[ljguitar]

Originally Posted by carl365

…Just asking to give me a realistic perspective on my learning.

Hi carl...
I like Hotspurs breaking out chords in each 'family' by chord name/designation.

A great resource - probably the best resource for basic chord knowledge - for growing beginners and intermediate players (and a good reality check for the rest of us) is Pete Huttlinger's Wonderful World of Chords..

When I'm interviewing prospective students one of the items on my checklist is I ask them to play every single 'C' chord and variation they know, and then every single 'G', etc.

I find many people who play quite well and are not struggling with technique (they have mastered barre chords), are seriously deficient in chord knowledge. In fact, unable to break out beyond the chord, the 7th, the minor and barre for each.

They may have learned a few 'exotic-chords' by rote or from a chart, or seeing someone else playing them, but they are so compartmentalized that they cannot even name the chords they are playing, or don't recognize that they are playing them in other songs.

So when they begin lessons, we begin scale work, etudes, and building their chord library and knowledge of how to construct chords, and then using them in actual music.

I think at a minimum, you ought to be able to play each Chord form as, the basic chord, Maj7, 7th, 6, 9, 11, sus4 & sus2, minor, min7, min9, min11, min7flat 5, augmented, and diminished versions in open position, and barred.

In addition you should know how to play the same chord as an inside 4 string chord, and the inversions of the basic major and minor of the chord on strings 1-2-3 and strings 2-3-4 at least 3-4 places up the neck.

And that should be for any note in the chromatic list of notes, focusing as a solid start on all the chords in keys of C-A-G-E and D.

So you need to know:C, Cmaj7, C9, C11, C7, C6, Csus4, Csus2, Cdim, Caug, Cm, Cm7, Cm7flat 5, Cdimished, and know these in open position (first 3 frets) and at least in 5 positions up the neck.

You should also be able to play (without thinking about it) the basic C and/or Cmin chords on string 1-2-3 and on strings 2-3-4 in 4 inversions up the neck. You should also know how to identify the root of the chord wherever you are playing it.

If you know this for for all the chords in keys of C, A, G, E, and D you will be well grounded.

Whether you approach it one chord variation at a time, or one entire key at a time is not as important as just keeping after it till you know these for each common key, and can use them in your music.

You should learn to adapt them to other keys on the fly...

A great resource - probably the best resource for basic chord knowledge - for growing beginners and intermediate players (and a good reality check for the rest of us) is Pete Huttlinger's Wonderful World of Chords.. It is laid out systematically and easy to follow (and has some charts included with it). I fully realize I repeated this paragraph… That's because it's the best resource available to everyone who has $27.

It's the price of a single lesson (or less) and will at least kick one well down the road on the path to understanding and using chord variants...and it's not stuffy nor sterile but rather fun.

Wonderful World of Chords - CLiCK

It's a great DVD, systematically laid out, and will cover the basics you need to know about as much as anyone at the gig (unless they are jazzers). I don't get any money for promoting the DVD, just love Pete and his approach to understanding the chords we use.

Hope this helps...