Chords

[Jules]

After reading an article that John posted here recently, about "what chords to use when", I went back and looked at the 12 songs I had written and realised that 7 of them started with an Am chord, and that all 7 of them also had a G chord at some point in the chorus.

Is that acceptable? The choruses are so different otherwise that I wouldn't have noticed unless it was pointed out. They number of chords and melodies are all very different. It's just they all start with the same chord.

Should I re-write that music, or is okay to a certain degree?

[AnneC]

I may be a bit out of line here as I'm not truly a guitarist, but when I write a new song I write it as I "hear" it. Sometimes I get songs that are in the same key with the same harmonic structure in spots (translated to Guitarese: chords are the same). I'd say as long as it's not the same song warmed over, you're doing good.

[Steve]

Perfectly acceptable. Many of my songs also start with Am. Try making a concious effort to start in a major key and see what happens.

[thelevellers]

Don't worry about it, I love Am In fact, it's surprising how little I use it really... Although there is one song that is based entirely around A, but with definite minor leanings... Even the key change uses a bar chord, so it's still the Am shape! lol...

[Lazz]

He Jules

If it sounds good and people like it, then it's fine.

Starting with an Am chord doesn't mean much on its own - it could be heading to the key of G, it could be in E or C already, who knows ?

If you're singing, then there is a tonal range which will be most effective and natural for you

There is no reason to venture too far away from that comfortable area.

If it is something that you have just noticed then, as Steve suggested, it's a good time to begin exploring alternatives.

That can only ever be a good thing.

If what you say means that all your songs are actually in the key of Am - which it might - then it's worth changing that for the next ones.

As Steve said - try a Major key.

(It might change your life)

Hard to tell where you're at - but just keep practising.

[Jules]

As a sort of improvment excersise, I wrote a song today that just had individual notes for the chorus.

It was quite difficult to get the sound just right, and very difficult to play while singing, but it made the song sound a lot more full than just strumming chords.

I don't think I could do that all the time, but it was interesting to stray away from what I'm used to.

Thanks for all the replies.

[Lazz]

a song today that just had individual notes for the chorus ... quite difficult to get the sound just right ... but it made the song sound a lot more full than just strumming chords

AHA !!

Does this feed back to your previous thread with the same title ('Chords') about the disagreement with your friend ?

Is there any chance, when your friend was saying ‘That’s just chords’, that he meant ‘That’s just strumming chords’ ?

Cos if the answer is ‘yes’ – I am thinking about changing sides.

A chord is a group of notes sounded together to form the basis of harmony and your fingers should be playing only those notes which are needed to sound the chord you want. Just strumming is too random jangly to be doing the job properly. (Maybe that's why 'lazy'.)

Now, strumming may be perfectly fine for what you’re doing and where you’re headed – loads of others seem to get away with it successfully – but it might be worth thinking about the fact that there could be a better result from putting the pick down and just clawing those individual strings that play the right notes to make the chords.

Remember the guitar teacher's rule: - “No Strumming!”.

Test it for a while and see how you get on.

[Jules]

Wow - I didn't know that.

I thought chords were always meant to be strummed, and if you were plucking the individual notes, it was called an "arpeggio"?

Cool.

[Lazz]

Has to be arpeggiated to be an arpeggio.

You're right to think an arpeggio is made of a chord's individual notes.

But it's the way they are sounded, one after the other, Root-3rd-5th-7th, which makes the arpeggio.

The idea and benefit of practising arpeggiation is that it gradually automatically instills into you the knowledge of where all the defining notes of the chord are. (Just for practice though. It's not generally the sort of thing one should be caught doing in public.)

Do you understand much about how chords are built, Jules ?

[Jules]

To be perfectly blunt - no.

As far as I was concerned, I knew where to put my fingers to get certain chords, power chords and bar chords, but I never really questioned what the chords were made up of.

[Lazz]

Interested in finding out a bit ?

[Jules]

Of course - I've only been learning guitar for about a year, but I plan on keeping it up for a long time. Any information is greatly appreciated.

[Lazz]

Let’s see if I can help without sowing too much confusion.

For me, it all became clear when I grabbed a purchase on the major scale.

(We all know what a major scale is, we’ve ingested it enough from the aural wall-paper surrounding us since birth, we could all immediately sing along with the Sound of Music and ‘Do-Re-Mi’, enough to recognise it and identify it – but maybe not enough to be able to spell the notes out properly.)

The key to the major scale is that each step, from one note to the next, is made up of two half-steps (a half-step on guitar is one fret to the next) – EXCEPT for the step between the third and fourth note and the seventh and eighth note – which are both only half-steps.

It’s easier to see this on a piano because of the way the notes are laid out.

But you can play a major scale, singing it to yourself as you go, just on one string, and notice that there are two frets from one note to the next except for one fret between the 3rd and 4th note and the 7th and 8th note.

Cool.

That’s the major scale.

C Major is really popular and useful place to start when you look at a piano, because you only have to concern yourself with the white notes.

When you go into the other keys, because of the major scale structure of whole-steps and half-steps being followed, then you begin to gradually involve more and more of those pesky black notes.

So that’s why I started with C Major when first making sense of the building blocks for chords.

Just remember the structure:

<whole-step><whole-step><half-step><whole-step><whole-step><whole-step><half-step>

See if that makes sense to you and I’ll be back in a few with news of how to make chords from it.

[Jules]

Yeah - I think I understand, upon first read, I felt like my brain was collapsing in on itself, but it seems to make sense.

[Lazz]

OK

Thinking in the key of C Major so we don’t need to worry about sharps and flats.

The scale is spelled C D E F G A B C

The chord of C Major is built from alternating notes of that scale, starting from the bottom.

First note is the Root-note = C.

Leave out D

Next is the 3rd note of the scale = E

Leave out F

Next is the 5th note of the scale = G

Leave out A

Next is the 7th note of the scale =B

So there’s the C Major chord: C-E-G-B

There’s a lot of people wouldn’t even bother about that B.

They’d just use the Root, 3rd and 5th .... but not me.

For me it’s the 3rd and 7th which are essential defining notes.

(but we may get back to that later if you want)

[Lazz]

Take it easy – I don’t think it needs to get much tougher for a while.

Cos now’s the time to grab hold of your favourite A minor.

As our 5% tastier Steve Mueske said a while earlier, A minor is the relative minor of C Major.

What that means is they are so closely related as to share exactly the same DNA.

A minor uses exactly the same notes as C Major – only it goes from A to A instead of C to C.

A-B-C-D-E-F-G-A

(You might notice that this scale structure is different from the structure spelled out previously.

That’s because it’s a minor scale this time and not a Major like before.

But we can come back to this later if you want as well.)

The important things is to recognise that you build an A minor chord from the alternating notes of that A minor scale – just like before.

So, going for Root-3rd-5th-7th, we have these notes:

A-C-E-G

And if you were to play them one at a time, in that order, that would be an arpeggio.

Now – take a look at your basic A minor grip on the fingerboard - I will bet you have your fingers covering the first fret of the second string and the second fret of the third and fourth strings with the other three ringing open.

What that gives us in notes, going from highest sounding string to the lowest is:

E

C

A

E

A

E

Which is a bunch of Es, one more A than you honestly need, yet no G to complete the 7th.

So what I am suggesting is first that you need to find a G note and secondly that you only need to be playing four of those guitar strings.

Either unblock that third string to let it ring open as a G and then pluck only the four strings in the middle, leaving the top E and low E untouched – and that will be giving you A as the lowest note with E above that then G then C.

Or you could use your pinkie on the top string to find a G on the third fret and then pluck your top four strings only to make an E the lowest note with A on top then C then G.

How you choose to ‘voice’ the notes is up to you and what forms you discover and enjoy the best.

But you only really need four notes for that chord - and hence only four strings with four of your digits

Hitting those extra E notes at top and bottom when you’re strumming is just excessive.

If and when you get into it a load more – like maybe you’re working with a bass player for example – the bass-player, if he knows what he’s doing, is going to be covering the Root note of the chord, and the 5th note of the chord. That’s what bass players do. So why do you need to be playing those same notes ? Even if the bass is sticking only to playing the Root, our ears are immediately aware of the fifth note because it’s part of the harmonic overtone series in nature that we are congenitally sensitive to – so we will be ‘hearing’ it even when the note is not being physically struck. Maybe you’ll just have to trust me on this one. I think you’ll get used to those overtones soon enough.

Thing is that later on as you learn more and practice more – except if you’re happy enough to stick to strumming chords like most others – when you’re looking to voice an A minor in the future, and you have a trusted bass-player at your side, you’ll be looking mainly for the most right C and G notes, bugger the A and the E, and deciding what other tone you might add in to the mix for colour and effect.

Just at first try to pay attention to understanding what notes you’re looking for to make the chord.

And which four notes out of the six strings under your fingers do the job nicest.

Thay tell me that after years of practice it come automatically.

Hope it makes sense.

Hope this is enough to be going on with.

Hope it's not too much all at once.

Bye

[thelevellers]

Wow! Thanks for that Lazz, after about 6-7 attempts at understanding from other sources this ones gone it that next stage further

Jules, a top tip from me, I seem to remember you have guitar pro or power tab editor? If not get hold of the free powertab editor and have a play making both bass lines and guitar parts to go together to help understand that last bit, I found it really fun and useful when I first got the programme It also helped me understand that last bit without having a clue why it was! Lol... Now I have the reasons...

Ooh, and could I pop a quick question to you Lazz? (I'll ask anyway, you can always ignore it )

How does one go about working out what key something is in? I can (usually) do it if it's all major chords, but when there's sevenths thrown in I don;t know what effect hat has on it?

Heh, you might have started and 'ask Lazz' thread here, watch out

Cheers, Rohan

[Steve]

Lazz, I know we've had our differences so I approach this with a note of caution.

Technically, that's not a C major chord. That's a C7.

And there was me thinking it was a Cmaj7

[Lazz]

Lazz, I know we've had our differences so I approach this with a note of caution.

I disagree !!

No, seriously – it was a small thing – a minor issue of protocol – and from someone in no position to pass judgement, to boot.

(Or is there more that I don’tknow about?)

C-E-G-B

Technically, that's not a C major chord. That's a C7.

Nah – has to have the b7 to be a plain old dominant.

Half a step from B to C means that chord is definitely Major 7th

I know, in jazz, sevenths are fundamental, but in popular music (and rock) they are used infrequently.

I didn’t know that – seems as though it’s always been fundamental in my ear-holes – but I guess I could be fooling myself – there is sure a lot of pop and rock I’m not keen to waste much time with any more – but I was certain the popular music I used to listen to (before I became seriously picky) used sevenths as a matter of course. And why not, I say. And I have always considered that the miniscule amount of theory I managed to pick up was about modern harmony and popular music in general. Embracing blues roots and r&b and tin-pan-alley too. Maybe it’s just a terminological thing. Maybe the absence or infrequency of sevenths is a characteristic of something I might tend to think of as folk music.

It’s all music, and pleasure for someone.

with someone first learning … important to realize that chords are constructed of thirds …. major, minor, diminished or augmented … inversions … etcetera

Yeah well I did make fleeting reference to notions of choice in ‘voicing’ chord tones.

I thought that was more than enough at this time.

Why bother with more until he asks ?

It’s an interesting problem – figuring a place to start when you don’t really know where a guy is at.

But Jules was up late again last night and I was around on the boards at the same time because I was waiting for the ‘phone to get fixed and had time on my hands. Plus, my impression of Jules is that he is focused and determined and wants to work and study and get better at what he does. So I figured I’d make a tentative offer of help in what seemed might be a useful basic area. Responding to perceived need. In small steps without overload. Or so I hoped.

I am no authoritative expert – I am a perpetual student still – but willing to share whatever I have struggled to make sense of myself if it serves some uncluttered heuristic purpose for someone else.

No interest in a contest of who knows most or best – just trying to be helpful to Jules.

The root chord for the C7 is C-E-G-B. The first inversion is E-G-B-C.

Never heard that concept of ‘root-chord’ used before – I can see what you mean with it, though.

But whoops – there goes our 7th issue again.

I am confused by your spelling of a C7.

For me. C7 would involve C-E-G-Bb.

And C-E-G-B would make a C Major7.

What’s at the root of our difference in perception here, Steve – any ideas ?

Anyway, I'm sort of getting ahead of myself. I just think it is important to note that chords are constructed, generally, in thirds. If you can keep this in mind, and also think about inversions, you can construct and understand any chord.

True, but I feel this may have more retrospective benefit once you’re a way down the road.

I was kinda hoping that this level of insight is exactly the sort of thing that would be revealed by personal discovery if Jules is motivated to chase down and play around with some first starting ideas about chord generation.

Of course, the best thing for Jules would be to find a hip local teacher able to make a face-to-face evaluation and appraisal of where he’s at and where he’s headed and what might be useful and productive at this stage of his endless journey.

Something to set him off like a rocket.

[Lazz]

How does one go about working out what key something is in?

Buggered if I know an easy foolproof answer, Ro.

Sometimes it's simple, sometimes it's ambiguous, and I've found other choices based on pure efficacy.

Mind you - some stuff I mess around with may move through a series of different tonal and key areas - but I feel reasonably confident that is not true for the stuff you mess with - so it might be more towards the easy end of the scale - let's see.

First thing for me was to become more confident in what I was hearing.

Listen to the tune you're interested in and let your ear decide which note or chord is the one that feels like 'home'.

Generally - you're going to make the right choice.

I label that the root and then sing upwards step-wise in my head through the scale that my ears tell me is the most appropriate one.

Then Robert is one's relative.

If was to be given a sequence of chords in some meaningful fashion but without a key signature, then I guess I would start by using my understanding of which specific chords are generated from each of the Major scales to see which one made most best sense of what was written in front of me.

Maybe Nick or Steve knows simpler / better ways.

Heh, you might have started and 'ask Lazz' thread here, watch out

Let's hope not.

I trust that the above response demonstrates how ill-equipped I am.