On my favorite show once i heard that you can learn many many songs with just the 3 simple chords, How how does it take to learn these chords? what songs can be played?
And how long does it take to be able to sit down and play the guitar a random song good without any paper?
20years...... twenty long years.............
Just kidding.
If you can learn open G, Open C Open D.. you have hundreds of songs at your finger tips.
Then if you learn, open E, A and D there's hundreds More.
Then if you learn.................. :)
If you can remember.... D then C then G or Am then C then D you have it down.
But that's easier said than done. Simple but not necessarily Easy :)
D-
Research is what I'm doing when I don't know what I'm doing. - Wernher Von Braun (1912-1977)
three chord groupings will take you anywhere.
you just have to remember the groups.
in music theory a language of symbols is used.
three chords are expressed as I IV V.
on the fret board it reads :
your first chord is I . what ever you choose. as an example let's pick G.
the next chord, IV, is five frets up from G...it is C.
then the third chord of the group is V; being seven frets up from G...it is D.
so you have G C D.
I call them progressions..but that may be only me.
songs are made from those chords. so in a song the I chord may start with four to eight beats. then you go to the IV for four beats. back to the I for four beats then to the V for four beats. and back to the I.
that is an example of a twelve bar blues song.
roughy.
it makes sense the more you play and think about song structure.
there is alot of cleverness with three chords.
Open G, Open C Open D.. you have hundreds of songs at your finger tips.
Then if you learn, open E, A and D there's hundreds More.
Ah, but any song in A (A-D-E) can also be played in G (G-C-D) or vice versa. So only 3 chords are really needed.
Of course, some keys may fit your voice better than others, but that's another story.
--
Helgi Briem
hbriem AT gmail DOT com
...and then there's the capo...
