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Permalink Reply by Ron "Oily" Sprague on September 26, 2014 at 6:03am

Yep. Quite a technical explanation, but it's all there:

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guitar_chord

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Permalink Reply by ChickenboneJohn on September 26, 2014 at 6:06am

I'm afraid its all part of learning your way round music...ideally you need to be familiar with both systems. If you look at a conventional sheet of music (or "chart" as it's know in hip muso circles), you'll generally see the chord sequence (or "changes") set out as G, C7, D9 etc. The alternative nomenclature is to simply use the numerical degree of the note..ie 1, 4, 5 (or sometimes written as I, IV, V). The advantage of this is that once you know what key the tune is in..for example G, all you need to do is count up 4 or 5 notes starting with the root note.

It's commonly used for jamming and session work..if you sit in on a jam or in a pick-up band, you'll get given the key, say for example E, then just be told "go to the 5 and hold it for 4 bars". .."drop back to the 4" ect. The great advantage is that you don't need to figure out the name of the other chords, you just need to move the chord up by the appropriate number of notes from the root. It's a very common practice in blues, jazz, country etc to just call out the numbers for the changes. In a jam, you'll might simply be told, for example "it's 1, 5, 4, in Bflat", so you start on Bflat and count your way up and down the fretboard. Once you are reasonably familiar with the fretboard it becomes fairly easy, particularly if you are using bar chords. 

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Permalink Reply by Scruggy on September 26, 2014 at 1:07pm

I'm familiar with songs in certain key and how easy it is for 1,4,5 or (I,IV,V) but G is obviously G chord but the 7 and nine is where I get confused I think 7 is for major? As in C major? Is 9 diminished?

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Permalink Reply by Scruggy on September 26, 2014 at 1:35pm

Just just realised what 7 and 9 mean, it's an extra note added the 7th note from root! Same for 9 extra note added to chord 9 th note from the root except it stops at 7th the 1 note 2 note adding to 9? Same goes for 11 13

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Permalink Reply by The Phrygian Kid on September 26, 2014 at 1:58pm

Yep.

The romans refer to individual degrees in the scale.  Its all about scales, just like I told you the other day.  The (i) chord is made from the (i) (iii) (v) degrees.   There is a pattern can you see it?

(consider the degrees you were just talking about, 7,9,11,13....)

;)

a vii  (7) chord just continues the tertian (thirds i.e. every second note) harmony one step further, it is a four note chord.  A ix (9) chord is a five note chord....

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Permalink Reply by Ron "Oily" Sprague on September 26, 2014 at 4:00pm

Aaaahhhh! I see threes!!!!

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Permalink Reply by Patrick Curley on September 26, 2014 at 3:10pm

What the kid said. Play one, skip one.

So these extended chords are basically just seventh chords with a bit of spice added to them. If you're going to play them you need the 3 and the b7 as well. On a 3 string there'll be a few you can get but you'll be jumping around all over the place and they sound weird with both the 1 and the 5 missing. It can work for passing chords though (a chord played for one or two beats that helps move between 2 other chords).
Try it.

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Permalink Reply by ChickenboneJohn on September 26, 2014 at 8:23pm

In jazz, the sheet music and chords can be found in what are know as "Fake Books", so faking it is all part of the scene..the best known of these is "The Real Book", so when you carry one of these in your guitar case, it's a sign that you know what you are doing..but you do have to be able to walk the walk as well as talk the talk, so to speak, and faking or bluffing it is all part of the game. Historically, the notation on a lot of these tune sheets was notoriously inaccurate...so not much different to tab and chord charts on the internet these days. Likewise, just as today there was a whole lot of copyright infringement going on, and you still have to take things with a pinch of salt...I've spotted loads of hopelessly inaccurate tab and chord arrangements on the web.

Wayfinder..you've got that list completely wrong I'm sorry to say!  In the key of G, the I (one) chord is the root. So G is the "one" chord, C is the "four" chord, D is the "five" chord etc. The Roman numerals which are typically used to signify the "degree" of the note r chord...that is to say the equivalant of the "do, re mi", DO NOT correspond to the fret numbers. This is a major problem with the internet, it is so easy to spread confusion.

This is how it works in the key of G, I've listed the fret number, the note, the degree and the tonic sol-fa name. PLEASE post if I've got this wrong..I pretty certain I've got it right!

Fret               Note          Degree                Tonic sol-fa

Open string    G              The I (root)           Do

Fret 2            A              The II                   Re

Fret 4            B              The III                  Mi

Fret 5            C              The IV                 Fa

Fret 7            D              The V                  So

Fert 9            E              The VI                 La

Fret 11          Fsharp      The VII                Ti

Fret 12          G              The I (octave)      Do

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Permalink Reply by Ron "Oily" Sprague on September 27, 2014 at 12:11am

John's right. Go back and look at the link I posited, and if you read the entire thing, you will see that he's right. Also, I highly encourage all of you that are not musically trained to check out The Phrygian Kid's "I See Threes" blog here on CBN, which begins to delve into the guts of this. I've got this same exact stuff in books, sheets, apps, video tapes (!), CDs, DVDs, in various places in different forms on the Interweb, and you know what?

I still have to see it in five different forms, and up to 30 or more times before it begins to stick. This is a function of age, primarily; learning by doing and by ear is still the way I learn best. My brain "kinda" knows this stuff, but I've never had "formal" musical training beyond 3rd through 5th grade choir (I suppose it shows), even though I can sight read, slowly, having sung in choirs my whole life, and having to learn all the parts to help people out who don't read.

On instruments, I play by ear and feel. Occasionally, I will break the fake books and theory tomes out, but it's rare. I just like to create on the instrument, on the fly, to get the feeling down, and work out patterns by ear. It's slow, but it works for me, as my fingers and brain finally get together on it.

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Permalink Reply by The Phrygian Kid on September 27, 2014 at 2:02am

The reason you've not seen any chart is the same reason it is pointless to make one, easy as it may be...

It is an abstraction. As you say, it helps you 'fake' it. (There is actually nothing 'fake' about it, but as CBJ says, we carry 'fake books' so I'm certainly not having a shot at your terminology. ). My point is this, you don't want a chart. There are no hard coded values. It is an alternate, usually more flexible, way of looking at things. We go to iv chord, which happens to be F major. But we don't think F major at any time, you just leave that right out of it. I hope you can see what I'm saying. This is thinking that you do not want or need to be doing in order to just play the thing, and that's when picking up that d guitar or sticking on that capo becomes a non event ;)

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Permalink Reply by Cause the Blue rat on September 27, 2014 at 2:40am

Adding to the list is the major and minor cords within a scale. This can also be helpful to know if you playing on a fretted CGB.

Taking D as the root. m = minor

D
Em
F#m
G
A
Bm
C#m
D

Numbered they'd be 1 - 8. So if your playing a progression that's 1, 3, 4 your third cord would be minor. If you have a fretted instrument that has the first three or four strings (highest E to G or D) in standard tuning you can play this progression up the neck. Using the note on the second string as your root. And both major and minor forms of the D cord.

Major form with root on third fret
minor form with root on fifth
minor form with root on seventh
major form with root on eighth
major form with root on tenth
minor form with root on twelfth
minor form with root on fourteenth
Major form with root on fifteenth.

"Hold On" by Triumph. Opening riff
1, 2, 3, 2, 1, 2, 3, 3, 4, 5.

In truth after a wile this just comes naturally. The more songs you get under your belt the clearer this gets. It'll start to make sense. Because the more songs you play the more it comes naturally.

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Permalink Reply by The Phrygian Kid on September 27, 2014 at 3:29am

You're close, but the vii chord is not minor, it's diminished.
Now if you edit out the note names (letter and accidental) and just pop in roman numerals then you don't need this 'D=key' business, you transcend that eh

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