Three String Guitar Chords

June 5th, 2017
guitar, music
The high three strings of a guitar are G-B-E, which is an interval of a third and then a fourth. The other strings of my guitar are broken right now, so I've been playing around with what chords work on these three strings.

There are three different major chords, each corresponding to a different permutation of 1-3-5:

(I've labeled each finger with its scale degree, which is kind of non-standard but seems useful.)

1-3-5: "barred-A"
|-5-|---|---|
|---|---|-3-|
|---|---|-1-|
5-1-3: "barred-D"
|---|-3-|---|
|---|---|-1-|
|---|-5-|---|
3-5-1: "barred-E"
|---|-1-|---|
|---|-5-|---|
|---|---|-3-|

Each major chord also has a corresponding minor chord:

1-b3-5: "barred-Am"
|-5-|---|---|
|---|b3-|---|
|---|---|-1-|
5-1-b3: "barred-Dm"
|b3-|---|---|
|---|---|-1-|
|---|-5-|---|
b3-5-1: "barred-Em"
|---|-1-|---|
|---|-5-|---|
|---|b3-|---|

I think the music theory name for these would be "inversions", since the root (1) isn't always the lowest note.

(These are fun to play around with on their own, but I also think if I were trying to figure out more trumpet parts they would be pretty helpful for thinking about voicings.)

Comment via: google plus, facebook

Recent posts on blogs I like:

Starting With Chords

A lot of people play fiddle. Basically nobody starts by learning chords before learning melodies. But that's actually how I learned. I started with chords. One of the nice things about learning to play violin this way is that you can go busking even…

via Anna Wise's Blog Posts November 15, 2024

Stuffies

I have some stuffies and I just have a bunny. Bunny is a rabbit. Woof is a seal. My favorite stuffie is bun bun. I play with my stuffies. Sometimes I jump up with them and I roll them. I can just throw them in the air when I want to play bthululubp wi…

via Nora Wise's Blog Posts November 15, 2024

You Can Buy A Malaria Net

2024 election takes

via Thing of Things November 6, 2024

more     (via openring)