Guitar Lessons

Lesson 4

In the third lesson you learned all about major scales and the Three Chord Theory. Now, let's have a look at some other chords, the minor chords.

Every note has a minor chord to it. 'Minor' means that one string of the major chord goes down half a note. Let's look at the A minor to see what I mean:

A minor:

E -----------0--
B ---------1---- (m)
G -------2------ (l)
D -----2-------- (r)
A ---0----------
E -X------------
As you can see, the B string goes down half a note, and also the fingers change strings a bit. Same goes for all the other major chords, so let me write them down for you:
C minor:                 D minor:

E -----------3-- (f)     E -----------1-- (f)
B ---------4---- (m)     B ---------3---- (r)
G -------5------ (l)     G -------2------ (m)
D -----5-------- (r)     D -----0--------
A ---3---------- (f)     A ---X----------
E -X------------         E -X------------

As you can see, the C minor changes a lot more than the other chords when they turn from a major into a minor chord. It becomes a barre. It is easy to understand when you look at the B minor:

B minor:                  

E -----------2-- (f)    
B ---------3---- (m)    
G -------4------ (l)     
D -----4-------- (r)    
A ---2---------- (f)    
E -X------------

The C minor and the B minor chords look exactly the same, only the place on the neck is one fret down (of course, because from B to C is only half a note as you learned earlier).

Now let's look at the other minor chords:

E minor:                 F minor:

E -----------0--         E -----------1-- (f)
B ---------0----         B ---------1---- (f)
G --------------         G -------1------ (f)
D -----2-------- (l)     D -----3-------- (l)
A ---2---------- (r)     A ---3---------- (r)
E -0------------         E -1------------ (f)
When you look at the F minor, it is easy to guess what the G minor will look like:
G minor:

E -----------3-- (f)
B ---------3---- (f)
G -------3------ (f)
D -----5-------- (l)
A ---5---------- (r)
E -3------------ (f)

If you want to practise the major and minor chords in a song, maybe you should play Hotel California by the Eagles. It is a fairly easy song, that contains many chords you learned in these lessons. There is one chord in it you haven't learned yet, the F# chord. It looks like this:

F#:

E -----------2-- (f)
B ---------2---- (f)
G -------3------ (m)
D -----4-------- (l)
A ---4---------- (r)
E -2------------ (f)
First, figure out for yourself why this is an F#. You should be able to do that by now!! Okay, here are the chords for Hotel California:

Bmin F# A E G D Emin F#

Just play them in a loop and you will here the famous Eagles song!

This was the fourth guitar lesson. You can practise this at home until you understand exactly what I wrote here.

Lesson 1Lesson 2Lesson 3 Lesson 5Lesson 6
Lesson 7Lesson 8
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