C Guitar Chord | Beginners Guitar Chords

The C Guitar Chord is one of the essential guitar chords for beginners to learn to play. The C guitar chord is made up of the notes C, E and G.

To play this guitar place your 1st finger on the 1st fret of the B string, your 2nd finger on the 2nd fret of the D string and your 3rd finger on the 2rd fret of the A string. Hold these notes down with your fingertips and listen carefully to each string to make sure that each note of the guitar chord is sounding clearly.

Allan Holdsworth Chords | Part Two

Continuing our series of posts looking at Allan Holdsworth's Guitar Chords, today we look at another inversion than can be taken through a chord scale.

Rather than using standard chord voicings, Allan Holdsworth views chords as being a member of a "family", the family name being the name of the scale from which that chord is derived. Any grouping of notes from that family can be substituted for the standard chord voicings, depending, of course on your own taste and the context in which they are used. For example, if the harmony calls for an Cmaj7, rather than playing a standard voicing, various combinations of notes all drawn from the Cmajor scale can be used.

Here an inversion is taken through the C major scale. As any of these chords can be used over any of the diatonic C major chords no chord names have been given. Although this inversion is taken directly through a scale, bear in mind that Allan usually uses a more complex approach moving between different inversions.

Moving each of the chord to the next scale note gives us the same inversion starting on the 3rd fret.
Moving each scale note up gives us this inversion

Moving each scale note up gives us this inversion that's an easier stretch than the last chord.
Moving each note up again takes us to our original chord inversion starting on the 8th fret.

And again at the 10th.
Finally a different inversion is created by moving each scale note up again.
Moving the chord notes up to the next scale note would give us the same inversion we started with 12 frets higher.

Try taking other inversions 'for a walk' through a scale and substitute these for regular inversions that you might have used. Listen carefully to interesting melodies and check back soon for another guitar chord of the day.

If you liked like this post you might also be interested in the Frank Gambale Magic Chord posts.

Em Guitar Chord | Beginners Guitar Chords

The Eminor guitar chord (also written as Em), is an easy guitar chord shape to play. You can start with an E Major guitar chord and remove your first finger.

Here's the fingering for the Em guitar chord, it's typically played with your 2nd and 3rd fingers as in the photo, but it's common to play it with the 1st and 2nd fingers too.

As you can tell from changing between E major and E minor, there is only note difference between major and minor chords.

Eminor uses these notes: E, G, B
Minor chords use the scale degrees: 1, b3, 5

Minor chords have a sad sound compared to major chords. Try this chord together with the G major guitar chord and check the full list of beginners guitar chords

E Guitar Chord | Beginners Guitar Chords

The E Guitar chord is an easy guitar shape to play and works really well with A Major and D Major guitar chords to play lots of your favourite songs.

To play the E Major Guitar Chord, put your 2nd finger on the 2nd fret of the A string, your 3rd finger on the 2nd fret of the D string and your 1st finger on the 1st fret of the G string.

As ever, use the tips of your fingers and play each string to make sure each of the notes is sounding clearly.

Allan Holdsworth Chords

Virtuoso guitarist Allan Holdsworth was born in Leeds, UK in 1946. Holdsworth is known for his legato lead lines but his chord use is equally interesting. In today’s we’ll start a new series looking at how Allan Holdsworth approaches chords.

Holdsworth is known for his unusual chord voicings that often involve large stretches and his approach to using chords: rather than following diatonic chord progressions, Allan approaches chords as groups of notes that imply a certain scale, thinking of chords as belonging to a certain key, which imply a given diatonic scale. 

You can then play any note that is diatonically correct for that scale that sounds good. For example if playing a C major chord, the chords may not necessarily be an inversion of any kind of C Major chord, but just something that comes from the scale.

This is quite different to the more traditional jazz approach of playing chord changes.

Creating A Chord Scale

• Play a chord inversion, ideally one that is a little ambiguous and not a standard triad or seventh chord.
• Move each note of the chord up to the next note of the scale you're using
• Continue moving the chord through the scale and use all of these possible chords to play

Here we take one inversion and take it through the C Major scale. This chord uses the notes G, C, D and A. Although this chord is labelled D11 here, Allan would use this chord in place of any diatonic chord from C major. 

Raise each note to the next note in the scale and we end up with the same inversion two frets higher, here named E11 but again used for any diatonic C Major chord. We change from:

• G, C, D, A to
• A, D, E, B 

Raise each note to the next note in the scale. We change from:

• A, D, E, B  to
• B, E, F, C

This time we have a different inversion

Raise each note to the next note in the scale. We change from:

• B, E, F, C to
• C, F, G, D 

Raise each note to the next note in the scale. We change from:

• C, F, G, A  to
• D, G, A, E

Raise each note to the next note in the scale. We change from:

• D, G, A, E to
• E, A, B, F

Raise each note to the next note in the scale. We change from:

• E, A, B, F to
• F, B, C, G

Allan Holdsworth chords. Play combinations of these over any C major chord e.g:

• C major
• D minor7
• E minor7
• F major7
• G7
• A minor 7
• B half diminished

You'll find more Allan Holdsworth chords in these other posts.

B7 Guitar Chord | Beginners Guitar Chords

The B7 guitar chord is a really useful chord for beginners to learn. Played together with E Major and A Major chords it can be used to play countless songs from 50's rock 'n' roll, through to contemporary pop.

To play this guitar chord shape, put your middle finger on the 2nd fret of the A string, 1st finger on the 1st fret of the D string. 3rd finger on the 2nd fret of the G string and your little finger on the 2nd fret of the top E String.

The B7 chord uses the notes: B, D#, F# A

Am Guitar Chord | Beginners Guitar Chords

The A minor guitar chord, is one of the first minor chords that acoustic or electric guitar players learn. Minor chords have a sad sound compared to major chords. Am is an easy guitar chord shape to play and an easy guitar chords for beginners.

Put your first finger on the 1st fret of the B string, your second finger on the 2nd fret of the D string and your 3rd finger on the 2nd fret of the G string.

The A minor guitar chord can be written as Am or A minor. Try playing this together with the C major chord and check back soon for another guitar chord of the day.