I've found an easy way to learn chords

[Music Is All]

I've been playing for a few months now, and have all this time, been stuck at the first position with open chords just yearning to know chords anywhere except the first 5 frets.

 

I was looking through this huge chord Bible, just crushed with possibilities and the lack of knowing where to start, then it dawned on me... All chords are nothing more than patterns, repeating ones at that. I realized that a chord shape might change in fretting position, but never based on where it's rooted.

 

All chord shapes use the same string as their root note, I feel stupid that it took me this long to realize this, but suddenly just with realizing that, it's opened up the entire fretboard chord wise for me, I had to share it for anyone else that might be struggling to learn chords.

 

 

I've realized that I shouldn't learn chords, but chord shapes instead, since I already know where the notes are, since I've learned this, it's made things so easy.

 

My question is, why don't more people do this? I've spent forever learning online just surfing through crap, only getting suggestions to buy chord books, or take learning one fret at a time, only realize something on my own that helps, why don't more people teach this? Same concept with scales, so many things online talk of learning scales, and I spent forever learning their ways, only to figure out the best way to learn scales is again, mastering the shapes and how they fit together...at least for standard tuning...can't imaging how screwed I'll be when I go to tackle less common tunings...any tips for that too?

[JonR]

You seem to have hit on the great secret - which many of us self-taught players discover sooner or later - but there's one or two odd statements in your post, which are (on the face of it) not true:

"All chord shapes use the same string as their root note"

You probably don't mean what this appears to mean, because it clearly isn't true.  Even with the basic open chords, E and G have roots on 6th string, A and C on 5th string, D on 4th string.

Furthermore, each has another root (or two) in a higher octave. (E and G have 3 roots each.)

So it seems you're not using the word "root" in its correct sense.

However, the "secret" you've discovered goes by the name of CAGED - because all major chord shapes are based on those 5 open shapes, converted to barres or movable shapes.

(I didn't know it was called that either, because I found it out just like you have, by experimentation and common sense.  And for me, using a capo in the early days helped reveal it.)

You're absolutely right about scales too: when you see how they fit chord shapes (especially if you know your notes) it all becomes much simpler.

And again, you're right about EADGBE. All this shape and pattern stuff only works in EADGBE, because that's what it depends on.  Change the tuning, and you change all the patterns - no escape from that.  Even knowing all the notes is not a lot of help, because their positions all change.

That's why some people who adopt alternative tunings get stuck in those - DADGAD being an especially popular alternative that many players don't return from.

When one uses a few different tunings, one tends to rely (outside of EADGBE) on the cool chord shapes you can get, and not think about scalar improvisation - just embellish the chords by ear and trial and error.  IOW, treat is as a kind of blind vacation from EADGBE .

 

 

[jeremy_green]

Congratulations on the epiphany. You know, even if someone taught you that you may not have had it stick the way it does when you figure things out for yourself. A lot of the "puzzles" of the guitar and sorted and mentally catalogued in different ways by us all. There are many roads that lead home, so just keep looking and reading. One day something will click as you just demonstrated.

[benzem]

Learn the shapes, but also learn the notes so you know where the 5th, 3rd, and roots are in these shapes.

[Music Is All]

Definitely, I'm working on that now, especially just getting comfortable switching between them, those shapes are without a doubt more challenging than open chord shapes. Can't wait until the day I wake up and find I can easily pop them out. You always seem improve when you stop measuring progress, so I imagine in a couple weeks before I know it, I'll have the shapes easily, ideally lol.

On a side note, can anyone give me tips for speed? I'm looking at players like Steve Vai, SRV, Satriani, etc., that are ridiculously fast, and play flawlessly, any tips, besides start slow, I get that to achieve that you start slow, but I'm ready for more advice than just that. I'm stuck at the 225-230 quarter notes on my metro, and have been for some time, how do I finally press past that? I've been, for about 10-20 minutes a day either improvising or running through scales faster, I mean really pressing my limits as fast as I can, but I haven't built up the stamina for it, considering I play way more than I should it would do no use killing my playing arm for the rest of the day lol. Is there any way, or is that the only way, forcing myself to be faster, until one day... fretboard freedom?

[mosiddiqi]

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Music Is All wrote:

Definitely, I'm working on that now, especially just getting comfortable switching between them, those shapes are without a doubt more challenging than open chord shapes. Can't wait until the day I wake up and find I can easily pop them out. You always seem improve when you stop measuring progress, so I imagine in a couple weeks before I know it, I'll have the shapes easily, ideally lol.

 

On a side note, can anyone give me tips for speed? I'm looking at players like Steve Vai, SRV, Satriani, etc., that are ridiculously fast, and play flawlessly, any tips, besides start slow, I get that to achieve that you start slow, but I'm ready for more advice than just that. I'm stuck at the 225-230 quarter notes on my metro, and have been for some time, how do I finally press past that? I've been, for about 10-20 minutes a day either improvising or running through scales faster, I mean really pressing my limits as fast as I can, but I haven't built up the stamina for it, considering I play way more than I should it would do no use killing my playing arm for the rest of the day lol. Is there any way, or is that the only way, forcing myself to be faster, until one day... fretboard freedom?

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Listen faster. Honestly. If you can't hear it, you can't play it. If you're playing faster than you can hear, it's almost certainly going to be ****. How to listen faster?...slow down the fast lines from players you like and learn them BY EAR. Once you can totally hear what the line sounds like at 80 bpm (for example) then hearing it (and playing it) at 240 (for example) becomes much easier. If you can't hear it well enough to play it at the slower speed.....you're  not hearing it...so slow down further. That's been my experience.