Chords Archives - Page 11 of 15

10 Vital Tips to Get Your Chords Sound Clean and Clear

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The biggest challenge for the beginner and sometimes even the intermediate guitar player is to make chords sound clean and clear.

I still remember the frustration struggling with the C and F major chord. Like it would never gonna work.

I kept practicing every day and then all of a sudden there it was. The chord sounded perfectly clear. It felt like it happened out of the blue, but I knew it was the result of lots of practice. It was my first guitar victory.

To get a good sounding chord there are several things you need to pay attention to, observe, apply and check repeatedly.

Good sounding chords is not an overnight thing. It’s also not the hardest thing in the world but it takes time, regular practice and perseverance.

If you implement these 10 tips during practice you will definitely get there. Practicing will be a lot more effective and results are just around the corner.

Here are they keys:

1 – Bend your knuckles
Make sure to bend all your knuckles (1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th). Avoid any straight fingers, they can cause your chords to sound muffled. The only time you can straighten your finger is when you need to bar a chord. (barre chords)

2 – As close to the fret as possible.
Place your fingers as close to the fret as possible. Don’t place your fingers on the fret (metal fret wire), it causes buzzing. Not every chord allows all fingers to be placed right behind the fret (for example: A major chord), but try to place them as close as possible.Continue Reading

10 Solid Reasons to Learn New Chords Now and How

By Klaus Crow 8 Comments

You might already know a bunch of chords. You can play a good number of songs and you’re doing just fine. You don’t want to burden yourself any more than necessary.

Why would you need to continue to learn and memorize new chords? You can look them up right?

Right and wrong!

When you are writing or creating and your mind doesn’t have that big beautiful chord vocabulary, your imagination can’t benefit from all this creativity that is going on inside your head and you’re holding back from your true potential. You’ve got the creativity, but you’re missing the input.

Also when you’re playing guitar in a band you want to feel confident right? You want to be a pro, so act like a pro. Study and learn as much as you can. Be in control of your game. It builds confidence and increases the fun.

Let’s work on it!

Here are the 10 reasons to keep learning new chords and how to go about it.

10 Effective Ways to Change Chords Easily

By Klaus Crow 21 Comments

For most beginner guitar players the first goal is to play an easy song. To do this you need a couple of things:

A guitar, some chords, a strumming pattern and a smooth chord transition. The latter is the tricky part.

Changing chords while maintaining a steady rhythm pattern is the biggest challenge on the path of the beginner.

It’s often a struggle and hard work to make the chord transition sound any good. It almost feels like it’s something that can not be done, but nothing could be further from the truth.

A smooth transition of changing chords is something that does take time and effort, but with the right tips and tricks you will get there a lot faster and make it work as it should.

Time to get this baby up and running!

Here are 10 effective tips:

1 – Work on chords first

Before you start changing chords, first focus on perfecting your chords and chord movement.

– Learn the 8 most important chords for beginners
– Work on each chord separately.
– Visualize the shape of the chord.
– Place your fingers in the shape of the chord and try to move all your fingers simultaneously.
– Land all your fingers on the strings at the same time (press with the very tips of your fingers).
– Remove your hands from the strings and repeat the exercise 10 times.
– Try it with a different chord each time.

How to Play The Most Common Types of 7th Chords

By Klaus Crow 6 Comments

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7th chords are over the place in every style of music.

There is the dominant 7th chord which is the main ingredient for blues and the major 7th chord which you can find a lot in jazz music, but also chords like the minor 7b5 and diminished 7 are part of the jazz chord vocabulary.

Well to be honest, I don’t think there is a 7th chord that you don’t find in jazz music.

The minor 7 and dominant 7 chords are very common in pop music and also the major 7 is not unusual. Today we’ll discuss the most common types of 7th chords in music.

For each 7th chord you can see four examples (see images below). The first two chords on the left are open chord shapes (containing open strings) and the two chords on the right are moveable chord shapes (containing no open strings). The first moveable chord has the root on the low E-string and the second has the root on the A-string. I’ll explain…

A moveable chord can be moved all across the neck and played in every key. For example if you take the Gmaj7 chord (see image below, third chord from the left). The note on the low E-string is your root note. In this example it’s a G note. If you move the entire chord up a half step (1 fret) it becomes a G#maj7 chord. Your root note has now moved up to the 4th fret low E-string which is a G# note. (So if your root note is a G# note that means your chord is G#maj7. Move the entire chord up another half step your root note becomes an A note so your chord becomes Amaj7.

The same applies for the moveable Cmaj7 chord shape (fourth chord from the left). Here the root note is on the A-string. The root note is on the third fret A-string which is a C note, so it’s a Cmaj7 chord. Move the entire chord up a whole step (2 frets) your root note becomes a D note so your chord becomes Dmaj7.

You can do this with all the other moveable chord shapes as well.

Tips:
– Practice and memorize all the common types of 7th chords shown below.
– Play songs with 7th chords to hear and recognize how they are applied.
– Locate the root of the moveable chord shapes and practice them in different keys.

Okay, it’s time to expand your chord vocabulary!

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