Guitar Chord Progression
Hello, thank you for joining the Beginner Guitar Lessons blog. Today we will learn how to choose the ‘right’ chords for a simple major song and prevent the ‘wrong’ ones. Well, actually there are no right or wrong chords but if you use them wrongly then your guitar playing will sound bad.
OK, let’s get started! First of all we have to go back a little bit to the major scale, the W – W – H – W – W – W – H formula. We will pick C as the root note:
In major chords progression, the root chord (I) is related closely to the fourth (IV) and the fifth (V) chords. From the example above you can see that C as the root chord will have F and G chords as the fourth and fifth chords. If you listen to the folk or rock & roll songs you will find this piano or guitar chord progression easily. I used to imagine this I, IV and V chords relation as a sinusoidal wave form. The root chord is the base of the wave form. The fourth chord represents the high positive amplitude while the low negative amplitude is represented by the V chord. When I feel the song is ‘going up’ then I use the IV chord and if ‘going down’ I simply use the V chord. The more you listen to these simple songs the better feel will you have.
Major Guitar Chord Progression in other root chords:
I – IV – V
C – F – G
D – G – A
E – A – B
F – Bb – C
G – C – D
A – D – E
B – E – F#
You need to understand the logic behind the W – W – H – W – W – W – H formula to find the IV and V chords for other root chords such as C#, Eb, F#, G# and Bb. Just follow the W – W – H – W – W – W – H scale above and put the root chord you want to play in the first position. Remember, from the natural tones (without sharp or flat signs), E to F and B to C distance are half steps.
How can you tell a song is written in major chords? If you feel the song mood is normal or happy it’s most probably written in major chords. You need to listen to different songs to get the feeling. Also you will find some specific patterns are shared between songs, such as I – IV – V, I – IIm – V – I, etc. We will discuss this in the next post. Don’t worry if you think guitar chord progression is somewhat confusing. It is, at least for the first time, but you can overcome this. There are tons of guitar chords for any songs available online. Find ones for the songs you already familiar with and study the chords structure.
To Your Guitar Success,
-TJ-
Beginner Guitar Lessons Admin
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