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How To Play All Of The Major Chords
Okay, we've looked at the four patterns that form any 7th chord.
Now let's look at major chords. It works pretty much the same way.
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Figure 14.
One pattern for three
different major chords
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Figure 15.
Another major chord
pattern
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Figure 16.
Yet another major
chord pattern
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Figure 17.
Still yet another
major
chord pattern
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As with the 7th chords, there are a few optional fingering choices:
the D major chord can leave the first string unfretted (both an "A" and
a "D" are part of the D major chord). Same for the Eb chord fourth
string and G chord fourth string. The fingerings shown emphasize
the repetitive patterns that form the major chords.
| UNIMPORTANT (but interesting) POINT: Since an F chord and a G
chord look so different on a chord chart, it's a little surprising that
these two chords are actually played using the same pattern, as Figure
17 shows! It's just that you usually play the G chord without fretting
the fourth string (thus duplicating the second string's note instead of
duplicating the first string's note), and you play the F chord allowing
the nut to finger the first and third strings for you. But fundamentally,
underneath it all, it's the same pattern. |
And, as we did with the 7th chords, we can use any of the four patterns
to form any of the twelve major chords, by moving these patterns up and
down the fretboard. As an example, let's look at how the Bb chords
can be formed:
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Figure 18.
All the Bb major
chords
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You can see that there's a lot of overlap between the third and fourth
position Bb chords. So let's use a dotted line to make it a little
more clear that the two patterns are separate.
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Figure 19.
All the Bb major
chords
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Note that the fifth and sixth positions of chord are just the first
and second positions shifted up one octave.
And, just like we did with the 7th chords, we can shift the major chord
pattern sequence up the fretboard, creating the other major chords.
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Figure 20.
The major chords
in different keys
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