Gilbucci
Dude..for real?
I've just realized that I know barely any chords. I find it pretty hilarious that i havent put in the effort to learn any these past 10 months I've been playing. So, what should I know?
Chord's I should know
- Thread starter Gilbucci
- Start date
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a, b, ... c, d.. you get the idea
The Dark Wolf
Contributor
Wow. Well, depends on what you play. For jazz, forget it. 
You have to know many, many chords, and their harmonic movement within the scales.
For technical death metal, eh. Not so much, since it's mostly power chords and riffs. But harmonic themes and the relationship of pitches is pretty important, and that's the foundation of chord theory, so... doesn't hurt. Still, you won't need to sit down with Mel Bay's Big Book O' Chords if you go that route.
I'd say, offhand, know
1. Open position major/minor/7th chords.
2. Basic barre chords shapes - E maj/min, A maj/min, C major, maybe the D maj/min shapes. Hmm, those seem the most important, to me.
3. Learn about suspended chords (sus), which use what amounts to what they call "passing tones", or essentially temporary notes, that want to resolve to a more harmonious state within the chord. Like, playing a D major chord but you don't fret the 2nd fret high e string (F#). That's a D sus 2, since it "suspends" the e note, which is the second note in the D scale, when the chord wants the note to go to either D or F.
Learn what a triad is, first and foremost. Then understand what makes a chord major, minor, 7th, augmented, diminished, and then probably 9th, 11th, 13th, etc. (That part is easy)
Make sure you know the notes for your power chords, and inverted power chords (when you put the root on top). Also, I find partial triads useful, where you omit the fifth, and play the maj/min 3rd and the root.
Find a good online web resource to learn what you don't understand in my post, like this - http://www.8notes.com/guitar/ Got questions, ask away!
You have to know many, many chords, and their harmonic movement within the scales.For technical death metal, eh. Not so much, since it's mostly power chords and riffs. But harmonic themes and the relationship of pitches is pretty important, and that's the foundation of chord theory, so... doesn't hurt. Still, you won't need to sit down with Mel Bay's Big Book O' Chords if you go that route.
I'd say, offhand, know
1. Open position major/minor/7th chords.
2. Basic barre chords shapes - E maj/min, A maj/min, C major, maybe the D maj/min shapes. Hmm, those seem the most important, to me.
3. Learn about suspended chords (sus), which use what amounts to what they call "passing tones", or essentially temporary notes, that want to resolve to a more harmonious state within the chord. Like, playing a D major chord but you don't fret the 2nd fret high e string (F#). That's a D sus 2, since it "suspends" the e note, which is the second note in the D scale, when the chord wants the note to go to either D or F.
Learn what a triad is, first and foremost. Then understand what makes a chord major, minor, 7th, augmented, diminished, and then probably 9th, 11th, 13th, etc. (That part is easy)
Make sure you know the notes for your power chords, and inverted power chords (when you put the root on top). Also, I find partial triads useful, where you omit the fifth, and play the maj/min 3rd and the root.
Find a good online web resource to learn what you don't understand in my post, like this - http://www.8notes.com/guitar/ Got questions, ask away!
and the a,b,c,d,e,g 
Wow. Well, depends on what you play. For jazz, forget it.
For technical death metal, eh. Not so much, since it's mostly power chords and riffs. But harmonic themes and the relationship of pitches is pretty important, and that's the foundation of chord theory, so... doesn't hurt. Still, you won't need to sit down with Mel Bay's Big Book O' Chords if you go that route.
I'd say, offhand, know
1. Open position major/minor/7th chords.
2. Basic barre chords shapes - E maj/min, A maj/min, C major, maybe the D maj/min shapes. Hmm, those seem the most important, to me.
3. Learn about suspended chords (sus), which use what amounts to what they call "passing tones", or essentially temporary notes, that want to resolve to a more harmonious state within the chord. Like, playing a D major chord but you don't fret the 2nd fret high e string (F#). That's a D sus 2, since it "suspends" the e note, which is the second note in the D scale, when the chord wants the note to go to either D or F.
Learn what a triad is, first and foremost. Then understand what makes a chord major, minor, 7th, augmented, diminished, and then probably 9th, 11th, 13th, etc. (That part is easy)
Make sure you know the notes for your power chords, and inverted power chords (when you put the root on top). Also, I find partial triads useful, where you omit the fifth, and play the maj/min 3rd and the root.
Find a good online web resource to learn what you don't understand in my post, like this - http://www.8notes.com/guitar/ Got questions, ask away!
+1 And if your school has a jazz aband, consider joining it. You'll actually use a lot of these, and become more proficiant at changing between them. After a year and a half, I did just that, and I can honestly say that it's definatly helped.
I've never sat down with a book showing positions for chords. For the most part I've just figured things out by myself. When you understand how chords are formed (root + 4 semitones = maj3 + 3 semitones = perfect5, etc...) you can make them up anywhere you want without really thinking about it.
I just memorized as many shapes as I could in different positions.
It works when writing music but I wouldn't be able to improvise since I don't have actual progressions memorized and I would have to think about it on the spot.
It works when writing music but I wouldn't be able to improvise since I don't have actual progressions memorized and I would have to think about it on the spot.
Well, according to Vai, the aspiring virtuoso should be know and be able to play at least five different fingerings for major, minor, dominant, diminished and augmented chords, and in all twelve keys. Setting benchmarks like that for yourself is always a good way to monitor your progress. Really though, if you learn how chords are constructed, then you can go about analysing chords you like and working them into your memory, with different fingerings and whatnot. Just try not to overuse them, or you'll end up like that guy from Staind playing minor add9 chords til death, heh.
Nomad
Active Member
shadowgenesis
Yarrrrrr
arr. well if you know chord theory then you technically don't need to know any chords at all. You just need to know the intervals your strings are tuned to and you will be able to construct in virtually any way you want anywhere on the neck. Granted your fingers will require a lot of stretching, but developing your own, often odd, chord voicings can be really fun and an interesting way of expanding your horizons.
Once you get more proficient you could check out 'Chord Chemistry' by Ted Greene. There's A LOT of information to take in, but it's a great learning tool.
DaveCarter
Melowiddler
an absolute few essential: E7#9
see if you can spot this progression: Em7, Em9, Cmaj7, Asus2
and some of my own:
Dm7#5, Bm7#5, Cm7#5, G#m7, A#m7
E, F#m7add4, Emaj7/G#, Aadd9
Good place to start off
see if you can spot this progression: Em7, Em9, Cmaj7, Asus2
and some of my own:
Dm7#5, Bm7#5, Cm7#5, G#m7, A#m7
E, F#m7add4, Emaj7/G#, Aadd9
Good place to start off
Drew
Forum MVP
There's two ways to get a large chord vocabulary - you can either memorize like 200 chord shapes, or you can just learn how to put chords together. The former's important and the easiest place to start, but as soon as you can I recommend exploring the later. Also, you can have a lot of fun with open strings in chord progressions to add color - learn a bunch of moveable shapes, but also experiment with letting open strings ring through for more interesting changes. Here's the chorus for a song I'm working on:
The chords themselves aren't uber-interesting, but the open B and E strings ringing on the top are what makes this interesting - in order, it's Asus2-C#m7-B6add4-Eadd9/G#, with the last two chords going Dsus2add6-Dmadd9 on the 4th repeat. I couldn't necessarily come up with three or four more ways to play this on the fly without sitting down and working it out, but more importantly what makes these chords sound cool together is the droning open strings throughout (until you get to that last chord, where you add tension by bringing them up a few pitches).
I still need to write a chord construction lesson for this place.
Gilbucci
Dude..for real?
Please do. You're like...a genius, haha 
