There is a real art to playing rhythm guitar, I don’t mean playing some messy chords in a disorganized group; playing a good rhythm requires the ability to ‘let out the unnecessary notes so that the important notes can be heard’.
If you’re a frustrated guitarist who’s been trying to learn chords on the guitar, you’ll no doubt be pleased to learn that playing chords doesn’t have to be complicated or physically demanding.
Minor chords can be a wonderful chord texture to have at your disposal if you are a songwriter or an advanced guitarist. Since ‘our ear has memory and not eyes’, you can change the whole feel of a song simply by changing a major chord to its relative minor.
Here’s an example of substituting a minor chord in place of an existing major chord:
Our original progress…
G /// | C /// | D /// | G /// ||
becomes…
Em /// | C /// | D /// | Em /// ||
If you play both progressions, you’ll notice how the Em chord sound changes the emotion of the chord sequence.
What we did here was substitute the G major chord with its relative E minor.
The relative minor chord can be found by playing a bass note three frets lower than the major chord you want to replace.
For example: Using an open G major chord, we move the G note on the 3rd fret six string back three frets… now the new bass note is an open E note; therefore the relative minor chord for G major is E minor.
Our next project is learning how to spell all the minor chords.
Starting in the key of ‘C’ major, we will learn how to spell a C minor chord.
Step 1. Using notes from the C major scale:
CDEFGABC
Step 2. Apply the formula 1-b3-5 to create the minor chord.
In this case, we would use the flatted first, third, and fifth notes of the C major scale to build our C minor chord.
Cm = C, Eb, G
Applying this same process to the rest of the keys we would reach the following conclusions…
Minor chords in the sustain keys:
G = G, Bb, D
Dm = D, F, A
Am = A, C, E
Em = my, sun, second
Bm = B, D, F#
F#m = F#, A, C#
do#m = do#, mi, sol#
Important: In a situation where the note to be flattened is a sharp; the flat cancels the sharp, therefore the note is played naturally.
Here’s a sample in the key of D:
D major scale = DEF#-GABC#-D Applying the minor formula 1-b3-5 to this scale would result in F# canceling out by the third flat rule, so we would write DFA minor
Applying this concept to the flat keys we would arrive at the following minor chords.
Fm = F, Ab, C
Bbm = Bb, Db, F
Eb = Eb, G, Bb
Abm = Ab, Cb, Eb
Dbm = Db, Fb, Ab
It can be confusing when you come across a Cb or a Fb; Cb is the same pitch as the note B; while Fb has the same pitch as the note E.
I know you will enjoy the taste of the minor chord; try substituting some of your major chord sounds with your new minor chords and have fun playing your guitar.