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Guitar chords,
including minor and major guitar chords, root 5 and root 6 bar chords.
I don't want
to get to deep in theory right away, but I would like to explain some
important information about the Am pentatonic scale and it's
relation to the key of C major.
The key of C major is made up of 7 chords. These guitar chords are C,
Dm, Em, F, G, Am, B dim
The Am pentatonic scale comes from the key of C major and this
will be explained in more detail later. We will be adding two notes
to this scale which will allow us to play lead over all of the guitar
chords in the key of C major using the Am pentatonic scale root note
position. You will begin to see why it is important to learn every
position of the Am pentatonic scale. We will eventually convert each
of the positions into modes of the major key.
Since we will be covering the key of C major, it would be a good
idea now to learn the chords and notes of this C major key.
The next page shows a
few chords in more detail and also includes sound files for each of the
chords.
Major chords are always shown by
their name alone. Example, E, G, C, D, F and so on.
Minor chords are always shown
with the small (m). Example: (Am) = A minor (Em) = E minor and so on.
The guitar chords that I would like for you to learn first are listed below.
C, Dm, Em, F, G, Am and B
diminished.
Don't worry about playing these chords, I just want to explain a
little bit about them first.
|
|
The image to the left
shows the Am pentatonic scale. The illustration below, shows
the same scale, but with two extra notes added. These two
notes are the F and B. We have now added all of the notes of
the key of C major. |
By adding these two extra notes we have formed or created a mode.
This mode is the A Aeolian mode. Am pentatonic is formed directly
from this mode. The Aeolian mode is a minor mode and is the 6th note
in the key of C major. Modes will be covered soon, but a brief
explanation is needed here. Since we have added those two extra
notes to the Am pentatonic scale, we can now use this scale or mode,
to play over each and every chord of C major in this position. The
chords of C major are as follows.
C, Dm, Em, F, G, Am, B dim and C. Just like the Am pentatonic scale,
you can also play this at different positions. This will also be
covered in the mode section. Although I've mentioned you could play
over every chord in this position, it is really not all that
practical. You will learn how to play lead over each chord and at
different positions. This example is to open your eyes to different possibilities.
The chords and notes in the key of C major are shown below.
Notice how each of those notes are in the scale or mode above.
|
The notes of the C chord |
C, E, G |
|
The notes of the Dm |
D, F, A |
|
The notes of the Em |
E, G, B |
|
The
notes of the F |
F,
A, C |
|
The notes of the G |
G, B, D |
|
The notes of Am |
A, C, E |
|
The notes of B diminished |
B, D, F |
We will now learn how to play
these chords. You will start out learning these chords in the open
position. Once you learn these chords in the open position, we can learn
to play them as bar chords.
Open position
chords.
Good luck,
Guitar Secrets
