Welcome to video 7 of the Rhythm Guitar Quick-Start Series. In this lesson, we’re going to put
the bar chords that you’ve been working on to use by playing through some of the most
common chord progressions that you’re going to be exposed to as a rhythm guitarist. Being
able to use your bar chords to play through common chord progressions like this is going
to be really useful when you show up to a gig, where you’re just jamming with your
friends, when you’re learning a song that you don’t really know, or if you’re playing
a church gig or something like that. We’re not going to get too much into the
theory of this right now but I do want to make sure that you have some basic things
down. For this lesson, we’re going to be in the key of G. That just means that the
G note is going to be our tonic home base or root note. We’re going to cover three
basic chord progressions. The first one is called the 1, 4, 5; the second one is called
the 1, 5, 6, 4; and the third one is called the 2, 5, 1. These numbers just refer to the
chords in a certain key and like I said we’re not going to get too much into the theory
of it right now but just be aware that every major key has seven chords available to you
that you can choose from that occur naturally in that key and those chords can be represented
by the number one through seven. We’re going to use the four bar chords that
you’ve learned so far to play through these progressions and this may seem a little bit
foreign to you or a little bit difficult but stick with me throughout this and by the end
of the lesson it will start to make more sense to you. Closer to the end of this lesson,
you’re going to start to see how being able to move bar chords around like this through
these chord progressions is really valuable because you’re going to be able to do it,
not only just in the key of G but in any key that you want. This is probably one of the
single most powerful concepts that you can learn as a rhythm guitarist, so don’t feel
like you have to get all this down right now. Come back and watch this lesson as many times
as you need to. This first chord progression is the 1, 4,
5 chord progression. We’ve already kind of done this in the Rhythm Guitar Quick-Start
Series because we’ve been working on our G, C, D chord progression, right? Just know
that this is a 1, 4, 5 chord progression. When you’re in a major key, the 1, 4 and
5 chords in that major key are all going to be major chords. So, it starts off on our one chord,
which since we’re in the key of G is a G major chord. Our G major chord, bar chord right
here, sixth string root note, E shape, would be 1. The 4 is going to be a C chord, so we
need a C chord. Instead of jumping all around the fretboard, just move over to this A shaped
bar chord with our lowest root note here on the fifth string, which is a C, so that’s
a C. That’s our 4 chord. And our 5 chord is going to be a D, so we need to move up
to our bar is on the fifth fret of the A string right there. That’s your 5 chord. It’s
a D. Play through that progression, G, C, D over and over again until you get those
changes down. It may take a while for it to sound really smooth but that’s fine. Try
to listen to that chord progression and memorize what it sounds like too.
The next chord progression we’re going to look at is the 1, 5, 6, 4 and this is a really
popular chord progression that you’re going to hear in all types of music – rock, country,
pop, all kind of stuff. And you probably noticed that we’re using three of the same chords
that we did from the last lesson but the order is a little different. We’re going to start
on the one again, a G using our E bar code shape. Instead of going to the 4 this time,
we’re going to go right to the 5. If you remember, the 5 is a D chord, so we need a
D bar chord and we use the fifth string shape because this is a D note right here on the
fifth fret of the fifth string. So it gives us our 5. Now we need a 6 chord. What we can
do for that is go up here to an E note and make a minor bar chord. The 6 chord in a major
key is always minor, so in this case we need an E minor and that’s the third chord in
our progression. After that, next chord is the 4 chord in the key of G. So if you remember,
that is a C. So we can come back down here to our C bar chord that uses the A shape.
That’s that basic chord progression – 1, 5, 6, 4.
So go through this chord progression, get the flow down. Again, it may not be great at first
but you’ll eventually get it to where you start to memorize exactly where to go for
that chord progression and listen to the sound of this progression to try and memorize the
specific sound and movement that you’re going to hear there.
The last chord progression that we’re going to go over is the 2, 5, 1 chord progression
and this one is probably most popular in jazz or most known for jazz music but it’s used
in all kinds of music too. You’ll probably notice that this is the only chord progression
we’re going over that doesn’t start on the 1 chord, it starts on the 2 chord,
2, 5, 1, right? In a major chord, the 2 chord is always a minor chord. What we need to do
is make the 2 chord for the key of G, which happens to be an A minor chord. We can use
our E minor bar chord shape sixth string root note right here is an A on the fifth fret,
so that will be an A minor bar chord using the E minor shape. That gives us our 2 chord.
The next chord is a 5 in the key of G. If you remember, that’s a D. In a D chord,
D major bar chord, it’s just right over here. Keep your bar on the same fret and move
to an A major bar chord shape. That D note right there on the fifth string tells us we’re
playing a D major bar chord. So 2 A minor, 5 D major and then you’re
going to go back down to your G major bar chord for the 1. So work on that shape with
that motion between those chords, just to get those down and listen to how that specific
chord progression sounds. That does it for these three essential chord progressions that
we’re going over in this lesson. Here comes the real magic of bar chords. By now you know
that bar chords are movable. You can move them around anywhere but the cool thing about
these progressions that we went over is if you use bar codes to play them, the progressions
are movable too. Let me show you what I mean. I’m going to play a 1, 4, 5 in the key of
G using our bar chords, right? G is our home base or our key root note, right? But what if
I want to play that same chord progression of 1, 4, 5 in the key of A? What do I do?
What I will have to do is change our home base or starting point, our root note. If
we start with our 1 chord on an A, A major bar chord right, the fifth fret of this
low E is an A so that’s an A major bar chord using the E shape. If we play those exact
same bar chord shapes relative to where we start, we’re going to be playing a 1, 4,
5 in the key of A major. So 1, 4, 5. I didn’t even have to think about it. All I had to
do was memorize this shape and this shifting relative to where I started and move it up
to where A was my key or root note or starting point.
And you can do this in any key you want. If I wanted to play a 1, 4, 5 in the key C, all
I would have to do is change my starting point to a C, which I can do by putting my bar on
the eight fret here and playing a C bar chord shape. And this is really helpful when you
get thrown into a situation where you just want to jam with your friends, you don’t
know the song very well or you have to read a chord chart.
To help you practice these bar chords, move them around and these progressions; I have
a new jam track for you. It’s basically the same one we’ve been using but the bass
and the piano are taken out, so you can work on whichever one of these progressions you
want. You can think of this as kind of a glorified metronome. It’s a little bit more fun to
play with the drum track than it is just a click, right? Here’s how this might sound.
I’m going to play through all of these progressions we just went over using these bar chords.
I know this is a lot of information to absorb in one lesson but what I really want you to
do is just concentrate on getting these progressions down with these bar chord shapes and then
moving them around to new keys. If you need to reference the E and A string note names,
that’s totally fine. Go ahead and do that. In the next lesson, we’re going to shift
gears and make sure you know some of the most essential open chords that you’re going
to be using as a rhythm guitarist. If you have any questions, leave them here in the
comments or email me nate@guitarsystem.com. See you.