How many minor chords can be played from any fret?

StanleyAccrington

Let's say for instance the third fret. With first finger on a string of the third or barreing on the third fret and with fingers fretting from the fret (no fingers on frets one or two). I'm sick of barreing minor chords up and down the fretboard!!!

paul_c2

9?

Is it a competition?

StanleyAccrington

Not a competition....more of a query. Could you list the 9 chords please?

paul_c2

I think in theory there's 9 chords out there but 3 of them are a bit of a stretch, and 3 of them are quite awkward due to having to deaden some strings (to avoid sounding the major 3rd) so there's pragmatically 3 bar chords, based on the same shape as E minor, A minor and D minor open chords.

Roland

paul_c2 said:

I think in theory there's 9 chords out there but 3 of them are a bit of a stretch, and 3 of them are quite awkward due to having to deaden some strings (to avoid sounding the major 3rd) so there's pragmatically 3 bar chords, based on the same shape as E minor, A minor and D minor open chords.

So that's Gm, Cm and Fm. There's also: Dm7 x53535, and Em xx5453. After that things get a bit more esoteric because you have to accept 6ths and 9ths, or deaden particular strings, or move slightly away from the 3rd fret. For example Cm9: x31333, Am: x02555 and Am7: 535555. There are also lots of partial chords.

StanleyAccrington

Thanks for the replies lads. That's the sort of thing I'm after Mr Roland. My previous knowledge was indeed 3 minor chords to a fret. Not anymore though!

viz

Roland said:

paul_c2 said:

I think in theory there's 9 chords out there but 3 of them are a bit of a stretch, and 3 of them are quite awkward due to having to deaden some strings (to avoid sounding the major 3rd) so there's pragmatically 3 bar chords, based on the same shape as E minor, A minor and D minor open chords.

So that's Gm, Cm and Fm. There's also: Dm7 x53535, and Em xx5453. After that things get a bit more esoteric because you have to accept 6ths and 9ths, or deaden particular strings, or move slightly away from the 3rd fret. For example Cm9: x31333, Am: x02555 and Am7: 535555. There are also lots of partial chords.

Nice one.

I think another very good thing to get the feeling of, as well as just thinking of all the minor chords on a certain fret, is to think of all the places up the fretboard where you can play a certain chord - i.e., the INVERSIONS. So, for F minor:

Root: 1 3 3 1 1 1
1st inv: 4 x 6 5 6 4
2nd inv: 8 8 10 10 9 8
3rd inv: 11 8 10 8 9 8 (ie Fm7)

This is really useful because once you can hear those voicings in your head, you can snap from a previous chord to whichever inversion you like.

Then you can do the inversions using the 5th string as the root note:

Root: x 8 10 10 9 8
1st: x 11 10 13 13 13
2nd: x 15 15 13 13 13, or x 15 15 17 18 16
(Obv those are better an octave lower)

HAL9000

xx434x - Ebmin. I quite like the ambiguity of this voicing as it hints at BMaj7 due to the shape. Robert Cray uses this quite a bit.