Beginning Guitar III - Simple Chords - Open Position Major 7 Chords

Lyle Ronglien >> Beginning Guitar III - Simple Chords >>


Beginning Guitar III - Lesson 2 Open Position Major 7 Chords Lyle: Before you start working on this lesson, you check your tuning with me: check your tuning Lyle: So far you've learned the major, minor and dominant 7 chords in the open position. In this lesson you'll learn the basic Major 7 chords in the open position. These are very colorful sounding chords, rich with harmony. These rich in harmony sounding chords don't work well with distortion, try using a clean sound or an acoustic guitar with these chords. Rich sounding chords like this are found in many types of music such as Jazz, Funk, R&B, Blues, Country, and Pop. Probably wont find these chords in hard rock or metal too much, although Foo Fighters and Zeppelin have used them in their songs. Lower case letters (m) means minor, upper case (M) means major. Emaj7, EM7 = E major 7 Here's the A major 7: AM7 AM7 Lyle: This is a 5 string chord, don't play the 6th string. Make sure all the notes ring clearly. Lyle: Next is the open CM7: CM7 CM7 Lyle: The Major 7 chords are made from taking the 1st, 3rd, 5th, and seventh notes of the major scale and playing them together in harmony. Again, that's a little music theory you can impress your friends with ;-) CM7 example Lyle: Next is the open position DM7 chord. Use your index finger to push down on all three strings: DM7 DM7 Lyle: This technique of pushing down on two or more strings with one finger is called "barring". Lyle: The open DM7 chord is just a 4 string chord, but it's ok if you hit the 5th string with it. Lyle: Next is the open position EM7 chord, which uses all 6 strings: EM7 EM7 Lyle: Last but not least, the GM7: GM7 GM7 Lyle: Notice you skip the 5th string. Your middle/2nd finger gently mutes the 5th string. Lyle: Now that you have been introduced to these fine chords, it's time to try playing them in a progression! chord progression 1 Lyle: I want you to strum once on beat 1 for each measure. Remember to tap your foot to the beat and count to 4 during each measure: chord progression 1 chord progression 1 Lyle: The EM7 chord gets two measures worth before the progression starts over. Here's a looping jam track you can use to play along with: Jam Track for progression 1 Lyle: It's a little fast but you can do it! For the average beginner, this exercise can be tough because you're playing 5 new chords and switching every 4 beats. It can be a lot to memorize, but it's a good challenge! Lyle: Here's another chord progression for you to try. This time it uses a few of the other chords you have learned from the last few lessons: chord progression 2 chord progression 2 chord progression 2 Lyle: Here's a looping jam track for this progression: Jam Track for progression 2 Lyle: Notice how the combination of different chords create a rich harmonic and melodic sound in progression 2? Joel: Reminds of George Harrison or Beatles. :) Lyle: Exactly! It's from a Riff Interactive CD-ROM I made called Rock Legends I - George Harrison Style. Yes, they were all about harmony and melody, so they used these colorful chords. Lyle: Well that's about it for this lesson. You have new chords to memorize now and two progressions to master. Make these chords sound good, then take a break before going on to the next lesson. If you have questions about this lesson, email me at Lyle@theguitar.net. Thanks.	<< load notation from left
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