Guitar All-in-One For Dummies, 2nd Edition

Chapter 4

Building Finger Independence with Chord Exercises

IN THIS CHAPTER

Playing patterns using outside and inside chords

Putting together a series of chords

Performing pieces with chord progressions

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Chords are the rhythm guitar yin to the lead guitar yang. In most musical settings, single-note playing is supported by some sort of chord-based accompaniment. The great thing about the guitar is that it can play chords or single-note leads with equal awesomeness — try doing that with a flute or saxophone. But, because the guitar plays chords as well as single notes, it’s important that you keep your chording and melody skills up to snuff. This chapter addresses chord playing.

As with the single-note exercises, the chord forms presented in this chapter are movable — meaning they contain no open strings. So after you can play a chord form comfortably, try moving it around the neck to play different chords. Doing so changes the letter name of the chord (for example, from A to C) but keeps the quality of the chord (major, minor, ...