Making Chords from a major scale

trevjo7

Someone please help me? How can I make a major chord from a major scale starting with a root on either the 5th or 6th string?

Trevor

carlos

I guess the basic shapes for that are:

6th string

Barre across all 6 strings. Ring finger two frets up on 5th string. Pinky two frets up on 4th string. Middle finger one fret up 3rd string. So for G Major would be from bass to treble 355433

5th string

Barre across top 5 strings. Barre with middle finger two frets up on strings 4, 3 and 2. So for C major it'd be x35553

I hope I got your questions right.

bloodandtears

A simple major chord includes the root, 3rd and 5th degrees of the scale... using the examples provided above.. G major:
G Major scale: G, A, B, C, D, E, F#, G
G Major chord: G, B, D


On a piano it would be a simple construction process as the notes are consecutive.

On a guitar however you have to consider the note positions on each string.. again using the examples provided above..

6th string - G major barre chord fretting would be 3-5-5-4-3-3 (low E to high e) but consider the actual notes being played.. G-D-G-B-D-G.  All the important notes appear, taken from different octaves, and often duplicated, that is the beauty of guitar.

One of the nuggets I like is that this position the 5-4-3 middle section (partial chord) of the entire barre chord, best reflect that of a piano's chord voicing... handy to know if you wanted to emulated crude piano chord work.

carlos

I try to avoid any voicings that have notes on both the 6th and 5th string. It just sounds too mushy. You can easily take out the 5th string on the chords listed above and not lose anything as you already have the 5th on the 2nd string anyway. So 3x5433. Only issue is you need to mute the 5th string.

Wazmeister

Learn the root, 3rd, 5th

Learn every note on every fret.

Sorted !

GuyBoden

Simple, just use every third note in the scale. (Tertiary chords)

Example:

C Major scale

C D E F G A B - C D E F G A B C

C E G = C Major

D F A = D minor

E G B = E minor

F A C = F Major

G B D = G Major

A C E = A minor

B D F = B minor (b5)

Phil_aka_Pip

E-shape chords have a root on the 6th string
A-shape chord have theirs on the 5th string

Once you have nailed the majors and the minors, consider the 7th-type chords

I maj7
ii -7
iii -7
IV maj7
V7
vi -7
vii -7-5

not as scary as the nomenclature looks, and the A-shape fingerings are surprisingly easy.

Try also D-shapes (root on 4th string)

trevjo7

Sorry, just to clarify things, I'm trying to learn how to create major chords from the 1st two major scale CAGED patterns. Anyone advise?

Trevor

Phil_aka_Pip

Strikes me as an odd way to go about it, but you could make a map of the fingerboard showing all the notes in the major scale that starts on (first) the 6th string (second) the 5th string, then take some photocopies, and on them start highlighting the "every other note" thing from the scale tones. However it won't get you a lot of practical chord shapes that you would recognise, because a lot of chord shapes don't use "close voicing" (eg the A-shape chords are voiced R 5 R 3 not R 3 5 R). And another thing, harmonising a major scale will only get you major triads on the 1st 4th and 5th degrees of it (2 3 & 6 give you a minor triad and 7 gives you a diminished triad).

It can however help to associate a practical chord shape with a given arpeggio pattern or one of the 5 pentatonic patterns or one of the 7 shapes of the 3-note-per-string scale patterns. EG the e-shape minor chord shares a lot of notes with the minor arpeggio with its root on the 6th string, shape 1 of the minor pentatonic scale, and the lower part of the 3-note-per-string pattern for the aeolian mode (natural minor, 6th mode of the major scale). The latter takes you a little out of position on the upper strings, but I'm sure there's probably a classical guitar equivalent that doesn't (probably by playing only 2 notes on the G string).