Learn How To Play Guitar Inversions In This Guitar Lesson!

This lesson is about chord inversions. First, we will let you know what an inversion is and then give you a couple of inversion shapes to practice. In order to understand what an inversion is, you need to know what a root position chord is. A root position chord is simply a chord where the root note of the chord is the lowest note of the chord. An inversion is just a chord where any other note besides the root note of the chord is the lowest note of the chord. Lets look at an example. The notes in a G major chord are G, B, and D. If the lowest note in the G chord is a G note, you have a root position chord. If the lowest note in the G chord is a B or a D you have an inversion. Now lets look at the difference between a 1st inversion and a 2nd inversion chord. In our example, G is the root of the chord, B is the 3rd, and D is the 5th. If the 3rd of the chord is the lowest note, we call that a 1st inversion chord. If the 5th of the chord is the lowest note, we call that a 2nd inversion chord. Make a root position G chord by placing your 3rd finger on the 5th fret of the 4th string, 2nd finger on the 4th fret of the 3rd string, and 1st finger on the 3rd fret of the 2nd string. The note you are playing with your 3rd finger is the lowest note of the chord and it is a G. This is a root position chord. Now take your 3rd finger off of the 4th string and keep your other two fingers in place. Lay your 1st finger over the 3rd fret of the 1st string while keeping the 3rd fret of the 2nd string fretted as well. You should have a little bar going across the 1st and 2nd strings with your 1st finger. Play these three notes. The lowest note should be the B that you are playing with your 2nd finger on the 4th fret of the 3rd string. Now you are playing a 1st inversion G major chord because the B, or 3rd of the chord, is the lowest note. Learn about finger numbering and the string notes here! In the example we add a 4 and 5 chord to the 1 chord in the key of G. These chords are a C major and a D major. We will be using 2nd inversion shapes for these chords. Again, that just means that the 5th of the chord is the lowest note. Put your 1st finger on the 1st fret of the 2nd string and play the top three strings. This is a C major chord and the lowest note is a G, the 5th of the C major chord. That makes this chord a 2nd inversion C major chord. Place your 1st finger on the 2nd fret of the 3rd string, 2nd finger on the 2nd fret of the 1st string, and your 3rd finger on the 3rd fret of the 2nd string. Now play the top three strings again. This is a 2nd inversion D chord because the A note is the lowest note in the chord.

Play around with these inversions and see if you can come up with your own shapes. Knowing how to build chord inversions will help you to build your chord vocabulary and get to know the layout of the fretboard better.

Learn How To Play Major 9th Guitar Chords!

In this lesson we are going to learn how to make a major 9 chord. Major 9 chords are used a lot in jazz, swing, and blues music. They are nice sounding chords that can give your playing some more variety and texture. If you have not gone through the lessons on Major Guitar Chords and Major 7th Guitar Chords, I suggest that you watch them and make sure that you understand these lessons before continuing. This lesson will be in the key of C major and we have provided you with the chord diagram for the major 9 chord shape that we will be learning. As a quick review for you, the C major scale is spelled C, D, E, F, G, A, and B. If you have gone through the lessons mentioned above, you might already know that a C major 7th chord is spelled C, E, G, B. Think about this as just stacking a major third, C to E, a minor third, E to G, and another major third, G to B. In order to make a major 9 chord just stack another minor third on top of the B, or 7th, of the chord. A minor third away from B is D. D would be the major 9th of C. Just tag that note on to the C major 7th chord to get your C major 9 chord. The formula for a major 9 chord is root, 3, 5, 7, 9 and a C major 9 chord is spelled C, E, G, B, D. You can also think of it as stacking a major third, a minor third, another major third, and one more minor third. You can also look at make a major 9 chord as just adding a note to a major 7th chord that is a 9th away from the root of the chord. Fore example we are in the key of C and we are building a C major 9. Start counting up the C major scale, with C being one, all the way up to the ninth note. That would look like this: 1C, 2D, 3E, 4F, 5G, 6A, 7B, 8C, 9D. Notice that when you get to C again you just count it as eight and then count the D as nine. D is the 9th of C so just add a D note to the C major 7th chord. Try this voicing for a C major 9 chord. Place your 2nd finger on the 3rd fret of the 5th string. This is a C, your root note. Your 1st finger should go on the 2nd fret of the 4th string. This note is an E, the 3rd of the chord. Grab the 4th fret of the 3rd string with your 4th finger. This is a B, the 7th of the chord. Play the last note in this chord shape with your 3rd finger on the 3rd fret of the 2nd string. This last note is a D, the 9th of the chord. You might notice that we left out the 5th of the chord, the G note. There is a good reason for this. Often in jazz, or other kinds of music where there are a lot of things going on harmonically, you can leave out the 5th or root of a chord and it will sound just as good or better than it did if you included it. Thick chords like this can easily get muddy, especially if you have a keyboard player and a bass player that are already playing the 5th or root of the chord.

This shape is movable so play it up and down the fretboard until you are comfortable with it. Come up with your own major 9 chord voicings and start using them in your playing. Try substituting some major 9 chords for some major 7 chords is music that you are already playing.

Learn How To Play Minor 7th Guitar Chords!

In this guitar lesson we are going to take a look at how minor 7 chords are made. Before you go any further in this lesson you should make sure that you know how major and minor triads are made. If you dont, go back and check out the lessons Major Guitar Chords and Minor Guitar Chords. If you already know how major and minor chords are made you can jump right in. We are going to cover two ways that you can think about building minor 7 chords. Those two ways are stacking thirds or altering the notes of a major 7 chord. Lets start with stacking thirds. Take a look at an A minor triad for an example. An A minor triad is spelled A C E. If you have made it this far in the lesson you probably know that the formula for a minor chord is root, lowered 3rd, 5th. You probably also know that the distance from the root to the lowered third is a minor 3rd, and the distance from the lowered 3rd to the 5th is a major 3rd. To make a minor 7th chord you just need to add another minor third starting from the 5th of the chord. If we stick with our A minor example this note would be a G. An A minor 7 chord would be spelled A C E G. Now lets take a look at how to make an A minor 7 chord by altering the notes in an A major 7 chord. Make an A major 7 chord by taking the root, 3rd, 5th and 7th of the A major scale. These notes are A C# E and G#. The interval from the root to the 3rd is a major 3rd, from the root to the 5th is a perfect 5th, and from the root to the 7th is a major 7th. All you have to do to make an A major 7 chord into an A minor 7 chord is lower the 3rd and the 7th one half step each. Lower the C# and the G# of the A major 7 chord one half step to a C and a G. You are basically making the major 3rd into a minor 3rd and the major 7th into a minor 7th. Now we have A C E and G, the notes in a minor 7 chord. Put this in to practice by making an A major 7 chord and turning it into an A minor 7 chord. Place your 4th finger on the 7th fret of the 4th string, 3rd finger on the 6th fret of the 3rd string, 2nd finger on the 5th fret of the 2nd string, and 1st finger on the 4th fret of the 1st string. This is an A major 7th chord. All we need to do to make this into an A minor 7 chord is lower the 3rd and 7th one half step each. In this chord shape you are playing the 3rd, or the C#, with you 3rd finger and the 7th, or G#, with your 1st finger. Now I will give you the chord shape for the A minor 7 chord that we get when we lower the C# and G#. Keep your 4th finger on the 7th fret of the 4th string. Place your 2nd finger on the 5th fret of the 3rd string, 3rd finger on the 5th fret of the 2nd string, and 1st finger on the 3rd fret of the 1st string. Notice how the C# and G# just move down one fret even though the fingering changed quite a bit.

This is really cool for understanding how minor 7 chords are made, but it is not very practical. Check out the chord diagrams we have given you to learn more practical shapes for minor 7 chords. Remember that these chords are movable.

Learn How To Play Common Chord Progressions On The Guitar!

In this guitar lesson we are going to be going over some of the more common chord progressions that you will see over and over again in pop, rock, blues and a lot of other styles of music. We will cover six different progressions. Five of them will be in the key of G major and the last one will be in the key of E minor. Both G major and E minor have the same key signature which is one sharp, F#. I will write out the G major scale and the chords that are in that key for you now. The G major scale is spelled 1G 2A 3B 4C 5D 6E 7F#. The chords in the key of G major are 1 G major, 2 A minor, 3 B minor, 4 C major, 5 D major, 6 E minor, and 7 F# diminished. Now that we know the notes and chords in the key of G major lets take a look at our first progression. The 145 progression is a super common progression that you will hear all over the place. Since we are in the key of G major all you have to do in order to build this progression is pick out the 1, 4 and 5 chords. Those chords would be G major, C major and D major. Try Playing through this progression using any chord shapes that you like. The 251 progression is usually though of as jazz progression but you can find it in just about any other kind of music too. A 251 progression in the key of G would be A minor, D major and G major. Try playing through this progression using several different chord voicings for each chord. Lets add two chords to the 251 progression to come up with a 36251. If you add the 3 and the 6 to the 251 that you just built you would end up the B minor, E minor, A minor, D major and G major. The 1564 chord progression is really popular in pop and contemporary church music. G major, D major, E minor and C major make up the 1564 progression in the key of G major. The 1 b7 4 chord progression uses a chord that does not occur naturally in the key of G. G major is the 1 chord. The b7 chord is an F major. Normally the 7 chord in the key of G major would be an F# diminished chord but this time we are going to lower, or flat, the 7th scale degree one half step to an F natural and use a major chord to go with it. Finally, C major will be the 4 chord. Play through this progression a few times and see if you start to recognize it from some of the songs that you have heard. Lets shift gears a bit and look at a minor blues progression in the key of E minor. A minor 145 blues progression in the key of E minor would be E minor, A minor and B7. I

love to practice improvising over this progression. Try playing through and even recording this progression. Once you have it recorded you can use it as a play along track to practice your improvising. All of these progressions are used quite often in many different styles of music. Keep an ear out for these progressions and see if you can identify them in some of the music that you enjoy listening to. If you are a writer you can try out some of these progressions with some lyrics that you already have.