by Brian Autumn

Who this is for: Guitar players looking to understand chords.

Prerequisite: Know how to play a G Major open chord. Have basic knowledge of intervals.

The problem with a lot of beginner guitar books and lessons is that they do not show the underlying mechanics of how chords work, or what they even are. In this tutorial, we’ll take a chord, and by analyzing its contents, we can easily manipulate it to create more exciting sounding chords. Any musician should have working knowledge of how chords work so this short lesson will help you experiment with a chord you already know!

Guitarists need to know what every note in their chord voicing is functioning as. For this tutorial, we will simply use a G major open chord as a reference, because most guitar players seem to know this chord from early on. In this first illustration a G major triad is shown, usually as it would be in most chord books.



The problem with this however, is that we do not really know what is going on here. A triad in western harmony contains three parts, A root, a third, and a fifth. The root of this basic chord, is lowest note. Red will label the root. Notice that there are various instances of the root in this chord. All of them are essentially doing the same thing.



To build a G major triad, only one root is needed, but in this case the extra root notes will just give it a more pronounced G sound (G is the root). The next illustration will show where the third and the fifth are.

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Making quick, clean, and efficient chord changes is another hallmark of a good guitarist that people want to hear. There really no excuse for sloppy playing that can sound wrong notes and muted notes. So? How can you improve? Well, here are some practice tips to get good at chord changes so it becomes second nature. Take the major chords illustrated above. Start with just switching between two of them if you have to.

1. Slow Down

Teaching the motor skills of your hand the correct way to make chord changes is vital. So slow down your practice and focus making chord changes flawlessly strum after strum. Once the correct method is ingrained in your fingers, then you can ramp up speed.

2. Use Your Fingers as a Single Unit

This is one the most important ideas or techniques that helped me with making clean chord changes. The key here is not to let single fingers lead or be the first touch the strings of a new chord. Concentrate on lifting all your fingers as one unit and placing them as one unit as the next chord. It may take some time to teach you hand to do this, but it will be worth it. Also, lift you fingers off the fretboard the smallest distance you can to make comfortable chord changes. The less distance you hand has to travel, the faster you can play.

3. Strum in Time

Use a metronome set to a bpm that you can make clean chord changes. Then ramp up speed as you develop. If you don’t have one … use this online metronome or download one here.

4. Strum to Rhythm

Using a rhythm to strum to will keep you honest and be able to evaluate if you make your chord changes correctly. If you strum to 4/4. Use all down strokes to start with. For instance, say your using E-A chords.


Play:
E – E – E -E – A – A – A – A

Remember, slow down and move all your fingers as one. Focus on a seamless change from E to A in time.

I hope these tips will help you improve your ability to make clean chord changes that sound good. If there’s a technique or method that helped you with making chord changed, please make a comment and share your thoughts.