Guitarists play chords. It is perhaps the most common role of guitarists, across genres, levels of experience, and styles. A beginner can start making meaningful music with just two chords, while a jazz nerd can explore chords in search for unique and interesting harmonies and sounds.

All of this is to say that chords form a very important part of every guitarist’s arsenal.

Before we go on, let me give you a bit of an introduction as to what this lesson is about. This lesson is actually the first lesson in a series of lessons. In this series of lessons, we’re going to explore chords, from the absolute basics of what chords are an`d how they’re used, to some quite advanced concepts, such as playing jazz chords and constructing your own voicings. Here is a list of the lessons in this series. Links will be updated as the lessons are posted:

• Basic chords (this lesson)
• Barre chords
• Suspended chords
• Essential jazz chords
• The complete guide to guitar chord names
• Drop 2 chords

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In this lesson we’re going to explore how you can take one chord and play it in many different unique ways.

In the previous lesson on triads and inversions, we learned how to form the major and minor triad and play inversions on the first three strings. Here’s a brief summary of that lesson.

The Major Triad

The Major triad is made up of the 1, 3 and 5 of the major scale. For example, the C Major triad contains the following notes:

C – E – G

The minor triad is made up of the 1, b3 and 5 of the major scale. For example, the C minor triad contains the following notes:

C – Eb – G

In the previous lesson, we constructed these basic triads and inversions using the first three strings of the guitar, like this:

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There is something awesome about fingerstyle guitar. For me, the power and beauty of this style lies in the fact that it is largely a solo-guitar genre. Many fingerstyle pieces are designed to be played by one guitarist only.

Although it is often referred to as ‘Classical Guitar’, I think this name sells it short and connotes a style that is old and boring. In reality, classical guitar is simply about playing pieces of music, by yourself, using your fingers. There’s nothing boring about that!

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If you’ve never used the fingerstyle technique before, you’re missing out. A lot of guitarists decide early on when learning, whether they’ll be a ‘picking guitarist’ or a ‘fingerpicking guitarist’. The truth is, you don’t have to limit yourself to one or the other. Both techniques have unique benefits and advantages and you can easily develop both of them at the same time.

Pick Vs Fingerpicking?

So what is fingerpicking? Well firstly, most guitarists play the guitar by using a pick. It’s pretty simple – the right hand (assuming we’re talking about a right-handed guitarist) holds a pick and every note is played with a stroke of the pick. Fingerpicking, on the other hand does away with the pick and uses the right-hand thumb as well as three fingers, to strike the strings.

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This lesson is a follow up to the lesson on figuring out the seven chords in any key. In that lesson, we took the major scale and stacked 3rds on each degree of the scale, to produce seven chords that could be transposed in any key.

Here is a brief summary of the lesson.

The Major scale has seven notes. If we build triads on each note of the major scale, by stacking them in 3rds, we get the following seven chords:

Maj – min – min – Maj – Maj – min – dim

Here is an example in the key of C:

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How many chords do you need to know? That’s sort of a ‘how long is a piece of string?’ question, but in this case there is an answer, depending on what you’re trying to achieve.

There are 15 chords that when mastered, will allow you to play thousands upon thousands of songs. These 15 chords are ‘open chords’, which means they’re played in the first position, and use at least some open strings. There are 15 open chords that just happen to get used more than the others. It’s basically the 80/20 rule – most of the time, we use a small percentage of available chords.

Because these 15 chords are relatively easy to play, and because the open strings give them a beautiful, resonating character, they get used most often, which makes them more popular. It’s a self-perpetuating cycle.

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