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25: Basic Major & Minor Guitar Chord Theory · The Guitarjet Podcast

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Guitar Jet Podcast, where you'll skyrocket your
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  Speaker 1: knowledge of theory, techniques, and fundamentals for guitar. Hey, it's Myles,
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  Speaker 1: and this is an easy guitar theory lesson about major
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  Speaker 1: and minor chord theory. So, a major chord has a root,
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  Speaker 1: a third, and a fifth, and the formula is 1-3-5.
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  Speaker 1: A minor chord has a root, a minor third, and
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  Speaker 1: a fifth. and the formula is 1, flat 3, and 5.
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  Speaker 1: So the easiest way to think about this and visualize
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  Speaker 1: it on the fretboard is to play a C chord,
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  Speaker 1: and of course when you're playing a C chord, you'll
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  Speaker 1: play the A, D, G, B, and high E strings,
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  Speaker 1: basically those five strings, and what you could do is
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  Speaker 1: you can take away the B and high E and
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  Speaker 1: just play the notes C, E, and G on the A, D,
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  Speaker 1: and G strings, and if you drop the second fret
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  Speaker 1: of your D string to the first fret. Then you're
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  Speaker 1: flattening that E, which gives you the flat third and
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  Speaker 1: turns it into a C minor chord, giving you the
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  Speaker 1: fret numbers three on the A string, one on the
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  Speaker 1: D string, and then the open G string. So you'll
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  Speaker 1: have C, E flat, and G. So with your first shape,
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  Speaker 1: you have C, E, and G. And then when you
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  Speaker 1: flatten that third, you have C, E flat, and G.
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  Speaker 1: And that's basically how major and minor chords work. With
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  Speaker 1: a major chord, you have a one, a three, and
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  Speaker 1: a five. And then to turn it into a minor chord,
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  Speaker 1: you just flatten that third, and that would give you one, flat, three,
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  Speaker 1: and five. So with a C chord, you'd start with
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  Speaker 1: the notes C, E, and G. That'd give you the
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  Speaker 1: C major chord. And if you want to turn it
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  Speaker 1: into the minor chord, you'd flatten that E to give
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  Speaker 1: you the notes C, E flat, and G. Anyways, that's
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  Speaker 1: it for today's lesson. Subscribe to the podcast for more
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  Speaker 1: episodes like this, and I hope you have a fantastic day.
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  Speaker 1: Thanks for listening.