Guitar Chords In A

A' is a favourite key of many of the classical composers for the guitar. One good reason for this is the fact that the 5th and 6th strings are tuned to the natural bass notes of the key - A and E, thus allowing these strings to be played open as accompaniment to more complicated fingering with the left hand. From our point of view offers a good opportunity to begin to explore the string bass style of playing.
The string bass style means merely that, having formed a chord with your left hand, instead of strumming it straight across, or playing it arpeggio fashion, you hit one of the lower strings on its own for the first beat of the bar, then play the remainder of the chord on the second. You can then play another bass string, followed by the chord, for the third and fourth beats.
You may wonder why I didn't go staek, raving bonkers with the monotony of this um-ching um - ching, but it is possible to make this style very interesting both from the playing and listening points of view. If you can get hold some of the Eddie Land/Joe Venuti recordings you'll hear Lang using this type of Accompaniment to good effect. Another example that falls immediately to mind is Django Reinhardt's duet version of ALABAMY BOUND, made with Stephen Grappelly in 1937- I guarantee that the first time there's only one guitar playing the accompaniment.
Just how interesting you can make the string bass style depends on your ability and imagination. By making care in the choice of your bass notes you can produce a pleasant counter-melody should fill in the gaps, rather than competing or dominating. You'll get to play the melody yourself later on, but at the moment we're concentrating on the job of making a reasonable accompaniment of you, and this is an art in itself. Your chance to become a soloist will come in Section Four.

Now, the principle chords, in the key of A. These are A, E7 and D. As usual, we'll take tonic chord first:

By now your fingers should be becoming hard enough and flexible enough to find the correct position without much difficulty. Try this chord arpeggio fashion,, making sure that the fingered 4th, 3rd and 2nd strings ring as well as the open ones. Now try playing the chord in the string bass style, hitting the open 5th string alone first, followed by the chord.

Chords In D

When Eddie Lang, the first great jazz guitarist, played with the Paul Whiteman Orchestra back in the early 1930s the story that he carried his band parts written on a piece of card about the size of an average business card became something of a legend. If the story is true, it must be am example of the kind of thing that is possible through the use of the chord symbol system, which you are in the process of learning.

My own adaptation of Eddie Lang's business card one which I have found useful over many years involves the use of an ordinary pocket-sized, indexed address book. You can buy one of these from a stationers quite cheaply and start to build your own library of accompaniment today. Write out the chord symbols - and the words of the song too, if you like as I how quickly you can build up a range of songs to suit all occasions. Why not start with the accompaniments you'll find in this Blog?

Our next three chords are in the key of D. They are D, the tonic A7,the dominant, and the G the sub-dominant. Your 'bonus' chord here is G, which is carried over from the previous chapter, so once again you really only have two chords to learn.

The five string chord of D in the first position looks like this:

Chord Window D

You will notice here that the 4th and 5th strings are played open, giving you a ringing, sonorous bass sound. Try the chord, making sure you use the left-hand fingering indicated. Play arpeggio first, to make sure of those first three strings.
The Dominant Seventh in the key is A7, an extremely useful chord shape. This employs for the first time in your experience the Small Barre - that is, the use of the first finger to hold down the 2nd, 3rd and 4th strings simultaneously. At the same time, the third finger is 5th and 6th strings can be sounded open in this chord, giving a good ringing bass once again.

Chord Window A7

The G chord you already know, so let's try a small exercise, using the three chords in D.
||4x1 D ///|G///|A7///|D///:||
Repeat this until you have the feel of changing between these chords... until your fingers are so educated that you don't have to watch they're doing. Foster's OLD FOLKS AT HOME. To find the first three notes of the melody, finger the D chord and hit your first string, then raise your second finger and allow the open 1st string, to sound then the 2nd string, with your third finger on the third fret, as in the D chord. This gives you: Way down u- the notes F sharp, E and D. The song is played in a slow four to the bar. Whatever you do don't play the accompaniment jerkily. This is good time to try a sustained, arpeggio type of accompaniment, letting the strings ring behind the melody.

(Guitar) Chord Window F

Yes, it is a bit of a stinker, isn't it? But don't panic. You'll notice that in this chord the first finger stops both the 1st and 2nd strings, which means that you can't use the tip of the finger as before. Instead, the first finger is flattened down to bring its first joint in line with the fingerboard. Try that first, picking the 1st and 2nd strings only. If the strings don't ring, adjust the position to your finger until they do. Take your time. Then when you're certain you've mastered this part of the chord, place your second finger on the 3rd string at the second fret, still keeping your first finger in position. Now pick the 3rd, 2nd and 1st strings in that order.

When those three are sounding clearly, you can then add the fourth note, which is made by placing your fourth finger on the third fret of the 4th string. Now play all four strings - arpeggio fashion at first to make sure they're all ringing as they should - then five strings, by including your un-fingered 5th - then strum.

When you've mastered the F chord on it's own, try changing between it and the other chords in the key, something like this:
||:F///|G7///|F///|C///:||

I can't emphasise too much how important it is to learn to change quickly from one chord to another. Each chord is a building block, and its shape has to be learned individually, but to play a chord sequence like that given above, without stumbling or hesitating between the bar lines, it is necessary to go on practising until the left-hand fingers move automatically to the correct position on seeing a given symbol.

(Guitar) Chords In C

The next simple and frequently used key for accompaniments is C. Here again we have a set of three principal chords. This time C is the tonic, or home chord. The dominant is G7, and the sub-dominant is F. You've already learned the four-string version of the chord of C in the previous lessons, so you're part of the way there. However, this time we're going to use the sixth string version, which looks like this:



Your first and second fingers go on the 2nd and 4th strings in the same positions as before, but now we are adding the fourth finger on the third fret of the 5th string and the fourth finger on the third fret of the 6th string. You won't do this perfectly the first time, but will become easier with practice. Try moving from this version on to the other chords that you know already and back again. Like this: ||:C///| D7///| C///| G///|:||

Now we can move on the sub-dominant of the key, G7. The four-string version of this is probably the easiest chord there is to play on the guitar. It requires only the use of your first finger left hand. The other three notes of the chords are formed naturally by the open 2nd, 3rd, and 4th strings, as well from the window below.
Try these out with your download able browser and get the super-unique song for you. And then begin the practice on your own personal room. You need no help after reading these .



It shouldn't take you long to get this one, but here again the important thing is to be able to move as quickly as possible from the fingering of one chord to another, so you try practicing something like the following:
||:G7///|C///|G7///|C///:||
We talked in the last chapter about the three chord trick, but here's something even easier-a song accompaniment that uses only two chords. The song is OH DEAR! WHAT CAN THE MATTER BE? and i've written out the chords and words below. You may be familiar with certain variations on this lyrics, but whether you use them or not depends on you, and your audience, if any.

The melody of the song begins on the note G, which is the sound of your open string, so hit that note first.

Strumming And Arpeggios

When the plectrum is drawn quickly across the strings all the notes of a chord sound more or less simultaneously. This is strumming, in which you will not normally be able to distinguish one note from another, but are aware of the chord as a blended whole. If on the other hand, you draw the plectrum across the strings more slowly, so that there is a definite time lag between one note and the next, you will produce what is known as an arpeggio.

The strumming, rhythmic style is the one we shall use for our accompaniments at first. It is therefore important that you should learn to strum with a regular beat, in order to make your accompaniment as rhythmic as possible. Try fingering the G chord with your left hand and strumming, counting an even 1-2-3-4 as you do so.
After the chord symbols- such as the C, D7, G we have learned so far - diagonal lines this / are used to indicate how many times the chord should be repeated. Thus the 1-2-3-4 beats on the chord of G which you have just played are written in symbol notation | G/// | The vertical lines are Bar lines. In the example here you be playing a four to the bar rhythm. You will also find that a lot of pieces are written in three to the bar rhythm, or waltz time. Three to the bar looks like this | G// | and is counted 1-2-3, 1-2-3 and so on.

Now that you are reasonably familiar with the fingering of the three principal chords in G, try the following exercise over a few times to get used to changing from one chord to another.

Play four beats to the bar, strumming:
||: G / / / | C / / / | D7 / / / | G / / / :||

The double lines and dots at the beginning and end of this exercise ||::|| indicate that the section enclosed by them should be repeated. Remember this, as you will encounter them often in the future. In this instance you should repeat the exercise until you are sure that you can hit the chords correctly each time and maintain a constant rhythm. In all exercise it is better to start off quite slowly, at a tempo you can manage easily without fumbling the changes. If the first part of an exercise seems easy, many students have a tendency to begin as fast as they can - only to come a cropper when something more difficult turns up later on. This is bad because it produces chopping and changing of the original tempo which robs the exercise of any musical value whatsoever. Go slowly at first, concentrating on producing a good tone and a full song. Speed doesn't matter at this stage. That will come naturally with practice. Maintaining a steady tempo is much more important.

Now let's try our fist folk song, GOODNIGHT LADIES, which uses the chords of G. The starting note for this song is the open second string (B). In fact, if you like, you can pick out the melody of the first two bars completely, on open string, by playing in this order. 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 3rd. This gives you the notes equivalent to the phrase 'Goodnight Ladies'. Play it over a couple of times to get the idea before going on to the song.

STRUM FOUR TO THE BAR
BEAT FOUR TO THE BAR

This note
is open B.
|4/4 G / / / | G / / / | G / / / | D7 / / / |
Good-night, - la-dies,- Good-night,- la-dies,-

| G / / / | C / / / | G / D7 / | G / / / ||
Good-night,- la-dies,We're goin' to leave you now.-

You may have noticed that the chord of the song is G, the tonic chord. The tonic is sometimes referred to as the 'home' chord, because it is variably the one upon which a piece written in a particular key ends. Thus, a song played in the key of G will end on the chord of G, or one in the key of C, on the chord of C.

Guitar Chord Window

Over the nut position on the diagram you will notice the two symbols X and O. There refers to the un-fingered strings in the chord shape. When X is placed over a string, this string should not be sounded. Therefore, in the example above section, the 5th and 6th strings are not played. The O symbol placed over a string means that, although it is not fingered, the string should be sounded. In this case you will see that the 4th, 3rd and 2nd strings are played open in this way, producing the notes D,G and B, which are in fact the basic notes of the chord of G.

When fingering a string it should be pressed down just behind, NOT on the fret. This brings the string firmly into contact with the metal of the fret, thus shortening the length of the part which vibrates when struck and making its pitch higher than that of the open string. In this case the 1st (E) string is stopped at the third fret and becomes G. If you turn back to the Fingerboard Diagram at the beginning of this section you will to check this. Notice that each time you move your finger up a fret, the pitch of the string goes up a semitone.

Now, holding your plectrum between the first finger and thumb of the right hand, as described earlier, draw it cross the top four strings. Remember, just the top four - we are using the 5th and 6th string at this stage. You should not have any difficulty in producing a musical sound from the 4th, 3rd and 2nd strings in this chord, because they are sounded open, but you may find that first gives you nothing more than an inelegant 'phut'. This does not indicate that there is anything wrong with your guitar, or with the method of fingering described above. The trouble lies in the fact that all this stage your fingers are not strong enough, nor your finger-ends hand enough, to press the strings down with sufficient firmness. Another possible fault is that the side of your left-hand finger may be making accidental contact with the un-fingered 2nd string and deadening it's sound.

Guitar Chords In 'G' (Chord Trick)

The guitar is an ideal accompanying instrument, and the easiest and most satisfying manner in which to begin learning to play is to take advantage of this fact. In this section I shall show you how to use your guitar to accompany a number of well-known folk songs, and you should be able to start making satisfying musical sounds within a very short time.

These sounds will be chords- which are defined in my dictionary as 'a simultaneous and harmonious union of sounds of different pitch'. In guitar terms this means simply three or more strings played at the same time. Chords are the basis of all guitar technique, and they are praticulary important in accompaniment playing because of the fullness of the sound they provide. So you must begin to learn chords and the chord symbol system, which is a very useful form of musical shorthand with many uses.

In every musical key there are three principal chords, which are known as the tonic, the dominant and the sub-dominant. In the key of G these three chords are G. D7 (pronounced D seventh) and C, and you will find them used in different permutatios and with additions throughout the accompaniment of any song written in this key. It follows logically that the more complicated the harmony of a song, the greater the number of additional chords requried, but most folk songs have a simple harmonic structure and in many cases they can be accompanied quite satisfactory by using nothing more than the three principal chords mentioned above.

Guitar

There are two basic types of guitar. The first has metal strings, the second (normally called Spanish guitar) nylon strings. Even at this early stage it is important that you should understand the essential differences between the two types, because if you don't you could waste a lot of time and money.


The best Spanish guitar ever made would be completely useless to someone whose ambition is to play in a beat group, and the most fabulously ornate Electric guitar with three pickups, tremolo arm and on board pre-amp would be equally unsuitable for someone who wants to play Classical Finger Style.
So where do you start? Well, unless you have your heart set from the very beginning on becoming a Classical Finger Style Player.
You can work through Sections Two and Four of this book on a metal string instrument, training the fingers of your Left hand and learning the notes on the fingerboard. If you later decide that you would like to go on the Finger Style nylon string guitar nothing you have learned will be wasted.
But before we go any further I must give you one very important warning! Whatever you do, Never put metal strings onto a guitar which was built to carry nylon strings. Spanish guitars are much lighter built than metal string guitars and the higher tension needed to tune metal string can cause irreparable damage.


This may be obvious to you, and you're probably wondering why I lay so much stress on the matter. But I will always remember with a shudder of horror the time when a lady turned up at one of my classes with a beautiful little American made finger style guitar, ornate with mother of pearls inlays and over hundred years old. (The guitar, not a lady!) Full of good intentions she had taken it along to a supposedly reputable music shop on the previous day and asked them to fit it with a new set of strings. This they did-metal ones, under the strain of which the neck of the guitar was already warping visibly!
To help you avoid this kind of pitfall, please study the illustrations and descriptions of the different kinds of the guitars on the following pages carefully.
Metal String guitar can be divided into three types the Acoustic, the Acoustic/Electric or Semi-Acoustic and the Solid Electric.