I'm working on making up some simple chord progressions that I can fingerpick mainly, but also for strumming. Now I know about the I-IV-V progression, as well as throwing in the appropriate minor chords. But after a while this sounds a little boring.
My question is, what are some slightly more complex chords that I can throw in to make my playing sound more interesting, and still fit it into a scale. . . For instance, playing in G major (I can't do barre chords yet, so please keep that in mind), I would play the G, C, and D chords. What notes (looking at some tabs, I think some are called suspensions...?) can I throw in on each chord to spice up things and stay within G major? Or should I think of playing each chord within that specific scale- so I could use all the available notes from each key when I am playing that chord?
I hope that's understandable, and thanks for any help?
"All I see is draining me on my Plastic Fantastic Lover!"
If you're throwing in a note, it's called an 'extension'. A 'suspension' is actually replacing one specific note with another.
You can use any note in key as an extension. These are actually pretty safe notes - you won't be changing the function of the chords (major and minor chords will stay that way, dominant chords will still have tension).
You won't pick up that many new chords, because there are only seven scale tones, and you've already got at least three in your chord. Here's how the names will change:
adding the 2nd: Major/minor become add9; seventh becomes 9th
adding the 4th: Major/minor become add11; seventh becomes 7/11. This chord is often replaced by a suspension, because the third and fourth are only a half step apart.
adding the 6th: Major/minor become 6ths (and are now identical to the opposite 7th - C6 = Am7; Am6 = F6). Seventh chords become 13ths
adding the 7th: Major chords become major 7ths. Minor chords become m/Maj7
Adding notes from outside the scale is safest if you add them to a 7th chord - because they're outside the scale, they'll sound tense, and a 7th chord already sounds tense, so you're not changing the function. The most common outside notes are the b5, #5 (either replacing the natural 5th), and the b9, and #9 as additions.
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In G major you have seven basic chords to choose from:
G-Major
A-Minor
B-Minor
C7
D-Major
E-Minor
F#-Diminished
Now, the relative minor of G-Major is E-Minor, and in E-Minor you have the same chords in the natural minor, but if you use the harmonic minor you get:
E-minor
F#-dim
G-aug
A-Major
B-Major
Cb-dim
D#-dim
And if you use the melodic minor you get:
E-minor
F#-minor
G-Aug
A-major
B-major
C-dim
D#-dim
What this means in practice is that you have ALOT Of chords besides the I-IV-V you can use in your chord progressions WITHOUT adding 7, 9, 11, or 13ths, just staying in the key and it's relative minor.
But, if you want to add these other notes, the easiest way to do that is to simply look at your melody line, pick the most prominent tone in the measure and add it to the chord for emphasis.
"The music business is a cruel and shallow money trench, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free, and good men die like dogs. There's also a negative side." -- HST
Thanks everyone, I'll work on incorporating those chords. . .
But one other thing- in Traffic's "John Barleycorn," there is a chord progression that goes- D,C,G, Am, Asus2. . . The Am-Asus2 change involves the C dropping to a B- picking up the finger fretting the 1fret, 2nd string. I think that is a really nice pair of "sad" chords. Now I think the song is in A minor. . . So where can I throw in sus2 chords that would fit in a open-chord-friendly key/scale?
"All I see is draining me on my Plastic Fantastic Lover!"
Suspended chords, like any chord that has an extention (7ths, 9ths, etc) needs support in the melody in order to really work.
Harmony (chords) don't stand alone. They support the melodic movement of the song.
So, if you're playing a chord (say a G) and there's a strong A in the melody line for that measure, you can have several choices -- you can play a 9th chord (the 9 is the same as the 2), you can play a Sus2, you can play a straight G, you can play an Am, maybe you can get away with an A7, and maybe you can play something else entirely.
The point is -- the chords support the melody, and the melody imply the chords, it's a package deal.
"The music business is a cruel and shallow money trench, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free, and good men die like dogs. There's also a negative side." -- HST
But I usually play by myself- no lead guitar, no singing. So there really is no melody... or should I learn to incorporate little melodies in my chord (either strumming or fingerpicking) playing?
"All I see is draining me on my Plastic Fantastic Lover!"
The sus2 and sus4 suspensions are very commonplace devices for making a chord that carries on a long time at the end of a bar more interesting, they're also fairly easy to learn to do without thinking much about, so they're probably a very good start. In A for instance (chosen because it's a nice easy, open chord to play the suspensions on), you'd have this:
A Asus2 Asus4
0 0 0
2 0 3
2 2 2
2 2 2
0 0 0
x x x
A nice example is Guns n' Roses' Used to Love Her, and you'll no doubt recognise the sound of the sus patterns from 100s of other songs.
