FENDER PLAYERS CLUB CREATIVE CHORD SHAPES

INTRODUCTION
One of my favorite things about the sound of the guitar is the resonant quality of chords played with open strings. The
tone and nature of open strings help to add a richness and depth to the instrument, giving it a greater timbral range and
allowing for overlapping, flowing arpeggios and scalar lines.

The first consideration when building open-string chords is that the open strings must be used as part of the chords
themselves. For example, in the figure below, the open G string is the fifth of the C major chord, while the open E string
is the third. In the G13 chord, the open B string is the third, and the open E string is the thirteenth (sixth). In the
Bbmaj13#11 chord, the open G string is the thirteenth, and the open E string is the sharped eleventh.

• Root

By incorporating open strings into your chords, you should be able to discover enough new, great-sounding chords to keep
you busy for years. One good exercise, in fact, is to locate an open-string chord for each note found on the sixth string.
Then do the same with the fifth string—and don’t forget to think in terms of major, minor, dominant, minor seventh flat-
five, diminished, etc.

ADDING OPEN STRINGS IN THE KEY OF E MAJOR

EXERCISE 1 shows the diatonic chords of E major with the roots on the sixth string and incorporating the open high E and B
strings. Since the notes E and B are found in the E major scale, they will undoubtedly work with any chord found in the
key of E major.

AUDIO CLIP

EX. 1

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 FENDER PLAYERS CLUB CREATIVE CHORD SHAPES

First try strumming through these chords in a consecutive fashion.

AUDIO-EX.2

EX. 2

Then play the progression below.

AUDIO-EX.3

EX. 3

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 FENDER PLAYERS CLUB CREATIVE CHORD SHAPES

This lesson is from:

Creative Chord Shapes (Musicians Institute Press)
by Jamie Findlay

This book/CD pack in the Private Lessons Series lets guitarist explore lush sounds of
open-string chords. The CD includes 19 full-demo examples covering: arpeggiated
progressions, apreggiated chords and scalar lines, adding open string to diatonic
chords, and more.

Inventory # HL 695172. Book/CD pack $9.95 (US).

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