Turning a Chord on its Head with Major Chord Inversions

The most common way to play a chord is known as the root position, meaning the root of the chord is the lowest note played, with the third and fifth notes above it.

But you don’t always have to play chords that way, in fact you can use either the third or fifth note as the lowest tone and it will still sound fine.

Before we get into that, let’s back up and look at things in a bit more detail:

7th Chords for Guitar

We’ve talked a little bit about major and minor chords, and now I want to talk about the next most common category of chords – 7th chords.

Seventh chords are used in all kinds of music, but they’re most commonly found in rock, blues and jazz.

Putting the Pieces Together

A typical major chord is built on three tones, the root, third and fifth of a given major scale. In the case of a G major scale, the notes will be G B and D.

Seventh chords add one more note – you guessed it, the 7th. In this post we’ll look at the three most common types of 7th chords, the dominant 7th, the major 7th and the minor 7th.

Unlocking CAGED Chords

By now, most of you know how to play the easy guitar chords.

I mean the standard C, A, G, E and D chords (some call them “cowboy chords” in reference to their use in country and western music) that a lot of people learn when they start taking guitar lessons.

These chords are great by themselves, you can play a lot of songs with just 2, 3 or 4 chords.

However, after listening to the same old open chords for awhile they can sound repetitive and lose their appeal. The secret is in…

Learn How to Play Guitar Chords

For the majority of songs you’ll play (I’d say all of them unless you’re a lead guitarist,) you’ll need to learn how to play guitar chords. I’m going to guide you through the most common guitar chords you’ll come across, which is a selection of the Open Major, Minor, Seventh, and Barre chords.

If you’ve never picked up a guitar before, and have no idea where to start, check out my guide on Easy guitar chords for beginners. Then come back here and learn all the major, minor, 7ths, and Barre chords, equip yourself with all the tools you’ll need to play those guitar songs.

Easy Guitar Chords for Beginners

It’s interesting for the beginner guitarist, you’re always going to be taught the Open position of chords (that is some strings are played without you placing a finger on any fret) I find it a funny situation because once you learn how to play barre chords you need to remember less, but it’s harder on your fingers. Open chords are easier on your fingers, and help to build your strength and dexterity but can be harder to change between and remember.

This guide on Easy guitar chords for beginners covers how to read chord diagrams and the easiest of the Open Major Chords. For a full set of guitar chords check out my Learn how to play guitar chords guide.

The I-IV-V Chord Progression

Songwriting is all about choosing the right chords to make your song sound just the way you want it. But you might be surprised to learn that choosing chords at random is not the best way to make a tune sound good. There are standard and not so standard chord progressions that you can use as you write a song and harmonize it.

The single most common chord progression you can learn is the I, IV, V progression. You can hear this progression all over the place in songs of just about any style.

Learn Power Chords

Power chords are one of the most popular chord forms used in popular music today. The use of power chords originated with the blues and is now most commonly heard in rock,pop and and heavy metal music.

Power chords are an essential element in the tool box of any aspiring guitarist. Fortunately, they are very easy to learn and can be played anywhere on the guitar neck. I’ll explain in detail what a power chords is, how to play power chords and then we’ll give it a try using an excerpt from Eric Clapton’s famous song, “Cocaine”.

Learning Guitar Chords – Top 10 Mistakes

Your fingers are being introduced to fretboard and string, they fumble around and make mistakes, they’re sore, tired and sick of being told what to do.

It’s your job to dig in, because I can assure you all the effort, cursing and determination is worth it in the end.

Take a look at the 10 most common mistakes I have seen from my own experience learning and teaching guitar.

B Chord Guitar

The Easiest Method for How to Play a B Chord on Guitar…

The B power chord – properly referred to as a root-fifth chord – represents the starting point for most power chord progressions.

The 5th string provides the root note of each succeeding chord. The B chord is among the easiest to fret. There are some ways to compensate for weak fingers and, although they are not proper technique, they can provide a way to get clear tone out of the chord and to provide an extra bit of strength when one has been playing for a while.

Chords and Rhythm

Learning the basic guitar chords is the quickest and easiest way to get you playing along to your favourite songs and sounding like a real guitar player. If you like to sing, being able to accompany yourself by strumming chords on an acoustic guitar is a fairly easy skill to learn and have you sounding great in a fairly short period of time.

Learning Guitar Chords

When you first start learning chords, the quickest and easiest to pick up are called the open chords. These are the basic chords that everybody learns when they first start on guitar. The chords are fairly easy on your fingers and are all up at the top of the neck. You can go a long way as a rhythm guitarist just by knowing the open major and minor chords.

CAGED chords

The next step is learning how to move the open chord shapes up and down the neck using barre chords. The most common major barre chords use the A and E shapes while holding down all the strings one or two frets above the shape using the first finger of your left hand. You can adapt the shapes of the open C, A, G, E, and D chords in this way, hence the term CAGED chords.

Just like the major chords there are various minor chord shapes that you can use either open or as a barre chord as well. Depending on the type of music you’re playing, they’re a little less common, but important to know as well.

7th Chords

Once you know the major and minor chords, you’ll want to add a little more colour to your playing by adding some of the other chord types as well. The most common of these are the 7th chords. 7th chords can be major, minor, dominant or even diminished.

As you might expect, 7th chords differ from regular major or minor chords by adding the 7th note to the chord, giving the chord its characteristic sound.

Chord Inversions

Another way to spice up your rhythm guitar playing is to use different inversions of the various chords. By changing which note you place on the bottom of each chord, you change the inversion of the chord and each inversion has its own particular sound.

Strumming Patterns

Finally, rhythm playing requires you to have a rock solid strumming technique. There are a wide variety of strumming patterns that you can use, but they’re all based on having a good sense of the “feel” of the song and applying some basic rules.

Becoming a good rhythm guitar player, like being a good lead player is all about understanding the song and using your musicianship skills to ensure that your part fits in seamlessly with the rest of the band.