(calm guitar music)
- What's up, I'm Samira Winter
and today we're gonna talk about chord colors.
For me, music is like painting and notes are the colors.
So when we're playing a chord
and we're choosing which variation
of that chord we want to play.
So if we're adding, replacing notes, taking away notes,
we are creating the chord color that we want to use.
I think it's cool to be familiar
with the different chords you can use,
because then you can really choose and hone in
on like the emotion that you want to express.
I think there's such a pallet in chords
that it's really awesome to just be able
to approach the guitar with those ideas and those emotions
and be able to convey them in a clear way.
So let's get into it.
So we're gonna do major chord colors today,
which means if you're playing a major chord,
(guitar strums)
if you're playing C and you're writing a song
or you're jamming, and you want to know what other types
of C chords you can use,
I'm gonna show you three different options.
So a major C chord is comprised of the root, which is C.
(guitar strums)
The major third, which is E
(guitar strums)
And the fifth, which is G.
(guitar strums)
Now the first chord color I'm gonna show you is
a major seventh chord.
And we're basically adding a major seventh note
on top of that major triad.
So this is the voicing that I like to use
that's on the A string.
(guitar strums)
You can also play open,
(guitar strums)
or play up here on the E string.
(guitar strums)
The major seventh chord for me just feels really dreamy.
And it kind of has this like melancholy to it.
(guitar strums)
In the case of C, the major seventh is B.
And because we're playing diatonic chords,
which means that all the chords are based off the notes
of the major scale, we can just count up the major scale
to find out which notes we want to add or include.
So in the case of the major seventh, it's,
you can just count up,
♪ C D E F G A B ♪
and that's the major seventh.
So we can just play it over here.
(guitar strums)
So, yeah, that's a great color.
I also really like the major in ninth chord.
So the major ninth
we are getting rid of the fifth and we're just,
root, third, seventh, ninth.
So for the major ninth chord, we're getting rid
of the fifth, because when you start adding a lot of notes
on top of your chords, I think the fifth is probably
the first one to go, just so it doesn't get too muddy
and you can kind of create some space for these new notes.
But we're keeping the seventh
so it's basically a major seventh with a nine on top,
with a major nine on top of it.
The nine I like to think of it as the two, but an octave up.
So the two is D, so one, two.
You can also count up to nine
♪ C D E F G A B C D ♪
♪ One two three four five six seven eight nine. ♪
And you can just see it over here in this voicing,
(guitar strums)
we're keeping that major seventh, we're adding that nine.
(guitar strums)
I love this chord.
Yeah, it's cool.
I learned a lot of these chords from playing Bossa Nova
and MPB Brazilian music.
They can really just add a lot of flavor
to your progressions.
Another cool thing about chord colors is the notes
that you use in your chords.
A lot of the times are the notes you use in your melodies,
so when you're incorporating a nine or a seventh,
you can add those notes now more easily in your melodies
and they can just inspire you in that way.
(guitar strums)
Okay so the last part I'm gonna talk about is the sus4.
So out of the suspended chords, that's the most popular one,
and the sus4,
(guitar strums)
yeah, it just has this like open quality to it.
So far, the chord colors we talked about,
we're adding notes, this one we're actually taking away
and replacing so we're taking away that E, the major third E
and we're moving it to the F, which is our four.
So it just keeps it pretty open.
(guitar strums)
So, yeah, this chord is when you're playing a C sus4,
It's C F G,
and then the C up here.
(guitar strums)
All right, that's it for today.
Thanks for checking out the Technique of the Week,
I'm Winter and if you're looking for more tutorials,
check us out on Fender Play.
I hope you enjoyed.
(guitar strums)