Guitar Lesson: Chord Tricks

..Some of you have asked me to create a section devoted to chords and rhythm
guitar. At first I thought that this was outside the scope of the
guitartricks.com site and theme. Then I thought about it some more and realized
that there are a lot of chord tricks that a guitar player needs to know in order
to be a guitar hero. After all, you can't play solos all night. The singer will
get mad and kick you out of the band.


Chord Trick Notes
First, we will assume that everybody is familiar with the basic chords. These
are the major and minor barre chords and open position chords that make up the
majority of popular guitar songs. Below are some examples. If you recognize
these and can easily play them, then you are ready to learn chord tricks. If
not, you might want to go to the links page to visit some sites that teach chord
patterns in depth.

Basic Major Chords

      E   F   G   A   B   C   D
                       
E |---0---1---3---0---2---0---2--------|
B |---0---1---3---2---4---1---3--------|
G |---1---2---0---2---4---0---2--------|
D |---2---3---0---2---4---2---0--------|
A |---2---3---2---0---2---3------------|
E |---0---1---3------------------------|


      Second, we will not be concerned with the key in which we are playing.
      Chord tricks are based on a particular chord (E minor, A major, etc.) and
      can be played in any key that takes that chord. Since each chord appears
      in several keys, it would just complicate matters to mention the key.
      Third, each trick will introduce several options available while playing a
      particular chord. This will allow you to learn faster than if I fed you
      the options one at a time. However, understand that it probably makes more
      sense to play fewer tricks at time than I do here. Less is more.
      weekly trick archive | main trick page ...

Share |