Dsus4 Guitar Chord

Today's Guitar Chord of the Day is Dsus4. Dsus4 is used lots to add interest to D major chords. This sus4 chord is really easy to play, start with a regular D major chord and add your little finger to the 4rd fret of the top E string.

Although it might look easier to play this chord with your first three fingers, don't. 99.99% of the time this chord is played together with a regular D major chord, using your little finger on the 3rd fret makes this change really easy.

Sus4 chords are so called, because they 3rd of the chord is replaced by the 4th. This gives a suspended sound as our ear is expecting the 4th to resolve to the 3rd.

Sus4 chords use the degrees from the major scale: 1, 4, 5
The Dsus4 chord uses these notes: D, G, A

This Dsus4 guitar chord is used in thousands of songs:

• More Than A Feeling Boston
• Just Give Me A Reason Pink
• What It Takes Aerosmith
• Wonderwall Oasis
• and many more...

Try adding sus4 chords as embellishments to major chords next time you play your favourite song and tune back soon for another Guitar Chord of the Day.

E7 Guitar Chord

Today's Guitar Chord of The Day is E7 and we're trying out to different fingerings of E7 in open position. Our first E7 chord is an easy guitar chord to play. Start with an E major chord and remove your 3rd finger.

This lets the open D string ring.

E7 uses these notes: E, G#, B, D
7th chords use the notes from the major scale: 1, 3, 5, b7

Our second way of playing the E7 Guitar Chord in open position also starts with playing a regular E major chord. This time you add your little finger on the 3rd fret of the B string.
Here is the fingering for this chord.

Try using this chords in a Blues progression in A or E and tune back soon for another guitar chord of the day.

Using Harmonics To Play Guitar Chords | G Major

In a previous Guitar Chord a Day post we introduced the idea of playing guitar chords with harmonics.

Today's guitar chord is a simple G major triad. This can be played in two positions using harmonics, firstly play this chord with harmonics by lightly resting your finger touching the strings over the 12th fret, once you've plucked them you can remove your left hand to let them ring.
The 12th fret is exactly half way between the bridge and nut of your guitar. Harmonics played here are the same pitch as the fretted note, so harmonics at the 12th fret will have the same pitch as fretting a note at the 12th fret.

We can also play a G major triad using harmonics at the 5th fret.

Guitar harmonics have a beautiful chime like sound and are a simple way to add some tonal variation to common chords.

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G7 Guitar Chord

Today's Guitar Chord of the Day is G7. The G7 chord is a common chord in the key of C and is also used in Blues chord progressions.
The first fingering of this guitar chord is in open position. Note that it has one note different to a standard open G chord.
It's easy to play this chord with your first finger on the 1st fret of the E string, 2nd finger on the 2nd fret of the A string and 3rd finger on the 3rd fret of the bottom E string.

7th chords use the following notes: 1, 3, 5, b7
G7 uses these notes: G, B, D, F

Add Guitar Chord Of The Day to your daily practice routine and tune in tomorrow for another Guitar Chord of the Day.

Elektra Chord Guitar

Today's Guitar Chord of the day is the 'Elektra chord'. The Elektra chord is a polychord used by the composer Richard Strauss to represent the title character of his opera Elektra.

Polychord's are chords that are created by playing the notes of two chords at the same time. Here the notes of C# major and E major chord are played together, this results in a dissonant polychord.

Here are the notes of each chord:

• C#major = C#, E#, G#
• Emajor  = E, G#, B

Polychords are written like this with a horizontal line between the two chords:

C#

E

It's important to note that polychords are different to slash chords. Slash chords symbols use a forward slash written like this: C#/E this tells us that the chord is a C# major chord with an E in the bass. The other notes of the E major chord are not used for slash chords. With polychords the notes of both chords are played at the same time.

Using polychords opens up a whole new harmonic vocabulary. Check back soon for more polychords at Guitar Chord of the Day.

Asus4 Guitar Chord

Today's Guitar Chord of the Day is Asus4. This chord inversion is played in open position on the guitar:

The Asus4 Guitar Chord can be played by slipping your 3rd finger up one fret when playing an ordinary open A chord.

 

Ordinary major chords are made from the 1st, 3rd and 5th of the major scale.
Sus4 chords replace the 3rd note of the scale with the 4th: 1, 4, 5

This gives an open, suspended sound as we expect to hear the sus4 chord resolve to a major chord - hence the name suspended 4th.

You don't have to see sus4 chords written down to play them. Anytime you see a major chord, you can try embellishing it with a sus4 chord before playing the major version.

Check out other sus4 guitar chords and tune back soon for another guitar chord of the day.

Quintal Harmony | Advanced Guitar Chords

We played a guitar chord built up in 5ths in a previous post here. Usually chords are constructed from a scale in 3rds: taking every other note, quintal harmony builds chords in 5ths.

With a root note on the 4th fret notes of our chord are: Ab, Eb, Bb, F

Quintal and quartal chords are frequently used in modal music. Rather than playing through chord changes you can improvise taking the quintal voicing through the mode that is being improvised with.

Although this chord is not constructed in a traditional way, we can also think of it as Ab69 (no 3rd).

Add Guitar Chord Of The Day to your daily practice routine and tune in tomorrow for another Guitar Chord of the Day.