chord vocabulary

kin

I'm on my annual "need to learn a bit of theory" pilgrimage ( usually lasts a couple of weeks before i go back to aimless noodling.)

My question is, how large a chord vocabulary is needed to get by playing most run of the mill pop/rock/country and blues tunes?

I am currently learning the major and minor and their 6th,7th,9th. Dom 7th,9th. Diminished. Sus 2 and 4. Min7b5.

I started by writing out the major and minor scales and then constructed the chords from them ( mostly triads and four note chords.) 

Realising that transposing to other keys using the same shapes is pretty straight forward and having messed around with this for a while my playing is becoming much more musical.

What other chords would you recommend to learn?

Brad

You’ve got plenty there for “most run of the mill pop/rock/country and blues tunes”. 

But just learning loads of different chord types doesn’t equate to having a large chord vocabulary as such. 

How many different ways can you play say, a G major chord for example?

Having a thorough understanding of inversions, different approaches and different applications of even simple triads is the key to developing a large chord vocab IMO. 

Roland

kin said:

My question is, how large a chord vocabulary is needed to get by playing most run of the mill pop/rock/country and blues tunes?

Most songs use easy chord shapes: E, E7, Em, A, A7, Am, and first finger barre. 

kin said:

What other chords would you recommend to learn?

Amaj7. On the top four strings it doubles as Dm. 

C7 x3231x, which you can move up the fretboard without a barre.

C7#9 x3234x, the “Hendrix chord”
C9 x32333
Cmaj7 8xx987

welshboyo

Buy Ted Greene's Chord Chemistry and come back in about 12 months!!

viz

Roland said

 Amaj7. On the top four strings it doubles as Dm. 

Don't quite understand what you mean by this?

Barney

I think iff you want to expand chord vocabulary it's a good idea to learn Maj and minor triads all over the neck on different string sets ....after that it makes building chords and seeing them fairly easy so you can just take what you like ....

dcg

It may be worth buying Tim Lerch's new book: Melodic Jazz Guitar Chord Dictionary.  There's a lifetime's work there, but equally you can just pillage the voicings you like best...

Danny1969

I find the most interesting chord voicings use the least amount of fingers, it's the added open strings that bring them to life. 

Play C# on the D string and E on the G string, then use the open A, open B and open top E for a great Amaj add9, or use the A on the D string and the C# on the G string for the same thing. Just 2 fingers but full of flavour. There are many. many other other chords  you can do with just one or 2 fingers and open strings. 

Knowing what chords you can substitute is handy too. Playing the 3m over the root bass note gives you the maj7  .... Bm over G for example) playing the relative minor over the root bass note gives you an added 6th (Am over C for example) 

Sometimes it's cool just to imply a chord with 2 notes, the root and a third spread an octave apart. 

After many years of covering various artist you get to know the voicings they use, because they do tend to repeat themselves. 

kin

Thanks for your suggestions and comments everyone.
 Think I'll leave the Ted Greene book for now though

Those mentioning Triads, that is exactly the route I'm finding most rewarding. More work on Inversions and finding the different triad shapes all over the neck will be next.

Who would of thought that playing in key, learning the notes on the fretboard and the connection between scale and chords would prove useful, not me for forty bleeding years sadly.

joeW

One option for working with triads is to start on the top 3 strings and play cmaj in root pos then go up the 2 cmaj inversions. Then switch to the nearest inversion of Fmaj then go back down then back up with Bb etc until you have completed the cycle of 4ths. 

Then repeat and do with minor, dim, aug, sus. 

Then repeat on all adjacent string sets.  

It’s takes a while but adding a block of it practise routines is very helpful

Barney

kin said:

Thanks for your suggestions and comments everyone.
 Think I'll leave the Ted Greene book for now though

Those mentioning Triads, that is exactly the route I'm finding most rewarding. More work on Inversions and finding the different triad shapes all over the neck will be next.

Who would of thought that playing in key, learning the notes on the fretboard and the connection between scale and chords would prove useful, not me for forty bleeding years sadly.

The triads are really handy for lead work after you learn them start looking at some triad pairs ....they will work for lead stuff as well ....I think a lot of people turn Thier noses up at triads thinking they learned them ages ago ...but to learn them on different string groups all over the neck can be very rewarding for lts of things 

Roland

viz said:

Roland said

 Amaj7. On the top four strings it doubles as Dm. 

Don't quite understand what you mean by this?

Not surprising. I’m one fret out. xx3231 is both Bbmaj7 and Dm

HAL9000

Roland said:

viz said:

Roland said

 Amaj7. On the top four strings it doubles as Dm. 

Don't quite understand what you mean by this?

Not surprising. I’m one fret out. xx3231 is both Bbmaj7 and Dm

One of my faves - I like the ambiguity of it.

DavidR

Ay?  and, especially, Eee! with use of the 4th finger of the left hand to make mysterious chords called 7th's. Then a magic chord all by itself called be 7.

If you want a change on a Thursday F, Sea and Geee! but this time with use of the first finger to make those same spooky 7th's.

Very little else needed. And you only need 12 bars, some of which sell spirits but not vital.

(Blues player)

:-)

HAL9000

DavidR said:

Ay?  and, especially, Eee! with use of the 4th finger of the left hand to make mysterious chords called 7th's. Then a magic chord all by itself called be 7.

If you want a change on a Thursday F, Sea and Geee! but this time with use of the first finger to make those same spooky 7th's.

Very little else needed. And you only need 12 bars, some of which sell spirits but not vital.

(Blues player)

:-)

You forgot the bee (seven)
(another blues player) 

viz

Roland said:

viz said:

Roland said

 Amaj7. On the top four strings it doubles as Dm. 

Don't quite understand what you mean by this?

Not surprising. I’m one fret out. xx3231 is both Bbmaj7 and Dm

Ah lol, phew, thought I’d lost it. Nice. 

fretmeister

I love being a bassist.

HAL9000

kin said:

My question is, how large a chord vocabulary is needed to get by playing most run of the mill pop/rock/country and blues tunes?

Probably less than you’d think.

guitars4you

kin said:

Thanks for your suggestions and comments everyone.
 Think I'll leave the Ted Greene book for now though

Those mentioning Triads, that is exactly the route I'm finding most rewarding. More work on Inversions and finding the different triad shapes all over the neck will be next.

Who would of thought that playing in key, learning the notes on the fretboard and the connection between scale and chords would prove useful, not me for forty bleeding years sadly.

Learning the triads across all 6 strings and multiple places is the heart to 'jazzing up the blues' as far as I'm concerned - I don't want to learn to 'split the atom' as such and feel the T Greene book is to much info - Robben Ford does a great video (not sure if/how much is on you tube) 'The Art of Blues Rhythm' that is a great insight into this - You watch him play a whole host of triads, that are both melodic and rhythm , across the whole fingerboard and suddenly it makes sense, yet fairly simple

As I said, I don't want to learn how to 'split the atom' so if I can find a few simple tricks, that I can instantly use and remember, to enrich what I already have, then that is progress IMO

Greatape

A suggested path:

Three note triads in root position, 1st inversions, second inversion on strings 123 and 234. At first, learn along the neck in order. Later, learn to play through key in position by changing between voicings. 

Next, learn a bunch of maj7,  minor 7 and dominant 7 voicings on strings 1234 and 2345. 

Then, notice that those triads form part of those seventh chords e.g E dim is the top of C7. Now, you can play Edim instead of C7 because it sounds right. Especially if you have a functional bassist. 

Three note triads, man. Easy to get your fingers around, easy to move between and no clash with bass notes on bad or keys. 

kin

@Greatape , thanks for the suggestions.

 'learn to play through key in position', do you mean being able to play through the chosen key while remaining in one area of the neck?

  If so, that's the route I'm taking, learning the triad shapes and inversions and trying to play with an economy of movement.

 Though your suggestion of learning in that particular order is probably a good idea as i do tend to flit about a bit at present.

 Its been a fun and rewarding path so far, much more enthusiastic about playing than i have been for years.