Monday, March 3, 2008

Everything On Guitar Chords


Guitars, generally, have six strings. This means to play a large chord voicing there might be the need to omit one or more tones from the chord. This is normally the root or the fifth one.

The layout of the fretboard is made in such a manner that sometimes there is no tonal order in the notes of a chord. There is a chance of having it composed of notes that are of the same pitch. It is thus easily understood that a number of chords can be played with having identical notes in the fretboard.

People tune a guitar to their liking; hence there are variations in the tunes, similar to the number of strings found in a guitar. The usual number is six but sometimes they change. The order of tuning is normally, E-A-D-G-B-E. The internal intervals that are there among contiguous strings in the specified tuning can be written 4-4-4-3-4. The intervals are perfect in the fourth and there is one major third interval near the middle. So if one follows the above tuning example, the string that has the highest pitch, also the thinnest, is called the first string. Similarly, the sixth string has the lowest pitch.

To have at least an overall view on everything on guitar chords the need to learn the intervals is necessary. Guitar chords use the intervals between the strings that give the perfect fourths except in the interval between the B (second) and G (third) strings. This gives a major third. It is not uncommon in many forms of hard rock and metal to drop D tuning and use it to make it go above standard tuning. The player is then needed to change the low E string tuning to make it into that of a D note.

If all the strings of the guitar are tuned to play a chord without fretting then the guitar is called an open tuned guitar. Then the user gets a chance to bar every fret of the guitar and makes a chord. Open G (D-G-D-G-B-D) tuning: Here if the player strums all strings open then it would give the sound of the G chord. If the player bar the second fret then it would give the A chord

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