Welcome to the current installation of Chord by Chord, a series developed to develop your understanding of consistency and the fretboard. At this moment we have actually done 30 lessons, covering chords of all types. In this lesson we’ll reboot that cycle, utilizing a completely different set of chords, starting with A significant.
The Work
If you remember, a major triad is comprised of three notes, the root, the 3rd, and the fifth. In an A significant triad, those notes are A, C#, and E, as revealed in Example 1. (Note that there are three sharps in the secret of A significant: F#, C#, and G #.).
Example 2a shows a basic open A chord. In Example 2b, you’ll find the very same voicing, but with a first-finger barre. Depending upon the shape of your guitar’s neck and your hand, you may be able to include the open high E string. Example 2c uses the exact same barre at the second fret, but adds the fourth finger to play the A on string 1, fret 5.
Example 3a illustrates an A barre chord dipped into fret 5. If it’s too uncomfortable to bar your very first finger throughout all six strings, then try the common workaround in Example 3b– cover your thumb around the neck to play the fifth-fret A on string 6, and then you simply need to disallow the top two strings with your first finger. In either barre shape, feel complimentary to play just the top or bottom 4 strings.
Example 4 portrays a more compact voicing using simply the leading three strings, with the fifth (E) on the bottom. If you’re fingerpicking, you can include the open A string to get the root note in the bottom. Last but not least, Example 5 shows an A voicing way up at the 12th fret. This shape can be hard to play even on a 14-fret guitar, but it helps if you have a cutaway. Also note that this is essentially the same as Ex. 2a, but went up 12 frets.
The Result.
Now you must understand a bunch of various A major chords at various areas on the fretboard. As always, practice these shapes until they are in your muscle memory. Leonard Cohen’s “Bird on a Wire” is an excellent example of a tune that makes use of an A chord. It likewise occurs to consist of an E major chord, the subject of your next lesson.
