Tip on Finding Notes in Chord Shapes

[SunnyDee]

Originally Posted by SunnyDee

For example, the shape of a major scale that starts on the high E is the same shape for a minor scale that starts on B, so the same finger shapes that make triads from any of those roots will be used for every single major or minor scale anywhere on the neck.

...

Additionally, there are only 2 other possible shapes for maj/min scales on those 3 strings. For all of these scales all up and down the fretboard, all of the maj/min triads can be made with only 6 finger shapes, add 3 more and you can play all diminished chords, too. It will easily adapt to other scales, blues, Hungarian, Persian, whatever.

In case anyone wants to see a pic of what I'm saying here, these are just little drawings I made myself. I'll make better ones on the computer if anyone is interested.

The orange line is always the B string to show me where the pattern for 3rds changes.

This one shows the 6 finger shapes that would be needed to form all possible major and minor triads with the scale degrees for each on the first 3 strings. It also reminds me that how the triads are formed, the major triads are formed with a maj3rd/min3rd, that's the 4/3, 4 semitones/3semitones, etc. It also throws in the diminished shapes. Capital M always means major, little m is minor. These are always done from a left-handed point of view so flip it if it bothers you.

http://www.dbepub.com/wp-content/OPE...d%20shapes.jpg

This one shows 2 of the 3 possible maj/min scale shapes (the numbers are the scale degrees 1-7) and how I have color coded the finger shapes to remind me where my fingers go while I'm learning. It also shows how a maj scale starting on the E is equal to a minor on the B, etc. I always mark the tonic with orange. It's just my thing.

EDIT: You could, of course, shift up or down from the tonic and change these scale shapes, the relationships would be the same, but since 3 will give you all the notes within easy reach, let's go with that.

http://dbepub.com/wp-content/OPEN/scaleshapes.jpg

Anyway, if it helps, great. If it confuses, just try something else, there are so many ways to approach these ideas. Good luck!

If anyone knows of another resource that teaches this same information this way, please let me know. I didn't find anything like it and I'm interested in seeing other approaches. Can you tell I'm a teacher in a real life?

[SunnyDee]

I've added a pic of the original idea showing the voicings.

http://dbepub.com/wp-content/OPEN/voicing.jpg

It's a lefty pic, flip it if it bothers you. We have to do it all the time.

[amyFB]

Try this fresh sheet I did this morning :

The 5 and 6 strings are not played (unless they happen to align with the chord notes)


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[SunnyDee]

Originally Posted by amyFB

Try this fresh sheet I did this morning : [IMG]

The 5 and 6 strings are not played (unless they happen to align with the chord notes)


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Oh, yes, I see what you mean now. I think of most of these as the "bottoms" of barre chord shapes. Good deal! Thanks!
I added some pics, too, thanks for the inspiration.

[amyFB]

Originally Posted by SunnyDee

Oh, yes, I see what you mean now. I think of most of these as the "bottoms" of barre chord shapes. Good deal! Thanks!
I added some pics, too, thanks for the inspiration.

Triads is how I broke free of barre chords that were limiting my play time because it hurts to play them for long.

i had mistakenly played ONLY barre chords for a long time, thought I was the cat's meow.

It was in a workshop led by Pete Kennedy that introduced triads to me and it's made ALL THE DIFFERENCE in my playing.

[SunnyDee]

Originally Posted by amyFB

Triads is how I broke free of barre chords that were limiting my play time because it hurts to play them for long.

i had mistakenly played ONLY barre chords for a long time, thought I was the cat's meow.

It was in a workshop led by Pete Kennedy that introduced triads to me and it's made ALL THE DIFFERENCE in my playing.

Good idea. They physical side of playing is by far the biggest obstacle for me. If you played only barres, had you tried just playing part of them, so you could use the same shapes? That's kinda what you are doing with these shapes, isn't it? Or maybe I'm confused. Looking at right-handed chords will sometimes confuse me. But I think this is nicely related to the idea of the voicing that I started this with because, for example in the 6 string barre shape, 158358, you can see that you are always going to have the same note on the 4th string as the tonic so you could always play the bottom part of a 6-string barre to get the same chord on 4 strings, iow, you could always play the bottom 4 strings as 1358, then it's voiced the same way the G-shapes are.

Illustration: http://dbepub.com/wp-content/OPEN/4stringvoicing.jpg

This is another example of how knowing the voicing is so helpful. I'm glad you pointed this out so I could think about it more clearly.

[SunnyDee]

AmyFB inspired me to make a cheat sheet of my own using our voicing trick and triads with the tonic on D. This shows how starting with the tonic on the D string, you can use just 3 shapes to create all major/minor/dim chords. Easy to remember and easy to understand how they differ, I think.

If you put the major shape on the 5th fret, the note on the D string is G so that's a Gmajor. If you put the minor shape on the 7th fret, the note is A, so that's an Am.

http://dbepub.com/wp-content/OPEN/4stringshapes.jpg

To help draw connections, you might want to notice that these are the same as the bottoms of barre chords and the same as the triads I showed where the tonic is on the high e string. Same shapes, same notes, same chords. This is the magic of the layout of the intervals on the fretboard.

[Burzum1349]

Well this is incredibly funny Sunny, I watched that video last month as well and am working my way through his understanding chords series.

[SunnyDee]

Originally Posted by Burzum1349

Well this is incredibly funny Sunny, I watched that video last month as well and am working my way through his understanding chords series.

LicknRiff? He doesn't explain things all that cleanly, but he has some good info.