Guitar Harmonics Chords | D Major

Playing the natural harmonics on the guitar creates a beautiful chime like sound. Usually guitar harmonics are played as part of solos but we can also play a number of chords just from the natural harmonics of the guitar.

To play natural harmonics, rest your finger lightly above the fret. Today's guitar chord of the day is a D Major chord played only with harmonics. This can work well when substituted for an ordinary D Major chord at the end of song or in a break.

Rest your finger lightly above the 7th fret of the guitar and play the D, G and B strings with your right hand.

Harmonics only occur on certain locations on the fretboard, in this case the notes of the harmonics (A, F# and D) are the same for the harmonics at the 7th fret and the fretted notes but this is not always the case.

Playing some chords with harmonics can add an interesting twist to your rhythm playing. In some future posts we'll look at further guitar harmonic chords and chords that mix harmonics and ordinary fretted notes. Subscribe to the RSS feed and tune in tomorrow for another Guitar Chord Of The Day

Ab add9 | Every Breath You Take

Today's Guitar Chord of the Day is Ab add9. This is Andy Summer's first guitar chord off the famous Police song Every Breath You Take from the 1983 album Synchronicity.  

Barre across the 4th fret of the guitar with your first finger and make sure every note sounds cleanly.

This guitar chord involves a bit of a stretch for your fingers. If you're having trouble stretching to finger this chord to start with try moving it higher up the guitar's neck and gradually working your way down as your fingers get more used to it.

We've looked at add9 guitar chords in a few previous posts but this inversion is definitely the most challenging to play cleanly!

Add 9 chords use these degrees of the major scale: 1, 3, 5, 9
Ab add9 uses the notes: Ab, C, Eb, Bb
Our inversion uses the notes in this order: Ab, Eb, Bb, C, Eb, Ab

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Em7 / G6

Two guitar chords for the price of one! Today's guitar chord is Em7, this has exactly the same notes in as G6. The Em7 chord has its root note on the B string of the guitar:

This guitar chord can be created by modifying some of the 4 string Dominant 7th Guitar Chords we looked at in previous posts.

To create a minor7 chord from a Dominant 7th chord, lower the 3rd of the chord one fret. Comparing the minor 7 chord above with this Dominant 7th inversion you can see we've changed only one note.

As this guitar chord can also be thought of as a Major 6th chord, we can also easily change 7th chords into a 6th chord by lowering the 7th one fret. Compare the above inversion with this G7 guitar chord and you can see that again only note has changed.

Minor 7 chords use these scale degrees: 1, b3, 5, b7
E minor 7 uses the notes: E, G, B D
Minor7 chords can be played in place of most minor chords and as chords ii, ii and vi in major keys

Major 6 chords use the scale degrees: 1, 3, 5, 6
G6 uses the notes: G, B, D, E
Major 6 chords can be played in place of almost all major chords and as chords I, IV and V in major keys.

As you can see the notes of G6 and Em7 are the same, this means we're learning two guitar chords for the price of one. There are lots of guitar chords like this that can be used in multiple situations. In future posts we'll look at these chord synonyms in much more detail.

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A major 6

Today's Guitar Chord of the Day is A Major 6, we can also call this guitar chord A6: our first inversion of a 6th chord. Our previous guitar chord was a very nice sounding E major 13 used by Stevie Ray Vaughan in the song Lenny. This chord is the second chord of that song.

Major 6 chords can almost always be played in place of any other major chord. The added 6th note adds a nice quality to the chord, major 6th chords often work well as the last chord of a song. The root note of this major 6 guitar chord is on the E string of the guitar and played with the middle finger.
Major 6 chords use the notes from the major scale: 1, 3, 5, 6
A major 6 uses these notes A, C#, E, F#
Our inversion uses the notes in this order: A, F#, C#, E

Major 6 chords can replace any major chords in a key: chords I, IV and V

Don't forget, you can use Guitar Chord Of The Day as a chord dictionary by searching the guitar chord labels and tags. Tune in tomorrow for another Guitar Chord Of The Day

E major13

Emajor 13: Stevie Ray Vaughan 'Lenny' Chord
Major 13 chords are beautiful sounding chords to play on the guitar. Today's guitar chord is the day is E Major 13. We've looked at another very nice sounding Major13 guitar chord here. Today's E major 13 guitar chord is used extensively in the Stevie Ray Vaughan song Lenny, from the Texas Flood album.  Stevie Ray Vaughan's rhythm style on this instrumental ballad is heavily influenced by Jimi Hendrix.

If you want to play this Major 13 chord in other keys, you can leave out the open string. This guitar chord has the root note on the 7th fret, the top two guitar strings are barred across with the little finger.
Major 13 chords can be played in place of major 7th chords, and often in place of major chords. It can replace I and IV chords.

Major 13 chords use these degrees of the major scale: 1, 3, 5, 7, 9, 11 and 13, though almost always the 11th is left out.

The notes of E Major 13 are:  E, G#, B, D#, F#, A, C#
Our inversion uses the notes in this order: E, E, B, D#, G#, C#

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Hard Day's Night Opening Guitar Chord

Today's guitar chord of the day is the famous first guitar chord from The Beatles 'A Hard Day's Night' from the film and album of the same name.

Here's is the actual guitar chord played by George Harrison for the 'A Hard Day's Night' intro:

Underneath this guitar chord, Paul McCartney played a D note on the bass, there was also a further piano chord in the mix. This is the reason that the naming of George Harrison's chord has been subject to some debate over the years. As we've mentioned in previous Guitar Chord a Day posts, there are many guitar chords that are synonyms - chords that have the same notes that can be named differently depending on their function.

If we assume that this chord is functioning as a G, we would name it G11 or G11/D taking into account the bass note. We've looked at other 11th guitar inversions here.

The notes of G11 are: G, (B), D, F, A, C - though the 3rd (B) is almost always omitted.

If we assume the chord is functioning as a D we could name the chord Dm11.
The notes of Dm11 are: D, F, A, C, E G

As you can see the notes of Dm11 and G11 are very similar and this has led to some of the confusion of the chord name.

Although the above inversion is the chord that George Harrison actually played for the opening of A Hard Day's Night, if you're playing this song without a bass player to play the D, it might work best if you play this inversion. Here we've included the open D string instead of the F on the 3rd fret.

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Em major9 - The James Bond Spy Chord

Today's Guitar Chord of the Day is the famous chord used at the end of the Dr No James Bond theme. You can hear it on youtube here, it's the very last guitar chord you hear and has an unresolved dissonant quality - most of all it sounds pretty cool!

This James Bond Chord is also know as the 'Spy Chord', but really it's an E minor Major 9. The first part of the description refers to the 3rd of the chord, the second part to the 7th of the chord: so it has a minor 3rd and Major 7th in.

Here's the fingering for this guitar chord:

Minor major9 chords use these degrees of the major scale: 1, b3, 5, 7, 9
The E minor major 9 guitar chord uses: E, G, B, D# and F#
Our inversion uses them in this order: E, G, B, D# and F# (you can also optionally let the top E string ring if you want)

Tune in tomorrow for another Guitar Chord of the Day.