords

You can use the chord-making technique I’ve been talking about to make 7^th chords too. All you do is add the 7^th note of the scale to 1, 3, and 5 that you already have.

E   F#   G#   A    B    C#   D#

1    2    3       4    5    6      7

That gives you E G# B D#. These are the notes of an E major 7^th chord.

Invent some chords

Find three different groupings of those four notes. This a bit more challenging than doing it with triads, but in some ways it’s more fun. Sometimes you get three of the notes, but can’t get the 4th because your fingers can’t stretch that far. So you’re faced with a puzzle.

Is there another way to play that 4th note if you can’t reach it with a left hand finger? The answer to that question will take you in directions you wouldn’t have thought of otherwise.

Two possibilities:

1. Play the three-note chord by itself and then play the 4^th note by itself.  This means that you have to let go of the chord to play the note. You get something more like an arpeggio. You can invent some interesting chord/note patterns this way (i.e. chord – chord – note – chord – note –note, etc).

The more comfortable you get moving between chord and note, the more interesting the rhythm will become.

2.Play the three-note chord, hold it, and then play the 4^th note by tapping it. This is like playing chord and melody together. Try                 tapping other notes besides the initial note you couldn’t reach.

Can you think of any other possibilities for playing impossible chords?

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Making Chords in Every Key

If you want to do this, you need to know your key signatures. Good news. It’s not that complicated.

Take a look at the image below.

Notice how, as you go clockwise around the circle (starting on C), you gain one sharp every time you change letters. The key of C has no accidentals (sharps and flats); the next letter/key – G – has 1 sharp; the next letter (key of D)  has 2 sharps, etc.

Go counter-clockwise and you gain a flat every time you move.

So that means that you can take any key – say E major – and do the same thing that you did with the key of C. The key of E has 4 sharps (check this out above) so…

E   F#   G#   A    B    C#   D#

1    2    3       4    5    6      7

Start on E, take the 1, the 3, and the 5, and you get an E major chord – E  G#  B.

Now make five E major chords. Now move between them. Now move between them and the C major chords you made. This is a lot of work, I know. But worth it.

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