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10 Effective Ways to Change Chords Easily

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!

How to Play Guitar and Sing at The Same Time

By Klaus Crow 6 Comments

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Learning to play and sing at the same time can be challenging in the beginning, but this is a skill you can definitely learn. Once you know how to play some chords and strum a few songs, the next step is to sing along with the rhythm you’re playing. It’s a great feeling being able to play and sing at the same time.

Developing this skill will open up a whole new world for you. You can entertain friends and family or learn to perform and play for an audience. For me it’s also a feeling of freedom. Whenever I feel like it, I pick up my guitar and start playing and singing my favorite songs. It makes me feel good instantly.

Learning to play and sing at the same time is tough in the beginning, but if you follow the tips below and practice regularly you will get the hang of it.

Work hard, have fun and reap the benefits!

1. Start easy

First things first. Pick a song you like and something that is easy to play. A familiar song with easy chords and an easy strumming pattern.

2. Listen first

Before you start trying to play and sing simultaneously you first need to listen to the song quite a few times. Listen to the song on your iPod, iPad or whatever device you prefer, until you know the song inside out. Listen to the melody, listen to the lyrics, listen to the guitar and listen to the beat of the song. Try to count the beats. You can do this by listening to the kick (bass drum) and snare of the drummer.

How to Play and Apply Sus2 and Sus4 Chords

By Klaus Crow 20 Comments

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Sus2 and sus4 chords are very often used in music to embellish chords and chord progressions.

It’s an easy way of adding some extra flavor to a chord and give you a little space to mess around with that chord.

Especially when you have to play a chord for several consecutive measures in a song and you don’t want to get bored out of your mind, it’s nice to implement a sus4 or sus2 here and there to spice things up a bit.

Chord Analysis

To understand what a sus chord really is and how it operates you have to know a little bit of music theory. A normal major chord consists of the root, 3rd and 5th notes of the major scale (1-3-5). If we take the C major scale for example: C D E F G A B C and you take the root (1st), 3rd and 5th note of that scale you get C-E-G. The minor chord consists of the root, flat 3rd and 5th notes of the major scale (1-b3-5) and becomes C-Eb-G. Here’s where the sus chords comes in…

The sus4 chord consists of the root, 4th and 5th notes of the major scale (1-4-5) = C F G. You can see that the sus4 chord (“sus” stands for “suspended”.) replaces the third with the fourth note.

The sus2 chord consists of the root, 2nd and 5th notes of the major scale (1-2-5) = C D G. The sus2 chord replaces the third with the second note.

By removing the 3rd in a chord, the chord becomes neither major nor minor, as the 3rd determines the happy major or sad minor sound. Therefor sus chords can be applied to both major and minor chords.

Chords in practice

Suspended chords have the tendency to resolve. The four and fifth in a sus4 chord creates tension and so does the second and root in a sus2 chord. That’s why sus chords are often played in combination with their parent chord.

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