Why is a chord a chord? It’s a question philosophers have grappled with since the beginning of time. Ok, not really, but it is the subject of this lesson. Guitarists have a great dependence on chords. Many guitarists put themselves into the ‘rhythm-guitarist’ category and decide that that’s all they’ll ever learn. But for all the …
Most guitarists play chords by learning shapes. By learning commonly used shapes, you have the tools to play thousands of songs. This is a great way to enter the world of chords and start playing music.
One of the downfalls of this is that it is very easy to learn how to play chords, without knowing exactly what chords are. In this lesson, we are going to break down exactly what chords are, by exploring triads.
What would you do if you had to improvise a guitar solo and had never done it before? Let’s say you were in a band situation and you only had a few minutes to figure out what you were going to do.
Analysing a chord progression and figuring out which scales should be used at different points can be tricky. It can also be hard to execute scales on the fly, while being musical and sounding confident. The hardest thing for guitarists who are just starting out with improvising, is just that – getting started. I often teach students who simply want to know what to do, when jamming in a certain key with friends, or who are asked to take a solo in an ensemble.
For these reasons, I think it’s good to have a basic battle plan. A kind of simple rule of thumb that can work as a starting point, but can also be your go-to tool when improvising.
If you’ve been reading up on the many lessons relating to scales on this site, you will most likely know the importance of learning scales in five positions (known as the CAGED system).
By learning scales in five positions, we cover the entire fretboard, which allows us to play any given scale no matter what position we are in.
But what about arpeggios? Do they work in the same way?
One of the reasons why strumming can be a difficult and confusing topic for beginners is because in popular music, the pros rarely strum the same rhythm from bar to bar. This is because there is a natural variation that usually occurs with strumming. It is not necessarily a conscious thing, in fact, it’s almost always subconscious. But it makes the beginner’s task a lot harder.
So why learn a whole range of pieces with repeated rhythms if the pros rarely play the same thing twice in a row? The reason is that the only way you can learn to vary rhythms is by learning to control them to begin with. Also, by learning a lot of specific rhythms, you are building up your ‘rhythm repertoire’ and you are learning the principles that will allow you to embellish freely.
This piece is from the book ‘open chords made easy‘. If you have read the extracted lessons from the book, you should be able to read and play the piece.
This piece contains a chord chart and strumming guide.
The melody has also been included, although this is effectively a bonus and is not related to the lessons in this series.