What is a Guitar Chord

In this lecture you'll learn that guitar chords are created when we play at least two notes together, the smallest chord is a 5th chord shape also known as a power chord; often used in Rock, Blues & Country musical styles.

Here's some examples of chord shapes starting with a C note:

C5, C, Cm, Cdim, C6, C7, C9, C11, C13, CM7, CM9, CM11, CM13, Csus2, Csus4, CAug.

There are a whole bunch more & we'll look at chords in more detail later in the course.

A5 is produced by playing the 1st & 5th notes together. The 5th chord or power chord is a very interesting chord as it works well within both major & minor scale songs.

Why?

Because a major chord is produced when we play the 1st 3rd & 5th notes together & its the third note that defines the major sound (a happy sounding chord)

The Minor chord is produced when we play the 1 b3 5 notes together. So the minor sound is a sad sound that is defined by the b3rd note with a a flat third.

Major Chord, the C Major chord is known as C as is made up of playing the C E & G notes together.

Minor Chord, the Cm chord is sounded when we play C Eb & G together.

How To Read A Guitar Chord

We learn guitar chords by learning to read a guitar chord chart. You'll learn how to read a guitar chord chart as you move onto playing your first guitar chord within this course an Em.

Tips & Tricks Around Guitar Chords

I suggest that you take your time through this lesson as you'll then gain valuable insight around tips & tricks whilst getting the most out of this first lecture on guitar chords.

Playing Your First Chord In This Course With Me

There'll come a time when you'll be playing a variety of guitar chords very well so enjoy this lecture.

Finish this lecture by playing your Em chord over a basic strum pattern along with me Paul Gronow.

See you in the course Lecture.

Beginner Guitar Lessons By Paul Gronow

Developing Rhythm

This lecture starts by looking at developing the rhythm over the Em chord, where you'll get to play the following rhythm.

1 2 3 4+

So this time you still play a down strum on the 1 2 3 4th beats then you play an up strum on the and or the + after the 4th beat.

Your Second Chord & The Same Rhythm

Learn how to play the Am chord.

Chord Progressions

When we move from chord to chord this is known as chord progressions. In its' most basic sense a chord progression could be moving from Em to Am.

Later in this course (Section 4) we'll get to look at chord progressions that are typically found when moving around chords within a scale. Basically, each scale offers let's say 7 notes, then those 7 notes make up 7 chords, where each chord is assigned a numbers then we move around those 7 chords using a chord progression such as a 1, 4, 5.

How The Scale & Chords Are Related

The scale/chord relationship is very important to know & is covered later in the course, however if you want to look at the following just to set the scene as it were...

The C Major Scale has 7 notes which are drawn from the 12 note Chromatic Scale using a scale template 2212221, where 2 equals a space of two frets & 1 equals 1 fret distance away.

The 7 notes of the C Major Scale then produces chords, (that will sound fantastic whilst in the Key of C.)

So for example the C Major scale has 7 notes: C D E F G A & B. (You'll learn this later in the course)

These 7 notes can make up many chords but let's just say to start with 7 triad (3 note chords) chords.

The C note uses C E G notes to make up the C major chord.

The D note uses D F A notes to make up the Dm chord.

The E note uses E G B notes to make up the Em chord.

The F note uses the F A C notes to make up the F major chord.

The G note uses the G B D notes to make up the G major chord.

The A note uses the A C E notes to make up the Am chord.

The B note uses the B D F notes to make up the Bdim chord.

Question for you, Can you work out the chord template used in all of the above 7 chords?

(If so why not add it your answer into the discussions & see how your thoughts compare with others as well as mine.)

How To Increase Your Speed & Accuracy In Chord Progressions

This lecture concludes with tips on how to learn to increase the speed & accuracy of your chord progressions.

Want to increase chord changes?

Well just follow these few steps make sure you apply them every time you pick up your guitar.

1 - Using just your chord hand form each chord in the chord progression very slowly at first making sure that you form the chords perfectly by adding your lowest finger to the fret first followed by the other fingers in ascending order, so Em would mean that you place your 2nd finger on the fretboard then your 3rd finger.

2 - Once you can move slowly through the chord progression, pick up the speed a little still placing the emphasis on accuracy (don't play the chord).

3 - Now time yourself over One Minute see how many cycles of your chord progressions you can complete. This time the emphasis is placed on movement not the quality of chord shape.

4 - Finally, add any strum pattern to the chord progressions, start slow then slowly build up your speed.

If you follow these 4 steps every time you practice then expect to greatly increase your chord progression development... All the best, I look forward to hearing of your result in the discussions on this lecture.

The last rhythm used is a single down strum on the first beat of the bar.

See you in the course Lecture.

Beginner Guitar Lessons By Paul Gronow

Learn Two Major Chords

In this lecture you'll learn how to form two major chords, G & D then you'll move on to playing two familiar rhythm patterns over a 4 chord progression: G Em Am & D

Chord Progression

So now you have four chords to choose from:

Em Am G & D.

Fast Track

The 4 chords sound as if they belong to each other don't they?

This is because they do, in future lectures we'll look at the scale/chord relationship where you'll discover that these chords could be found together in either in the Key of G Major or in the Key of E minor.

Given that the G chord sounds like it's the home chord (the first Chord in the scale) this chord progression would be best placed within the Key of G Major. This & much more will be covered in a later lecture...

Next you'll get to play the following chord progression within the Key of G: 1 6 2 5

So in the Key of G we have the following chords: G Am Bm C D Em & F#dim.

Recap:

So if we play the chord progression 1 6 2 5 you'll play G Em Am & D

See you in the course Lecture.

Beginner Guitar Lessons By Paul Gronow

In this lecture you'll get the opportunity to shut yourself away whilst you learn the chords found within the C Major, D Major & G Major Scales.

Each of the major scales featured in this Lecture have three types of triad (or 3 note chords) chords; they are the Major shape the Minor shape & the Diminished or in this case the amazing sounding m7b5 chord.

C Major has the C Dm Em F G Am & Bm7b5

D Major has the D Em F#m G A Bm C#m7b5

G Major has the G Am Bm C D Em F#m7b5

Over the series of the 5 Sections found within the Beginner Guitar Lessons by Paul Gronow course you'll get to fully grasp the amazing & vitally important relationship between the Chromatic Scale, the Major Scale & the Triad Chords.

See you in the course Lecture.

Beginner Guitar Lessons By Paul Gronow

So far the chords that we've looked at have been 3 note chords (triads) but in this lecture you'll look at 2 note chords called power chords or 5th chords.

Power chords are used in many musical styles particularly in Rock, Blues, Country & Pop music.

So here you'll learn how to form the A5 the D5 & the E5 power chords; then you'll get to play these chords along with a backing track that has a click track. This will help you learn to play in time, very important of course.

The backing track play a power chords played on an acoustic guitar then the power chords played on an electric guitar.

Look out for the lecture 'Playing in the Rock Style with Power Chords' where your knowledge & experience in power chords will be taken to the next level.

See you in the course Lecture.

Beginner Guitar Lessons By Paul Gronow

Guitar Chords

So we're going to look at developing your guitar chord tool kit over the next few lectures. All guitarists will benefit greatly by being able to:

Read a chord chart - Form a guitar chord - work on the quality of sound - increase the speed of chord changes across a variety of chord progressions - learn to play a chord type across a variety of chord shapes.

Building Your Guitar Tool kit

Here's a few tips about learning guitar chords:

1 - read chord chart, identify the fingers, strings & frets required

2 - form the chord using the lowest fingers first

3 - practice forming the chord the best you can & do it slowly - working up the speed only when you are beginning to remember the shape

4 - move amongst chord just using the chord hand

5 - add a few chords into your own chord progression & play then over & over to build quality & speed...

See you in the course Lecture.

Beginner Guitar Lessons By Paul Gronow

Playing Dm, Bm & F#m Chords

In this lecture we're going to play three very popular minor chords.

Minor chords are shown with a lower case m like Am Bm Cm Dm F#m Bbm.

What You Need To Know About Minor Chords

1 - Minor chords are sad sounding

2 - They are triads (3 note chord)

3 - In the Major Scale there are 7 notes, they produce 7 basic triad chords. The chord shapes are as follows:

Minor Chords & The Major Scale:

The 2nd 3rd & 6th chords are always minor.

The 1 4 & 5 are always Major.

The 7th triad produced in the Major Scale is always a diminished chord.

So the 7 basic triad chords in the C Major Scale are: C Dm Em F G Am Bdim.

Once you play these chords one after another you'll hear how they perfectly align with the C Major Scale.

See you in the course Lecture.

Beginner Guitar Lessons By Paul Gronow

Why Learn Diminished Chords?

Diminished chords are very much part of the Scale/Chord relationship.

Why?

The Chords in the C Major Scale are: C Dm Em F G Am & Bdim.

These chords are created using 3 notes from the C Major Scale like this:

How To Find Out The Chords Used In The C Major Scale

The C Major Scale has 7 notes: C D E F G A B C (No sharps # or flats b.

Finding The First Chord In The C Major Scale

Take the 1 3 5 template & place it against the

The chord template used within the

1 - C chord made with C E G where we play one miss one then play one.

See you in the course Lecture.

Beginner Guitar Lessons By Paul Gronow

In this lecture we are going to introduce the concept of power chords. Power chords are used particularly by electric guitarists with overdrive or distortion. The purpose of the power chord is to add embellishment to certain parts of a song.

So discover that power chords are formed using the 1st & 5th notes, whereas a major chord will used a 1 3 5 so it's the 3rd note that create the major feel/ The minor chord uses the flat third note b3 where a Cm chord will be made up of:

C Eb & G notes. The Eb note create the sad sound in the chord.

So as the 5th chord does note have a 3rd note it does not sound like a major or a minor so it can be used in chord progressions in both a major & minor scale. This is of course fantastic as it's the melody of the singer if instrumentalist such as a lead guitarist that shape the feel of the song.

Finally, you get to play your power chords along with me with a drummer in a Rock Style feel.

See you in the course Lecture.

Beginner Guitar Lessons By Paul Gronow

In this lecture you'll get to recap the guitar chords section, for both your education & enjoyment plus in preparation for taking the Section 3 Quiz Guitar Chords.

So in this section we recap on the many chord types looked at major, minor, 7th, M7, diminished, m7b5 & power chords.

We'll recall that chords are formed from scales & we looked at the 7 basic triad chords formed from the C Major Scale the D Major scale & the G Major Scale.

You were able to move between chords too.

You also understand that playing chords will help you create music as well as to be able to play other people's music.

This lecture finishes with an introduction to rhythm which leads nicely into the next section, which is Section 4 Reading & Playing Rhythm.

See you in the course Lecture.

Beginner Guitar Lessons By Paul Gronow

What is Rhythm?

In this lecture we'll first look at what is rhythm. Rhythm is made up of sound & silence.

Notes Name & Duration

The duration of the sound or silence is looked at as follows:

Semibreve, lasts for 4 beats.

Minim, lasts for 2 beats.

Crotchet, lasts for 1 beat.

Quaver, lasts for half of a beat.

Semi-Quaver, lasts for a quarter of a beat.

Reading A Rhythm Chart

This lecture looks at playing along with me as you follow the rhythm chart just using the Em Chord.

See you in the course Lecture.

Beginner Guitar Lessons By Paul Gronow

Rhythm Chart

Learn about the notes used in music, Semibreve, Minim, Crotchet, Quaver & Semiquaver.

Once you're happy with the notes learn to apply them by playing an Em along with me.

Rhythm Exercise

The exercise is based on 6 bars of music.

See you in the course Lecture.

Beginner Guitar Lessons By Paul Gronow

In this lecture you'll get to play popular major shape chords.

The chords include:

C D E F G A Bb B

Once you have learned to form the chords you'll then get to play the chords along with the backing track in 4 exercises:

Exercise one will play all the chords using a semibreve over a bar.

Exercise two will play all the chords using 2 minim beats per bar.

Exercise three will play all the chords using 4 crotchet beats per bar.

Exercise four will play all the chords using 3 crotchets & 2 quaver beats per bar.

Please note that each of the chord exercises are played 3 times for your convenience.

See you in the course Lecture.

Beginner Guitar Lessons By Paul Gronow

In this lecture you get to form & play popular minor chord such as:

Cm, C#m, Dm, Em, Fm, F#m,Gm, G#m, Am & Bm.

See you in the course Lecture.

Beginner Guitar Lessons By Paul Gronow

Following on from the major & the minor chord exercises in this lecture you'll get to form & play along with the backing track the popular 7th Chords such as:

A7, Bb7, B7, C7, D7, E7, F7 & G7

The interesting thing about 7th Chords is that they add embellishment to a song & also it's the b7th note in the 7th chords that helps create much of the Blues feel...

See you in the course Lecture.

Beginner Guitar Lessons By Paul Gronow

In this lecture you'll look at popular amazing M7th chords, or Major 7th Chords.

The interesting thing about the M7th chord is that it is found in the Major Scale & therefore offers an upbeat feel to is often found within styles such as:

Jazz, Soul & Pop.

You'll get to form & play popular M7th Chords such as:

AM7, BbM7, CM7, DM7,EbM7, FM7, GM7 & AbM7

See you in the course Lecture.

Beginner Guitar Lessons By Paul Gronow

In this lecture you get to learn about & play the amazing m7b5 chords or minor 7th flat five chords.

The interesting thing about the m7b5 chord is that they are found within the major scale & are often used as a chord substitute to the diminished chord.

The diminished chord is the 7th triad chord formed in the major scale.

You'll get to play the popular m7b5 chords:

Am7b5, Bbm7b6, Bm7b, Cm7b5, C#m7b5, Dm7b5, D#m7b5, Em7b5, Fm7b5, Gm7b5 & G#m7b5

See you in the course Lecture.

Beginner Guitar Lessons By Paul Gronow

In this lecture you'll look at & play along with me as we focus on 27 rhythm patterns based upon a variety of styles & making use of the semibreve, minim, crotchet, quaver & semiquaver plus tied notes.

I encourage you to count along with me as we play the 27 rhythms on our guitars...

See you in the course Lecture.

Beginner Guitar Lessons By Paul Gronow

Section 3 Recap

This section has introduced the essentials of understanding rhythm.

This has been achieved by looking at what rhythm actually is, learning about the essential musical notes such as a semibreve, minim, crotchet, quaver & semiquaver & their respective rests along with tied notes. We know that rhythm is sound & it's silence & the length of the sound & silence.

Now you can read & play 27 rhythm charts on a variety of styles that include, Rock, Blues, Jazz, Reggae, Funk, Country & Pop.

You have also been able to play popular major, minor, 7th, M7 & m7b5 chords along with the backing tracks.

Okay so if you are ready please try the Section 3 Quiz.

See you in the course Lecture.

Beginner Guitar Lessons By Paul Gronow

In this lecture you'll get to study & play 5 popular chord progressions across the C major scale.

What are Chord Progressions?

This basically means the choice of chords to be played over a piece of music.

So in music composition we may choose a set of chords from a scale for the introduction, another set of chords for the verse, another set of chords for the chorus, another set of chords for the instrumental, another set of chords for the bridge & finally another set of chords for the outro.

So learning these popular chord progressions is a must have in your guitar toolkit, enjoy.

See you in the course Lecture.

Beginner Guitar Lessons By Paul Gronow

In this lecture you'll get to study & play 5 popular chord progressions across the D major scale.

What are Chord Progressions?

This basically means the choice of chords to be played over a piece of music.

So in music composition we may choose a set of chords from a scale for the introduction, another set of chords for the verse, another set of chords for the chorus, another set of chords for the instrumental, another set of chords for the bridge & finally another set of chords for the outro.

So learning these popular chord progressions is a must have in your guitar toolkit, enjoy.

See you in the course Lecture.

Beginner Guitar Lessons By Paul Gronow

In this lecture you'll get to study & play 5 popular chord progressions across the G major scale.

What are Chord Progressions?

This basically means the choice of chords to be played over a piece of music.

So in music composition we may choose a set of chords from a scale for the introduction, another set of chords for the verse, another set of chords for the chorus, another set of chords for the instrumental, another set of chords for the bridge & finally another set of chords for the outro.

So learning these popular chord progressions is a must have in your guitar toolkit, enjoy.

See you in the course Lecture.

Beginner Guitar Lessons By Paul Gronow

In this lecture you'll get to further work on the Rock Style with Power Chords.

Using a Rock Style we'll look at chord progressions for a verse then a bridge.

Then you'll get to play along with the click track.

Then once you have the chords in place you have the opportunity to play along with me over three backing tracks featuring different instruments.

1. The first will look at your playing along with me with drums & guitar
2. The second backing track allows you to play your power chord progression for the verse & bridge along with the drums & bass
3. Finally the third backing track allows you to play along with drums, bass & guitar, enjoy

See you in the course Lecture.

Beginner Guitar Lessons By Paul Gronow

In this lecture you get to play along with me within the Jazz Blues backing track based upon the Jazz chords found in the C Major Scale & as the Drummer & Bass player plays a Blues feel.

Firstly learn about the theory around the Jazz chords found within the C Major Scale then play the chords on guitar, then once you're comfortable with the chord changes play along with the backing track.

You'll be encouraged to follow along with the on-screen chord changes.

See you in the course Lecture.

Beginner Guitar Lessons By Paul Gronow

In this lecture you'll have opportunity to Recap the Chord Progressions section for your education & in preparation to take the Quiz 4 based upon lectures 27 to 32.

You should now understand & should be able to 5 popular chord progressions across the chords found within the C major scale the D major scale & the G major scale.

In addition, you should be able to play power chords within the verse & bridge of a Rock style plus the verse & chorus of the Jazz Blues style.

So if you believe that you are ready please try the Section 4 Quiz: Chord Progressions.

In this lecture we're going to look at the topic guitar music theory particularly for guitarists.

The goal is to look at the triad the major scale the chromatic scales.

The relationship between the three above will be introduced, where you'll learn about:

How to form the chromatic scale, learn about its origin, learn about enharmonic notes.

Next learn about the major scale template that'll be used to create the C major scale.

See you in the course Lecture.

Beginner Guitar Lessons By Paul Gronow

In this lecture we'll look at part 2 of 3 parts based on the essential guitar music theory toolkit.

So in part 1 we looked at how the chromatic scale is the master scale that all scales are drawn from then we were able to create the C major scale using the C major template.

Now in this lecture we're going to look are forming many other major scales using the major scale template.

See you in the course Lecture.

Beginner Guitar Lessons By Paul Gronow

So far Part 1 & 2 lectures on guitar music theory has helped you to create any major scale in any key using the major scale template mapped against the chromatic scale.

In this lecture (Part 3 of guitar music theory), you'll move on to forming the 7 basic triads in the C major scale using the popular chord template 1 3 5.

Then finally, you'll learn the chord patterns used across all major scales, M,m,m,M,M,m,d.

See you in the course Lecture.

Beginner Guitar Lessons By Paul Gronow

In this lecture you'll create the 7 Triad Chords found within the Minor Scale using the 1 3 5 chord template.

See you inside this lecture.

Paul Gronow.

Following on in music theory this lecture will look at forming the Minor Scales with sharp notes using the Minor Scale template mapped against the chromatic scale.

Following on in music theory this lecture will look at forming the Minor Scales with flat notes using the Minor Scale template mapped against the chromatic scale.

See you in the lecture.

Paul Gronow.

Okay, so you now know that the chromatic scale is the master scale that all other scales are drawn from. You can create any 7 note major scale using the 2212221 major scale template. Then once you have the major scale you can identify the 7 basic triads by using the 1 3 5 chord template.

Finally, you now know that the three popular triad chord shapes drawn from the major scale using the 1 3 5 chord template are major chord shape, the minor chord shape & the diminished chord shape.

So if you believe that you are ready to proceed, please try the Section 5 Quiz.

Thank you for studying 'Beginner Guitar Lessons' with me Paul Gronow, I look forward to seeing you in future courses & I wish you continued success on you guitar journey.

Kind Regards,

Paul Gronow BA (Hons), HRM, FAETC & RGT Member.