remembering chords

I'm afraid there's no easy way out on this one. You simply need to keep practising the chords and memorize the names. One way to help is by drawing out the chord voicings on a piece of paper. This way you are commiting the names and the shapes in your mind. It will help you memorize them better.

I'll echo Blueline's advice and also offer up a reason for it - no matter what kind of system or memory device you use, you're going to have to know what chords are what because that's how they'll be written out for you in music. You'll never see a chord sheet that says "triangle shaped chord" instead of D.

The good news is that you usually need only a handful of chords to start playing and that many chords are used together because of the way music is written. After switching from A to E for fifteen minutes or more, it's kind of hard to forget. And even if you do forget, the remembering curve will get easier each time.

Take two to four chords and only work with those for a few days. Then just add one or two new chords to your "chord memory" at a time. You'll be amazed at how quickly you start to retain all the information.

The only thing that I would advise is to not be too reliant on chord charts. Yes, we all need them starting out, but as soon as you think you can get away without using one, go for it. Too many people will keep their chord sheets at hand and instead of relying on memory will rely on the cheat sheet. While it does help in a pinch, it doesn't help as much as taking the plunge and occasionally getting a chord wrong ( and even more than occasionally as I remember my first months :wink: ).

Hope this helps and welcome, by the way, to Guitar Noise. Looking forward to seeing you around the boards.

Peace

And when you learn a new one, chances are you'll see it again in another song later.
For instance, B minor, a barre chord, in Hotel California I ran across it in Canon in D which I am now starting to practice.
Some are more difficult than others.
Some I use more often than others.
Some make good transitions from one chord to another.
Some are good for ending the song on.
Some leave the song up in the air if you end the song on it.
Some are barre chords (yuck).
Some give me cramps when I practice them for a long time.
Some I'm real good at, some I dread seeing.

Yeh, I kinda get to know them because I relate to them.

And when you learn a new one, chances are you'll see it again in another song later.

Yeh, I kinda get to know them because I relate to them.

I have wry smile on my face because the relating is how I remember chords. It's very similar to how one remembers their friends and their enemies and enemies who've been converted to friends.

You have to make their acquaintance, work with them, work around them, suffer from them or enjoy them, and come to terms with them.

Just like your friends and enemies. :-)

You have to make their acquaintance, work with them, work around them, suffer from them or enjoy them, and come to terms with them.
Just like your friends and enemies. :-)
Exactly

You can only get it by rote, but let me just throw in something that I think helps: tie it back to a song. Find the chords for a song you like or a progression that you think sounds cool, or whatever--preferably something with 3-4 chords at most to start and then practice that every day, first thing, thinking about the chord names as you play them.

Playing the chords just as chords gets old fast, but in a song you can start experimenting with other aspects of your playing, like strumming, while reinforcing the chords in your mind and it's all set to a tune you enjoy. Can it get any better?

Yep, rote memory. No other way I think. But it's not that hard at all. I feared I'd have to learn them all at once, which actually never happened. I learned the basics... G C D A E Em Am and that dreaded F early on. Then another one came, like B7, then another one. They just come one at a time, imo. And before you know it, you really know a lot of them!

For the life of me I can't relate what pretty much any chord is without a guitar in my hand! :oops:

Cat

Welcome to GN. Think it's bad now? Wait until you fiddle with some Jazz. :lol: :lol:

Welcome to GN. Think it's bad now? Wait until you fiddle with some Jazz. :lol: :lol:

Roy, does that mean that you play the jazz fiddle? :lol:
sorry, will keep dumb remarks to myself from now on. :oops:

You'll never see a chord sheet that says "triangle shaped chord" instead of D.

I SEE A GREAT NEED.

:-)

Its just chord composition, intervals, and knowing the fretboard

Think it's bad now? Wait until you fiddle with some Jazz. :lol: :lol:

That's why I stick to the Blues... As Billy Gibbons says (loosly quoted) - "We just keep playing the same three chords" :wink:

I've found that learning the theory behind the chords makes them much easier to learn. When I realized that there actually is an (almost) logical system behind it, remembering it got much easier. For example, in G7 you press the F note on the high E string instead of the G note because it is two steps back. Same thing with A7, Am7, E7, Em7, D7, Dm7 and F7 too. One note is "two steps back." David Hodge explains it much better in the theory articles. Well worth the read IMHO.