About Chords and Their Uses
A chord is simply multiple notes played together, just like when two or more singers sing in harmony- different notes that sound good together.
They need naming, the names need explaining and they seem a bit daunting, but most important; you should get familiar with the characteristics each type gives your ear and your audience so that you know how to give a funk or evil or romantic vibe.
Major & Minor |
Add Numbers |
sus Chords |
Powerchords |
Stroke Chords |
Octaves |
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Major and Minor Chords
The two fundamental and most common chord types are ‘Major’ and ‘Minor’. Major chords have the jolly sound and Minor chords give off a more gloomy atmosphere. Songs then get based on what is called a major or minor ‘Key’ which to the ear is the ‘mood’ or ‘vibe’ of the music.
Red Hot Chili Peppers fans can hear the Major character in ‘Scar Tissue’ followed by the Minor sound in ‘Californication’.
Radiohead´s millions of OK Computer fans should notice the Major in ‘No Surprises’ and Minor in ‘Exit Music For A Film’, very different moods.
When you see Major chords named you will not usually see them as ‘Major’, that is considered the default so just get named such as D or E which is their 'Root note'. The D minor chord is labelled as Dm, E minor as Em.
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Numbers In Chord Names
Major and Minor chords are actualy made up of three notes from the Major or Minor scale.
Everybody knows the major scale, it´s the one you sang as a kid Doh-Ray-Mee-Fah-So-La-Tee-Doh The three notes of this scale that make up the chords are 1st 3rd 5th. The technical word for this is the 'Triad'.
Now the added numbers; you often see chords like E7 and C9 each of which have their own characteristics, but what does it mean? Note; the blue fret markers in the pictures are these numbered chord additions.
The three C Major notes: 
The three G Major notes: 
Em7 adds the 7th note of the minor scale: 
‘Am I Inside’ by Alice in Chains. Verse is mostly an Em7 arpeggio.
C9 adds the 9th note of the major scale: 
‘The Tourist’ by Radiohead. Every chord in the verse has add9 over it.
Warning: Addictive Harmonies!
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Suspended Chords
Suspended or 'sus' chords are not as complicated as assumed. Esus4 - used in the Nirvana Come As You Are chorus - means that the 4th note is not so much added, instead the 3rd is lifted up to 4th. Remember that the 3rd is a fundamental note, major or minor, so when you raise it to 4th or drop it to 2nd; the harmony is then suspended to sus4 or sus2. Remember that all these numbers are notes along the scale, not frets.
A sus4: 
A sus2: 
For Asus2 the B string is left open.
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Power Chords
Power Chords don´t add or suspend any notes- they take one out. Power Chords don´t use the major or minor 3rd of the scale. Power Chords are often named as G5, C5, etc because they are now only the Root Note and 5th of the scale.
Note; although power chords are only two notes, they are usually played with three strings to fill up and brighten the sound, the blue spot on the pictures here is the optional Octave note.
G5 Power Chord: 
C5 Power Chord: 
When you remove that characteristic major or minor harmony the sound goes very straight and solid. If you hear a guitar thrashing out with masses of overdrive you can be pretty sure that they are playing power chords because the full majors and minors sound 'out of focus' and broken on high gain.
Smells Like Teen Spirit by Nirvana.
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X⁄x Stroke Chords
Stroke Chords like A⁄d. The Root note of an A chord is A, the Root note of a G chord is G etc. In this A⁄d chord the Root note of A has been changed to D. This chord is used in the simple chord sequence for Dry Your Eyes by The Streets. 1st chord A, second chord A⁄d.
Dropping the Root note: 
Drops to open D string:
It is the same principle as the suspended and numbered chords but written differently because it is the very root of the chord rather than the harmonies above.
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Octaves In Chords
Take the Doh-Ray-Mee-Fah-So-La-Tee-Doh scale again and count the notes from Doh to Doh inclusive;
1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8 notes is an Oct-ave.
Now the strings; basic major and minor chords are only three notes yet when played on guitar up to 6 strings are used so how does this work? Some notes will get repeated in the next Octave/s.
In the simple C major scale these notes are C-D-E-F-G-A-B-C
So as you see in the letters the 1st and 8th are both C.
When we look at it like that, the five string C major chord played on guitar only achieves three notes:
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Any Questions or Debates?
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