Hi Asle, I believe you might be numbering the strings backwards. The fattest string is defined as the 6th string. So in a C chord, your C note falls in two places: 3rd fret 5th string and again on 1st fret 2nd string. Playing a C7 allows you to slide your fingers anywhere up and down the neck, and you know what the name of the chords will be. But if you move it up 2 frets to the 5th fret, you get a D7, not an E7. Quiz Question: What fret do you have to move it to for an E7?

What you should do is sit down and study the cowboy chords (the ones you play in the first 3 frets while you’re sitting around the campfire singing “Home on the Range”) and memorize where the root notes are in all of those. The root note is often – but not always – the lowest note. That part is easy. But what you have to think about is this: Where else in those chords is there also a root note? (Clue: It will be an octave higher)

Hi Asle,

The root note of the D chord xx0232 in the first position is the open D string (4th string) and you also have D (an octave higher) on the 2nd string 3rd fret. If you don’t play the 4th string, you have a movable triad with the root note on the 2nd string.

D7 chord xx0212 also has the open D string as the root note. When you move this shape up the neck just remember to replace the nut position of the 4th string with your index finger or don’t play the 4th string and just use the triad that implies the chord. In case of E7 you can actually use the open 6th string as bass/root note if you want, depends on the song. The same goes for the A7 triad, you can use open A string as bass. The F7 triad would be xxx545 (no root note) or xx3545 (root note F on the 4th string). It it much easier to play just the triad though, especially in blues.

Hi,
Jola and Steve gave you very important recommendations.
By moving a chord grip n frets up or down, each fretted note in the chord gets moved up or down n half steps. Open strings obviously don’t get moved, so if you do play them, the chord becomes a complicated (and usually very dissonant) animal; that’s why guitarists love closed positions: they are completely movable. Incidentally, that’s also why barre chords were invented 🙄

You need to study the so-called “CAGED system” (Brian has several lessons on the subject), and the “octaves pattern” that is at the heart of it. That will help for sure.

You should make a distinction between moving a chord up the neck, and moving a fretted shape up the neck.

If you take an open D7 chord and move it up two frets, you will get an open E7 chord, provided you figure out some way to mute the open A string (much easier said than done). Or, strumming only the top four strings, you get an E7/D, which is a third inversion E7 chord. It’s a perfectly acceptable voicing, but can sound strange if you aren’t used to it.

To make a Cowboy chord moveable, you have to pretend that you are barring at the zero fret. You probably already know this – for example, your open E chord becomes an A chord when barred at the fifth fret. Your barre is acting basically as the new nut at the fifth fret. Same would go for a D7 chord. But no-one plays that with a full barre. Instead, you simply use the index finger to play the E on the 4th string, second fret, and don’t play the A or E bass strings.

Hope this helps.

I found that the easiest way to be able to find the root note of practically any chord is to learn your triad patterns. Triad patterns are part of most chords. They have three notes. There are only three possible patterns for any set of three contiguous strings – e.g. the 1st, 2nd and 3rd strings or the 2nd, 3rd and 4th strings.

What you need to know:

1. All triads consist of a Root, 3rd and a 5th note. In C, that’s C, E and G.
2. Triads “stack” from bottom string to top string in only three ways: R,3,5 (Root Position); 3,5,R (1st Inversion); 5,R,3 (2nd Inversion).
3. The best way to begin is to start with the strings that match up best with the chord patterns of the CAGED system: IMHO, the 2nd, 3rd and 4th strings. With these strings, you’ll quickly find that the Root Position triad matches up with the E Pattern, the 1st Inversion matches up with the D pattern and the 2nd Inversion matches up with the A pattern.
4. There are 3 minor triads (R,b3,5 – C,Eb,G), 3 diminished triads (R,b3,b5 – C,Eb,Gb) and 3 augmented triads (R,3,#5 – C,E,G#) as well. Learn these and boom! You’ll never look back.

Once you get the hang of this, the fretboard will unlock. You’ll be able to play most chords anywhere on the fretboard without thinking or caring which inversion you happen to be playing (although each inversion sounds a bit different and that difference is important if you’re trying to play a chord melody but I digress…).

I wrote a little doc and gave it to Brian a while back. Hope that helps (and it isn’t too overwhelming).