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There are always a lot of questions like, “What is that chord”, “how do I find a chord for…”, “why does this chord sound good/bad”, “what is that unusual chord”, etc.
The following is some of the most basic and important information that will help, not only in chords but melody’s and soloing too. Don’t let the length of this post stop you from playing through the attachments, they are very easy and your ear will give you the info, the rest is just how’s and why’s.
First some basic concepts. In music we want to create a sense of motion. This is done by using tension or dissonance that needs to be resolved. Some intervals create a feeling of unrest. The most important are that of a “semitone” (distance of 1 fret) and the “tritone” or flated fifth interval. (6 frets) A tritone is in every dominant seventh chord, it is the interval between the third and the seventh of that chord.
The attachments to this post are two examples that will demonstrate the principals involved, please play them through a few times.
Dominant to Tonic
The first two bars are a “Dominant to Tonic” resolution. This is the most common movement in any music and you should recognize it easily. This example is the sound of a G7 chord moving to C chord.
Note, with only 2 notes from each chord this will be apparent to you. The G7 doesn’t even have the root note (a G) or the fifth (a D) but your ear will recognize the sound, only the tritone interval is enough.
The two examples are the two possibilities, the second bar has the inversion of the first. Same two notes only which note is on bottom changes. This will demonstrate why different chord inversions can change the sound of a progression.
The first bar is referred to as “resolving inwardly” the second bar is “resolving outwardly”
Each note moves 1 fret or a semitone to the next chord. Notes that move 1 fret are usually considered to be the resolving tones.Dominant to Dominant (or 7-3 3-7 resolution)
The second example is the second most common chord movement in music. It is the sound of a dominant chord moving to another dominant chord a fourth away.
In this case the third of the first chord moves to the seventh of the second chord and the seventh of the first chord moves to the third of the second chord. The third and seventh are the most common resolving tones in a chord. Note how the resolving tones just move a semitone downward.
I show the chord movement through 4 chords but you can start higher on the neck and continue it down. Please play it in reverse or up the neck as well, this is the sound of dominants moving a fifth. The third and fifth tones now move up a semitone each time. I include only the two inversions although more are possible they will displace the tritone so the interval is larger (over an octave), this will make it less apparent to the ear and hard to finger on a guitar.Playing the chord forms
The two chord forms for the dominant chords can be played with the first three fingers of your left hand. One is like the bottom of a B7 chord played in the open position the other may be new to you. These are two VERY useful grips to learn. They free up your little finger for other notes and are the basis for a lot of “comping” or accompanying.
These are not the only ways to play these chords either and you can try lots of the 7th chord grips you may already know as well. The 3-7 7-3 relationship will always be there but sometimes they will move to an octave below or above.
This is very common on the guitar because of the way its built, it can be very hard to always move the voices just 1 fret but the bonus is that many of the results of displacing the notes or changing the voicing is desirable to the ear.Gordo
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