Hey guys,
Have you ever wondered what the difference between you and a
professional rhythm guitarist was? What do they have that adds that subtle hint
of flavor to there already beautiful playing? I'm here to help you reach that
stage all by yourself.
When you play your same old chords, it gets boring at some
point. Thats where you have to switch up to some new chords. This lesson will
help you spice up your old and common chords with suspended chords and altered
chord notes.
I'm not going to be diving in deep about what these
suspended chords are, but I'll teach you how to play a few shapes and help you
experiment with them yourself. As you would have guessed this is not a very theoretical lesson in order to help beginners or otherwise alike. That's when it gets fun.
Suspended Chords Made Easy
One way of playing A major suspended or Asus, is playing the
open A major with a B note instead of the C#. Dsus can be played in the open
position with an open high E instead of an F#. By playing these chords you
would realize two things. One is that these chords sound similar to the origin
chord with an added bit of flavor. Two is that these two suspended chords are
open chords minus one fingered note. That fingered note usually is transferred
to an open note though on occasion that changes to form different suspended
chords.
Using that logic try and take any chord (minor or major) and
remove a fingered note from the chord to an open note. Thus this method has a lot to do with trial and error.
If you want to move the shapes
higher up the neck, take the notes of the suspended chord and find them higher
up. A problem that can arise is that the shapes can be rather awkward. Like I
said, trial and error.
Altering Notes Within a Chord
Another neat trick I wanted to
teach you is altering the notes of your standard open chords in a different
fashion from suspended chords. Take the G major open chord for example. It is
made up of G, B, D notes. My personal preference is that I like the chord with
only the G, D notes (it is still a G major chord). For that purpose I mute the
B note on the A string and also add the D note on the B string to eliminate all
B notes. I love the way it sounds without the B. You could do the same WITHOUT
changing the standard notes that make up the chord. Otherwise you might end up
with a different chord entirely.
Experiment with these ideas. It's
a load of fun. You can even ude these ideas for original songs much like I do.
Cheers guys,
Visal.
Btw I'm sorry I haven't posted a
lesson in a while :)
Guitar Fun Fact of the day!
Julio Iglesias was a promising footballer, however, was in a horrible car accident. Three years of paralysis (except arms), Julio led to the guitar. Thanks to them Iglesias became a famous musician.
