Probably one of the most frustrating things for any guitarist that really hasn't done the whole theory thing is chords; you know your major, minor, and dominant, and can probably play those three kinds in a few positions up and down the neck. But then one day you want to add a jazz tune to your repertoire, or you're at a party and somebody drops a lead sheet on you, and you see "Cmin7b5".
Erm...I dont know that one. You fiddle around with a chord you know that has the root, and in the end wind up saying, "sorry man I don't know it, let's do a blues jam." The other guy sighs and says sure, or starts showing you the fingering, which you try to get right but struggle with...
...so you go home, and once again break out that chord book, saying, "this time I'm going to memorize ALL of them in one key, which will show me the fingerings in all keys, I just have to move them up and down the neck."
The thought is right; you're trying to find a core position that you can use to play all your chords in relation to. "A major is here at the second fret, if I slide it up two frets it's B major..." and so on. You play those great chords, memorizing all those fingerings in one night, and man they sound great; pretty, expansive, "advanced" tones shimmer from the wood; now THIS is what it's all about.
Unfortunately, it won't work, because you don't use all the chords all the time. You may pick up one or two chords from the exercise, but in the end, you're trying to retain too much information. You'll go back to that party next year and once again end up doing a blues jam.
Not to fear, Fretboard Framework to the rescue. As always, the Fretboard Framework is about starting points; memorize the core idea and use it as a reference to build more advanced patterns and voicings. If you've read some of my past articles, you know it works for scales and modes; it works for chords too, and that's what we'll look at now. By the end of this article, you should be able to drastically expand your chord vocabulary.
Let's start with the following; these you'll need to memorize. Note that when I say "flat the..." I mean "drop it a half step (or one fret)", and when I say "sharp the..." I mean "raise it a half step (or one fret)". So flatting something twice would be a whole step (two half steps, or two frets).
For now, let's stick to expanding into all 7th chords. Extended chords (9, 11, 13), 6 and Sus chords, will come in a later article. Believe it or not, they're pretty easy as well if you know a couple of simple rules, but 7th chords are the reference for pretty much all advanced chord voicings, so let's make sure you know all about that first. Also, I'll assume you know how to play your basic plain-old major and minor chords well enough; we won't cover them here.
- Major 7th chords are built on the 1st, 3rd, 5th, and 7th notes of a given major scale. So, Cmaj7 = C E G B.
- To make that major 7th chord dominant (blues), you flat the 7th. So, C7 = C E G Bb.
- To make that major 7th chord minor, you flat the 3rd and 7th. So, Cmin7 = C Eb G Bb.
- To make that major 7th chord half diminished (also called "min7b5"), you flat the 3rd, 5th, and 7th. So, Cmin7b5 = C Eb Gb Bb. This is a very important chord that, surprisingly, many guitar players, even good ones, don't know.
- To make that major 7th chord fully diminished (also called "diminished"), you flat the 3rd, 5th as before, but flat the 7th twice. So, Cdim = C Eb Gb Bbb (notice the "flat flat" on the B). You may be wondering what "half dim" vs. "dim" is all about; that's a good observation, and has to do with the order of intervals in the chord; don't worry about it for now.
- To make that major 7th chord augmented, you sharp the fifth. So, C E G# B.
More simply:
aug7 = 1 3 #5 7
maj7 = 1 3 5 7
dom7 (or just "7") = 1 3 5 b7
min7 = 1 b3 5 b7
min7b5 = 1 b3 b5 b7
dim7 = 1 b3 b5 bb7
If you're thinking, "so all I need to do is memorize "aug, maj7, dom7, min7, min7b5, dim7", and what notes are flatted from one to the next", then you get it; it's that easy. As far as fingering them, the below tips are important:
- Practically in day-to-day use, all chords can be played on the top four strings (so the D, G, B, E strings). This is in fact frequently preferable, as the bass will hold the low end. Sure, ultimately you should know all chords on any combination of strings, but as a starting point, you can't go wrong this way. However, make sure you ONLY play those four strings. A stray tone can totally break your chord.
- Just because a note "number" is a higher than another DOES NOT MEAN THE NOTE MUST BE HIGHER THAN ALL THE REST IN THE CHORD. In other words, the 7th does not need to be a higher register/pitch than the rest of the chords and so on. You'll see this work later. I was confused about this when I started learning theory, because I studied for a while with a piano teacher. If you are in the same boat, jump out of it and get into the guitar one.
- Chords notes don't have to be played in the order you may write down on paper; keep reading, you'll see what I mean.
So, let's use it. For reference, I start with the easiest thing to finger on the top four strings, which is a min7 chord; you may think "start with major 7", but meh, this is easier to me. Let's do Cmin7; you just lay one finger across all four strings at the 8th fret. You probably already know this chord already.
Do it, and look at the notes (the top number is the fret, the numbers to the left of the notes are the note number, and "R" means "root"). Sure enough, as described earlier, you have a Cmin7 chord.
---8
R - C
5 - G
3 - Eb
7 - Bb
Interesting; they don't appear in the order you'd expect on paper (C Eb G Bb). That's ok; this gets into inversions and such, don't worry about it for now (though inversions are important). They don't have to be in the "straight" order, they just have to represent all the notes you need to make the chord "sound" right. Also notice that the Bb note is "lower" than the root, even though it's the 7th; again, the "height" or "register" of a tone isn't the key factor in playing it (in advanced harmony, this isn't always true, but for day-to-day it's true enough).
So...ok. From the formulas earlier, we know:
"- To make that major 7th chord minor, you flat the 3rd and 7th. So, C Eb G Bb."
This means that we started with a maj7 chord, but flatted the 3rd and 7th to get a minor one. So to get a maj7, we reverse the process; raise the 3rd and the 7th of the min7 chord a half step (so they are now on the 9th fret).
---8
R - C
5 - G
3 - x E
7 - x B
That's it...you have converted the min7 to maj7. You're now playing Cmaj7.
Now that we know how to get to our maj7 chord, let's convert it to dominant. Again, we know:
"- To make that major 7th chord dominant (blues), you flat the 7th. So, C E G Bb."
So, starting with the Cmaj7 chord, let's apply the formula...
---8
R - C
5 - G
3 - x E
7 - Bb
That's it; you're now playing C7 (note that, when you see a 7, 9, 11, or 13 on a chord, but no "maj" or "min", that means it's a dominant chord).
Moving along; let's make this a Cmin7b5. Start with the Cmaj7 again, and apply the formula:
"- To make that major 7th chord half diminished (also called "min7b5"), you flat the 3rd, 5th, and 7th."
---7
R - x C
5 - Gb
3 - x Eb
7 - x Bb
There you have it; you are now playing a Cmin7b5 (uncommonly called "half diminished"), a VERY important jazz chord that can even be used to spice up some blues numbers here and there. You can also look at this as "start with a Cmin7 (which already has the 3rd and 7th flatted), and flat the 5th".
Now let's do diminished (uncommonly called "fully diminished"). Start with the maj7 chord and apply the formula:
"- To make that major 7th chord fully diminished (also called "diminished"), you flat the 3rd, 5th as before, but flat the 7th twice."
---7
R - x C
5 - Gb
3 - x Eb
7 - Bbb
There you have it; you're now in the "fully diminished" world. Note that saying "flat flat (bb)" is correct; you're supposed to think of it this way. Again, there's a theory reason for it, we'll get into that another day.
On to augmented, again start with Cmaj7, and apply the formula:
"- To make that major 7th chord augmented, you sharp the fifth."
---8
R - C
5 - x G#
3 - x E
7 - x B
There you have it, Cmaj7 aug chord, commonly written as "Cmaj7+" or "Cmaj7#5" chord. You're a crazy jazz cat.
If you've really been thinking about what's going on here, you may have noticed that, just by knowing where to finger a min7 chord, which is easy, you don't have to know the notes you're playing. Just be knowing that, when played on the top four strings, that the root is on the first string, the 5th on the second, the 3rd on the third string, and the 7th on the fourth, and knowing what notes to flat to get to your desired chord, you can build these chords anywhere.
Bbmin7b5 used to look intimidating; now you know, lay your finger across the top four strings on the sixth fret; this is Bbmin7. Flat the 5th (which is "whatever note I'm playing on second string"), and you are playing that scary looking chord. Get really snooty and say, "ah, the half diminished chord". Juliard, Berkley, eat my dust.
This concludes the article, but I'll give some extra here, because it's so important:
Just in case it didn't sink in yet:
- KNOW THE CHORD TONES WHEN FINGERING A CHORD. IT'S THE PRACTICAL KEY TO KNOWING ALL CHORDS EVERYWHERE, EVEN MORE IMPORTANT THAN KNOWING THE NOTES.
Take the formulas given before, and try it anywhere you know how to finger a maj7 or min7 chord, whether or not it's on the top four strings. Let's look at Cmin7, played at the third fret. Again, we'll stick to four strings (and again, for these exercises, ONLY play those four strings);
---3
3 - x Eb
7 - Bb
5 - x x G
R - C
The order of chord tones has changed; the root is now on the fifth string, the 5th on the fourth string, the 7th on the third string, and the 3rd on the second string (so you're using the "middle" four strings).
Well, you know that to get to a maj7, you will have to sharp the 3rd and 7th.
---3
3 - x x E
7 - x B
5 - x x G
R - C
There you have it; Cmaj7.
Let's get out there and try Cmin7b5 this way; convert the maj7 (so starting with the maj7, flat the 3rd, 5th and 7th, or just start with the min7 chord and flat the 5th) and you get:
---3
3 - x Eb
7 - Bb
5 - x Gb
R - C
Blammo; you're playing a nice, rich sounding Cmin7b5. Compare it to the one on the top strings you learned before; note that they're the same chord, but you can imagine using one sometimes, and the other sometimes. You may play the Cmin7b5 on the top four strings, but the vocalist may say "I'm hitting the upper registers, can you play a different voicing?". Sure...I'll play this one on the middle four strings, I know how to do that easily enough now. Sure, they may get picky...no, play THIS exotic one. But at least you showed up knowing what the chord is, and you can play it a couple of different ways, which will usually do the job nicely.
So, applying the formulas to the chords based on where the tones are in the chord, you can build any 7th chord, anywhere, on the neck. It works for extensions and such too, like 9th and 11th chords, but there are a couple of other rules to know to build those properly; material for another article.
Have fun with that. As always, thanks for visiting.
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