Steve Rieck: One of the first things that beginners really need to learn when they are learning the basic open chords, and of course, we have talked about C Major and G Major and D, A and E Major is, if you learn the shapes is really to identify the fact that these chords are really nothing more than the first, third and fifth notes of the respective major scales. So a Major scale really is a familiar sound. It's that Doh, Ray, Mee, Fah, Soh, Lah, Tee, Doh sound that everybody is familiar with, and really what that boils down to is a series of whole steps and half steps, seven notes in a very specific order.
If I were to start on C, the third fret of the fifth string, and go up a whole step, probably be a D now, it would be the same as if were to go to the fifth fret on the fifth string. So I go C to D and now up another whole step, two frets to E and half step to F which is one fret. A whole step to an open G, a whole step to an A, the second fret of the third string and whole step to an open second string which is B and a half step to C, which is the first fret of the second string.
So the C Major scale, C, D, E, F, G, A, B, C. Well, I have just explained that in one octave, and of course, you could practice that in two octaves later on down the road. But as a starting point, you really just want to learn that major scale in one octave. What I want to get across here, before you look at other chords is the fact this C Major chord that we already know is really nothing more than the first note of that scale, which was a C, the third note of that scale, which happen to be an E, and the fifth note of that scale, which was a G.
So if I look at all of those notes there, I have a C, an E, a G, another C then holding with the first finger on the first fret of the second string, and an open E. So, it's a combination of the C, E and G, the 1, 3 and 5 of the C Major scale. Watch again the C, D, E, F, G, A, B, C. So what that really means is that anywhere you play on the fretboard, and of course, we have covered all the notes in the fretboard in the previous podcast, anywhere you put the notes C, E and G together on this guitar fretboard or really any other instrument for that matter you are playing a C Major chord.
So now let's look at what that would mean for a G chord. We will play an open G Chord, because we know this basic chord as a G. The G Major scale has an F# in it. Again, all major scales are going to go whole step, whole step, half step, whole step, whole step, whole step, half step.
So you are going to go G, A, B, C, D, E, F#, G or the third fret on the sixth string to the open second and third fret on the fifth string, the open second and fourth fret on the fourth string and the open string, you are going to one up at G Major scale; G, A, B, C, D, E, F#, G. So let's pause for a second and notice that, that F#, that's in the G Major scale. Why is that in F#? Because we had to go up a whole step from the sixth note of that scale, which was an E to F# to G.
Now let's look at what the first, third and fifth note of that scale would be. G is the first note, B is the third note, 1, 2, 3, and then D is the fifth note by a G Major scale, so your G, B and D. So that tells us that any G Major chord, again anywhere on this guitar, any other instrument is, just the notes G, B and D put together in any order really.
So if I were to look at a basic open position G chord, I have a G, a B, a D, another G, an open B in this case, and then a G at the third fret of the first string. So, once again you can see that those notes are just G, B and D. There are no other notes in that. So I can have more than one G, B or D, so long as there are no other notes. One common variation of the G chord, of course, is this one where you have the D note on the third fret of the second string.
So you might have learned G like this or you might have learned that would be open second string, but this is going to be a D on the third fret of the second string or an open B as the open second string. Remember, G, B and D being the notes of this chord, either one works. So that's G Major. If you looked at D Major, the D Major scale would look like this, D, B, F#, G, A, B, C#, D or the open second and fourth fret on the fourth string, the open to the second fret on the third string, the open to the second and third fret on the second string.
So that's, open 2, 4 on fourth string, open to second fret on the third string and open 2, 3 on the second string, or D, E, F#, G, A, B, C#, G. So now this D scale has a C# in it, which is the second fret of the second string and it also has that F# in it that we have from the G scale; D, E, F#, G, A, B, C#, D. So the first note of the D scale is, of course, D, and then the third note of the D scale is F# and the fifth note of the D scale is A.
So that's how it looks. A D Major chord on any instrument, anywhere, is going to be the notes D, F# and A combined together in any order. So this the most common way to play on the guitar. We have a D, open fourth string and A at the second fret of the third string, a D at the third fret rather of the second string and then the F# at the second fret of the first string. So one good way to look at that is, to think of these not only as D, F# and A, but as the root, the third and the fifth and this particular chord.
So on this D chord, for example, D is the root, A is the fifth, D is a root again, and then F# is the third. So that would be root, five, root, third for the D chord. So again, anywhere you put those three notes, D, F# and A together, you've got a D chord. The next chord up is A Major, and the notes in the A Major scale are going to be A, B, C#, D, E, F#, G#, A. Notice now we have three #s, so we have A, B, C #, D, E, F#, G# and A or the open second and fourth fret on the fifth string, open second and fourth on the fourth string, first to second fret on the third string.
So for that scale, A, of course, is the root, the first note, C# is the third note in this scale and then C#, D, E is the fifth note. So A Major then is nothing but a combination where that's A, C# and E. So in this case we have A, E, A, C# and E or the root, the fifth, the root, the third and the fifth. That's why on an A chord you could grab the fifth fret on the first string, which is the note A, that would be another root. So then A Major chord like that.
Last, we have the E Major chord. The E Major is going to have four #s in it. So we've got E, F#, G#, A, B, C#, D#, E or open 2, 4 on the sixth string, open 2, 4 on the fifth string. Then one on the second fret on the fourth string. So E, F#, G#, A, B, C#, D#, E, for E Major. The first note is E, obviously, G# is the third and B is the fifth, E, G# and B. So we get, any E Major chord being nothing but the notes E, G# and D. In this open chord you've got the root E, B is the fifth, another E root, a third, which is G#, the fifth, which is B and the root, which is E.
So, basically, if you learn those five major scales, there are actually 12 major scales and 12 keys and that can be a lot to think about when you are a beginner. But it's much better to think in these one octave scales at first and by one octave I mean we are playing from this C to the next C up; C, D, E, F, G, A, B, C. If I were to keep going, C, D, E, F, G, A and so on, that will be into the second octave. So what you really want to do is, learn the scales, and they are tabbed up in the beginning of this video, in one octave.
Most importantly, as you learn the Major scale, try to hear the scale, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 1, and then play the Major chord that correlates with it. Try to hear how there is a connection with C Major and then 1, 3 and 5 backwards C, E and G, G Major, and the 1, 3 and 5 in that chord, G, B and D. D Major, then the 1, 3 and 5 with that, D, F# and A. A Major, and the 1, 3 and 5 of that scale, which is A, C# and E. Then finally, E, E Major, E, F#, G#, A, B, C#, D#, E, so we get G# and B, 1, 3 and 5 from E Major.
So really that's just taking those very familiar chords that you already know very well and just seeing why those shapes are what they are. Really it's about the notes that make up the
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