A table will appear with chord charts drawn out for some popular 6th string root and 5th string root bar chords. The table shows some common voicings for 6^th and 5^th string root bar chords for the major, minor, minor seventh, dominant seventh, major seventh, ninth, and eleventh chords.

These are essential chords and you will want to learn them and get them down cold. These are only a few voicings of each of these chords, there are many for each chord – but these will get you started and provide you with a handy reference sheet with the chords listed all on one page. The square box denotes the root note. 

Suspended 2^nd and 4^th chords have no third interval – it is suspended. So the third is either raised to the 4th or lowered to the 2nd scale degree. Remember from past lessons a major chord or major triad is made of the formula root, 3^rd, and 5^th.

A minor chord or minor triad is made of the formula root, flat third, and fifth. You can easily tell a major chord from a minor chord by looking at that third degree – whether it is a major third or a flatted third. Suspended 2^nd and 4^th chords do not have thirds, so they are technically not major or minor chords and they work equally well when used with both major AND minor chords. Suspended chords are often used in combination with major or minor chords with the same letter name.

Add chords differ from suspended chords in that an interval is not removed from the chord but rather added. An add2 chord has the 1,3,5 and then on top of that adds a 2^nd – so the formula becomes 1,2,3,5. Where suspended 2^nd and 4^th chords remove, or suspend an interval, the add chords leaves that in and then adds another.

This written lesson has a chart with all the chords in each major key diagrammed out. This is a great tool to keep near you when writing songs or putting progressions together. Remember that any chord can appear in any given key, but the chords that make up that given key have a MUCH MORE LIKELY chance of appearing in a song in that key than other chords. This is so because the chords in a given key are made from different combinations of notes of the major scale in that key – so they all sound pretty good together. Remember that this chart is for MAJOR KEY – minor key follows different formulas and there are three types of minor scales, (natural minor, harmonic minor, and melodic minor). For this lesson we want to focus on major key.

The chart is just a guide – feel free to get creative. Try writing a progression in major key using the chart as a reference. There are 14 chords in each major key as illustrated by the chart. The first line in each key is the notes in that keys’ major scale. The next two lines are the 3 note chord and the 4 note chord in each key. Use these chords in a given key together and experiment with the sounds – let your ear guide you to what sounds good together. The V chord always resolves nicely to the I chord. Try it out – you will see that when putting the V chord last in the progression and then  having the first chord being the I chord you always get that great resolution of that V chord leading right to the one chord. The IV chord is a great strong chord to go tofor a chorus section of the song – pulls real nice to start off a chorus with the IV chord.

As per previous lessons we have learned that music theory falls back to the major scale. The major scale is the standard in music that all is compared. Now we will build chords from each degree of the major scale and you will easily be able to know which chords are in any given key. A scale is a series of sounds arranged by order of pitch, or alphabetically, from any given note to its octave. To find the notes in any major key, (major scale), start at the root and go up following this pattern: whole step, whole step, half step, whole step, whole step, whole step, half step. This will take you to the root one octave higher than where you began, and will include all seven notes in the major key in that octave. Remember, any chord might show up in any given key, however, some chords are much more likely to be in a given key than others. The most likely chords to show up in a given key are the chords made from combinations of the notes in that keys’ major scale. You’ll find that although the chords change from one key to the next, the pattern of major and minor type chords is always the same for any major key. I outlined these principles in the video lessons on songwriting and some other theory lessons. Be sure to watch these lessons as they coincide with this one and it all fits together.

In the “MUSIC THEORY” section of the website watch: 

Chord construction theory and major scale building – Guitar Lesson 9:20 minutes

CHORDS in each KEY – SONG WRITING LESSON FOR MAJOR KEY – part 1 of 3 – 13:41 minutes
CHORDS in each KEY – SONG WRITING LESSON FOR MAJOR KEY – part 2 of 3 – 13:13 minutes
CHORDS in each KEY – SONG WRITING LESSON FOR MAJOR KEY – part 3 of 3 – 13:39 minutes