Guitar chord chart: open, barre and seventh chords

Overview

In music, a guitar chord is a set of notes played on a guitar. A chord's notes are often played simultaneously, but they can be played sequentially in an arpeggio. The implementation of guitar chords depends on the guitar tuning. Most guitars used in popular music have six strings with the "standard" tuning of the Spanish classical guitar, namely E–A–D–G–B–E' (from the lowest pitched string to the highest); in standard tuning, the intervals present among adjacent strings are perfect fourths except for the major third (G,B). Standard tuning requires four chord-shapes for the major triads.

Playing chords: open strings, inversion, and note doubling

The implementation of musical chords on guitars depends on the tuning. Since standard tuning is most commonly used, expositions of guitar chords emphasize the implementation of musical chords on guitars with standard tuning. The implementation of chords using particular tunings is a defining part of the literature on guitar chords, which is omitted in the abstract musical-theory of chords for all instruments.

For example, in the guitar (like other stringed instruments but unlike the piano), open-string notes are not fretted and so require less hand-motion. Thus chords that contain open notes are more easily played and hence more frequently played in popular music, such as folk music. Many of the most popular tunings—standard tuning, open tunings, and new standard tuning—are rich in the open notes used by popular chords. Open tunings allow major triads to be played by barring one fret with only one finger, using the finger like a capo. On guitars without a zeroth fret (after the nut), the intonation of an open note may differ from then note when fretted on other strings; consequently, on some guitars, the sound of an open note may be inferior to that of a fretted note.

Unlike the piano, the guitar has the same notes on different strings. Consequently, guitar players often double notes in chord, so increasing the volume of sound. Doubled notes also changes the chordal timbre: Having different "string widths, tensions and tunings, the doubled notes reinforce each other, like the doubled strings of a twelve-string guitar add chorusing and depth". Notes can be doubled at identical pitches or in different octaves. For triadic chords, doubling the third interval, which is either a major third or a minor third, clarifies whether the chord is major or minor.

Overview

In music for stringed instruments, especially guitar, an open chord (open-position chord) is a chord that includes one or more strings that are not fingered. An open string vibrates freely, whereas a fingered string will be partially dampened unless fingered with considerable pressure, which is difficult for beginner players. In an open chord, the unfingered strings are undampened, and the player is able to exert maximum pressure on the fretted strings, to avoid unwanted dampening. On a regular six-string guitar, an open chord can have from one to six open strings sounding. In contrast, all of the strings are fingered for a barre chord, which requires greater technique to be allowed to ring freely. To dampen a barre chord, a player simply needs to relax the fingers. Fully dampening an open chord requires the player to roll the fingers of the left hand over the open strings, or else dampen with the right hand.

Guitarists use capos, which are devices that clamp down the strings to create a movable nut, to play open chords in different keys. With a capo on the first fret, the guitarist can finger the shape of the open A minor chord, but the result will be a B♭ minor chord. Open chords on guitar are used in a wide range of popular music and traditional music styles.

Cowboy chords

In guitar music, open chords are also called cowboy chords owing to their simplicity and reminiscence of a "cowboy strummin' away on the prairie."

Advanced open chords

Advanced guitar chords may rely on the use of open strings alongside strings fretted in higher positions. For example fretting the E-barre shape on the fifth fret without the barre allows the open E, A and E to ring alongside the higher position E, A and C#. The strumming on the middle section of "Stairway to Heaven" is played using such chords. Chord books are available including such chords, but many guitarists experiment to form their own distinctive chords.

Definition

A chord is the sound of two or more notes being played at the same time. The term derives from "accord", which became "cord" in Middle English. The original meaning was an agreement or harmonious sound. In the 17th century, the spelling was changed to "chord" to prevent confusion with "cord".

Until the Middle Ages, harmony was any combination of two notes. In the Renaissance, the simultaneous sound of three notes began to be understood as the working definition of harmony. An arpeggio is a broken chord where each note is sounded successively instead of simultaneously. Chords can also be implied by melodies.

A chord progression is a collection of harmonies with a specific destination or purpose, such as reinforcing the tonic or modulation to a new pitch center. Chord progressions are common in Western music. Homophonic textures where the melody and harmony generally move in unison are considered the standard practice in classical music and remain central to music instruction. The study of harmony involves chords and progressions and the principles of connection that govern them.

Structure

Just as scales derive from the harmonic series, the major chord is likewise formed by overtones 4, 5, and 6. The next overtone creates a seventh chord. A common triad has three notes: the root, third, and fifth. The intervals are identified by their distance from the root of the chord. The notes that form a chord are sometimes called members or factors.

Continuing up in thirds yields a seventh, ninth, eleventh, and thirteenth before returning to the root again. Complex sonorities larger than a tetrad are sometimes called polychords because they can be seen as combinations of two different chords. Extended chords are one of the central characteristics of jazz harmony.

Chords are identified by their intervals. The four basic triad qualities are major, minor, diminished, and augmented. Major and minor chords derive from the quality of their thirds. Diminished and augmented chords describe the quality of the fifth. Additional intervals like sevenths are also described by their quality in relation to the root.

Composers began expanding tonality beyond the common practice and often structured chords in fourths and fifths. They were more tonally ambiguous, enabling new patterns for music. Chords also shrunk to tone clusters made of small intervals like seconds. The resulting sound mass was a common feature in the 20th century. Microtonal chords are also used by many contemporary composers.

Theorists began to analyze the structure of chords in the 16th century. Jean-Philippe Rameau developed the nomenclature for chord inversion that is still in use today.

Root position is when the lowest note of a chord is the root, regardless of how the other members are arranged above it. The chord is considered inverted when the root is not the lowest voice. When the third is the lowest sounding pitch, the chord is in first inversion. The second inversion puts the fifth in the bass and was widely seen as dissonant, even as composers put it into frequent practice.