Food For Chord Thought

Music Theory Neck Notes, TAB, Chord & Scale Diagrams
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Some food for chord thought to think about!


View the full lesson at Food For Chord Thought | JustinGuitar

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I have come to very intersting conclusions about the chords . A lot of things about the chords suddenly made sense . I wont write them down so everyone does their exploring . Thanks Justin !!

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Just been going through the ‘what notes are in a chord’ questions and got them all right except ‘C’. I had the notes C E C, but looking at Chord Library | JustinGuitar.com it should be C E G, which doesn’t makes sense when checking out the notes on the neck.
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Have I got this completely wrong?

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Hi Stuart, any combination of the notes CEG will produce a C chord. In this instance you have 2 C notes and an E note plus the open G string ( G note) and also the open high e ( another E note).

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You need to see all the notes your playing not just the notes you put your fingers on. So if you look at your diagram you will see the open G as part of the chord.

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Thanks. Where does it say that C must have that combination of notes, when actually the notes played are C E G C E?

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I guess that’s where I got this exercise wrong. For some reason assumed that only the fretted notes where required!!

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I have gone back and re-done this and worked out all notes in the chords listed but not seeing the patterns or similarities between the notes in each chord?

I can see that an E chord has E notes in it (actually 3), an A chord has two A notes and a D chord has 2 D notes but not really seeing the pattern here.

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@Stuartw
Check this diagram and fill in the notes …
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Also know, vitally, all simple major and minor chords have three distinct notes, sometimes appearing more than once in the chord shape.
When you move to chord construction and triads this will make more sense.

Music theory, chord construction determines this.

The chords you learn at first are called ‘open chords’ because they make essential use of open strings and fretted strings. The open strings are just as important to the make-up of the chords.

Stuart, each of the five major chords in open position are different ‘shapes’.
There is a C shape, A shape, G shape, E shape and D shape.
Yes, that spells CAGED.
Due to their different shapes, the order of notes within them differs. They all have root note as the lowest note - albeit not always on the same string as each other. Sometimes the root is on string 6, or string 5 or string 4.
They all have three notes including the root. They all have repeats of some or all of the notes. They just have those notes appearing in different orders due to their different shapes.

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I hope that helps.

Cheers :smiley:

| Richard_close2u | JustinGuitar Official Guide, Approved Teacher & Moderator

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So working from the high E we have E C G E C.

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Yes, but ideally you want to work from lowest root ascending … C, E, G, C, E.

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Now where have I seen that before!! Thanks for the explanation. Still don’t ‘get’ all this but going to have a look at more theory and the CAGED system. May become clearer, maybe not, but expect more questions.

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Stuart, try not to let this unsettle you.
Maybe be happy with a silly analogy.
Consider these open chords as houses.
Each has a main living room. Each has a kitchen, a bathroom, bedrooms. Some have a reception room in addition to the living room. Some have en-suite in addition to the main bathroom. Some have extra bedrooms too. They are all homes where people live. :slight_smile:

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Is it just me, or did the site change b/w 2/27 and 2/28? Yesterday the quiz was such that it was presented as a PDF that could be printed and now it is exclusively web based. Not a big deal at all, but it also appears that module 3 now requires payment to be unlocked. Maybe it was always that way, but it is currently still shown without padlocks as if it were free and on the main page it also groups it with the free lessons, with the “subscribe to unlock full course” listing courses 4.1 and beyond only.

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Jared @jwilbanks
First of all welcome to the community. :grinning:
In response to your queries
Grade 3 onwards has always been behind the pay wall.
As regards the quiz as opposed to pdf I think the website must be in the process of updating. I use Google on my iPad and not come across any of the quiz’s yet and pdf still seem to be there.
Michael :notes:

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Thanks Michael! All good on both fronts. I was mostly just making sure I wasn’t losing my mind (still debatable :rofl:). Thoroughly enjoying these music theory courses and am definitely going to consider paying for the additional ones.

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Jared @jwilbanks
Been on the website today and the theory course seems to have been updated today as the quiz’s now seem to have appeared.
Michael

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Jared - the pdf versions are available in the free to download Workbooks here:

Grade 3 has always been the first of the subscription content.

Cheers
Richard

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Thanks Richard!