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) 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 In Window System

The best way for a beginner to learn his chords is through a system of diagram known as 'Windows'. (The origin of this name will soon become obvious.) The window system is based on a pictorial representation of the guitar fingerboard as shown in figure.
The vertical lines represent the strings of the guitar, 6th, 5th, 4th and so on, reading from left to right. I have shown the top horizontal line as a double one, to indicate that it represents the nut, that is the point which divides the vibrating section of the strings from the part which goes on the tuning head. As you will see from the diagram of the guitar fingerboard on the opposite page, the frets are numbered downwards, 1st,2nd,3rd and so on. To show a chord in the window system it is merely necessary to add it's fingering to the basic diagram. Thus the first of our principal chords G is as shown below.

-CHORD WINDOW NO FINGERING

The circle on the 1st string shows the position at which the string should be pressed. The number inside the circle indicates that the third finger of the left hand should be used for this purpose, no other. It is important at this stage that you should use precisely the left-hand fingering indicated. To keep things as simple as possible I have given you only the four-string chord of G. Later on, when you learn the additional left-hand fingering that makes this chord into a six-string one, you may encounter unnecessary difficulty if you get into the habit of using the wrong fingers now.
-Chord Window G

Guitar Strings

A lot of players, not all of them beginners, take strings for granted. For them, the only reason for replacing a string is that is has broken. They go on indefinitely playing on strings that are discolored and rusty, their covering frayed and loose. And they wonder why they cannot produce a good tone!

Give your instrument a chance, Strings are literally its vocal chords, and the best guitar in the world won't sound good if it isn't stringed properly. In the course of begin played strings pick up dirt, grease and perspiration from the fingers of even the most fastidious player. I would not dream of picking up a guitar with dirty hands, but during he course of a three or four hours session, especially if the weather is warm or the room over-heated, everybody's hands perspire and some of that must end up on the strings.

I always wipe the strings of my guitar with a duster kept especially for that purpose after a playing session. Even so the underside of the plain strings picks up dirt and corrosion, and the covered strings absorb the same stuff in between the windings where it is impossible to wipe off. Imperceptibly at first, this deposit begins to dull the sound of the strings, getting gradually worse and worse as it accumulates. Added to this is the fact that after a time the action of the metal frets on the covered strings will cause them to fray. This will interfere with pitch and cause them to buzz.

They should never be allowed to deteriorate to that degree, and this one of the reasons why I say that you should not wait until a string breaks before replacing it. In fact, unless you're a very muscular player or just unlucky, you'll find that strings, particularly metal ones, break very seldom. Nylon strings have a habit of popping off during some quite moment with a sound like pistol shot and scaring the life out of you, because they are more sensitive to atmospheric changes.

A special note on 3rd strings. In the earlier post of this blog I recommended the use of a covered 3rd string on metal string guitars, because in those days uncovered 3rd string tended to play out of tune. Due to improvements in manufacture this condition no longer applies, and I have been quite happily using plain 3rds for some time on my metal stringed guitars as well as on my nylon stringed instruments.

These are just some of the bare bone facts about the guitar that you ought to know. You'll pick up a lot more as you go through this blog. But right now you must be anxious to start playing. So, if you've tuned your instrument, let's go to Title Types Of Guitars and get on with it!

About Electric Guitar

This is the instrument that is seen in a vast variety of forms in Rock, Heavy Metal, and even in Pop Groups etc.. and could in that sense be classed as the most popular guitar. The Electric Guitar is fitted with pickups like those on the Semi Acoustic, but as it consists of little more than a block of wood with a guitar neck attached it depends entirely on an amplifier for the production of sounds. For this reason a beginner buying an Electric Guitar must be prepared at the same time to go to the expenses of buying an amplifier, which could cost him as much or even more than the guitar itself. This begin so, I would no happily recommend a complete beginner to start off with an Electric Guitar.

Later on, well that's a different matter, because when it comes to group playing an Electric Guitar has several advantages. Firstly it is usually quite light in weight, which is a consideration if you are playing in a standing position all night with it hanging from your neck. Secondly, the action of an Electric Guitar can be made very light, which makes it easy to play, because there are mo structural acoustic properties to consider in the making of the body. The shape of an Electric guitar is limited only by the imagination of the maker, as will be seen from illustration C.

The third point about Electric guitars is that because there is no need of any consideration of acoustics in their construction a Electric Guitar with special electronic refinements, but there are a number of very reasonably priced copies of the original Les Paul model around that are quite adequate. Just bear in mind that without the help of an amplifier you Electric guitar will produce nothing more inspiring than a tiny 'Plink' - in contrast with an Acoustic, which you can play anywhere and produce a musical sound.