Lesson 7: Chord Construction Made Easier (part 1)

Lesson 6 was a bit too much in the deep end. So I was after something to help me understand it in a more structured way, something with numbers (which for me was going to be a simpler way).

To find the notes that make a chord:

• Put your 2nd finger on the root note. That's note 1 in the sequence. So in the key of C, and the chord of C, you need to find the root note on the top, fat, E string. That's going to be the 8th fret on the top E string. This puts your fingers in a good starting point for the notes that make up the chord of C.
• The next note in the sequence is 2 frets up, where your little finger is sitting over the 10th fret. That's going to be a D and it is note 2 in the sequence.
• That sets you up for the note pattern shown blow (in red crosses). The rest of the notes look like this:

X marks the spot to the pattern to the notes above.

Also numerically (where it makes sense for me!)

To build a (MAJ) chord you want to take the 1st, 3rd and 5th note of the (MAJ) scale.

So in C you want 1 - C, 3 - E & 5 - G.

If you now finger a C chord down at the zero fret you will see that those are the 3 notes that make up a 'C'.

Next time will go into how other notes modify a MAJ chord.