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A Guide to Guitar Chords
Author(s): Curt Sheller
Publisher(s): Curt Sheller Publications
Published: 2004-12-23
ISBN-10: 1-60321-035-0
ISBN-13: 978-1-60321-035-5
Size: 8.5 x 11
Pages: 58
Price, Hard Copy: $15.95
Price, PDF: $9
Covers basic guitar chords for beginning to intermediate guitar students. These are the chords that ALL guitar should know - regardless of style.
Introduction
After playing guitar for over 40 years and teaching guitar for 20 years I saw that most guitar players struggle with movable chords forms and the more advanced chords commonly called "Jazz" chords.
Seeing that there was a lack of clear, concise and an organized presentation of material for guiding one through the maze of chords for the guitar. I decided to create just such a text.
This book provides a guide to the common basic open position chords all guitar players should know, an introduction to movable chord forms and more advanced 4-part jazz chords.
This book is designed as a guide to guitar chords. Covering basic open position guitar chords, movable chord forms, rock chords, how to transpose chords, learning the guitar fingerboard and an introduction to 4-part"Jazz" chords and more… It is proven material developed over the years from my private teaching and extensive research, study and application.
From a few basic chord shapes and a understanding of how chords are constructed your chord vocabulary can be dramatically increased without memorizing countless more chord shapes. There are too many chord shapes to memorize.
This book will take the mystery out playing and understanding chords on the guitar.
Why Buy My Books
How to pay for this book
Thanks for visiting LearningUkulele.com! I hope you’ve enjoyed the site so far. My site does not run ads. It’s supported by visitors, premium site members, and readers like you.
Short Answer
Because this book is only available directly through me (Curt Sheller), this site and at our Funky Frets family music store. It is the only way this book can earn its keep and its only source of revenue is visitors and site members like you. If you don’t pay, the book dies, gets no updates, etc…
Good news is you can become a Premium Site Member and get this book for FREE as part of your paid access.
Long Answer
I’m not a venture-funded startup nor a major corporation. I’m—a self-employed musician, author, teacher, graphic artist located in southeastern Pennsylvania, USA. And this web site, books, lessons, songs and content have been grinding along in one form or another along since 1995, the ukulele part has literally been a full time effort since 2003 - literally years of effort have gone into creating this content.
Making my books only available on this, my web site is an experiment in using the web as a serious book publishing platform. My goal is to take my music expertise and knowledge that I've gained from the past 40 plus years of serious study, research and application as a performer, student, author, private music teacher and make it available in your quest to be a better musician, enjoy the ukulele more or just having more fun in what you are doing.
I wanted to deliver and present this material with a high standard of quality typically associated with traditional printed, mass produced books by traditional publishers. While taking advantage of all the web has to offer.
All my, Curt Sheller books are the sole product, with 100% of, and all the effort, graphic design, site coding, content, marketing, fulfillment, etc... - by one person – your truly.
Your purchase supports all that it takes to keep this site going. And, a membership is the best way to do that. I'll not do the Pateron or Kickstarter route for begging for money ( nothing against fellow artists that go that route - just not my cup-of-tea.
Table of Contents
Table of Contents: A Guide to Guitar Chords
- Introduction 3
- Open Position Chords 7
- The Guitar Chord Diagram 8
- Movable Barre Forms 15
- “E/F” Barre Form 16
- “A/Bb” Barre Form 17
- “C/Db” Movable Form 18
- sus, add9 and Power 5 Chords 19
- Neutral Chords 20
- Barre Chords Fret Chart Summary 21
- Root & Fifth Chart 22
- Movable Triad Chord Forms 23
- Major Triads • String Family 1 2 3 & 2 3 4 24
- Minor Triads • String Family 1 2 3 & 2 3 4 24
- Diminished Triads • String Family 1 2 3 & 2 3 4 25
- Augmented Triads • String Family 1 2 3 & 2 3 4 25
- Tips for Remembering Triads 26
- Movable 4-Part Chord Forms 27
- Movable 7th Chords at Fret (1) • String Family 1 2 3 4 28
- Generic • Movable 7th Chords • String Family 1 2 3 4 28
- Additional 7th Movable Chord Forms 28
- Movable 7th Chords at Fret (1) • String Family 2 3 4 6 29
- Movable 7th Chords at Fret (1) • String Family 3 4 5 6 29
- Tips for Remembering 4-Part Chords 30
- 4-Part “Jazz” Chord Forms 31
- What is a Chord? 32
- A Few Chord Building Rules 33
- Creating the 4 Basic Chord Types 34
- Building More Advanced Chords 35
- Scale Interval Formula Chart 38
- Suggested Learning Order 40
- Transposing Chords & Progressions 43
- How to Transpose Chords 44
- Practice Chord Progressions 47
- Orlando Blues 48
- WC Swing 49
- Learning the Guitar Fingerboard 51
- Reference or Key Frets 51
- Enharmonic equivalents 53
- Sharps to Flats 53
- Flats to Sharps 53
- Standard Tuning Natural & Sharp Notes 54
- Standard Tuning Natural & Flat Notes 55
- Conclusion 57
Errata: A Guide to Guitar Chords
- 12/26/2004 - (20041226.1.1) Error on page 21 fixed. C/Db should be same as A/Bb column.
The latest download ( PDF or eBook ) always has the latest changes and errata changes incorporated and contain the most up-to-date version of the file. If you download the book from LearningUkulele.com you'll be notified when there is a new version of the book available.
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Just browsing over both books, they look fantastic! I'm a guitarist and uke player for over 25 years and was thinking about writing a ukulele book but you've already written what I think are the best, most comprehensive and thorough books I've ever seen for the instrument. I just might end up buying every book you've written and I'll be giving my highest recommendation for your books to my friends and students. Thank you so much for taking the time to write such great books! — Peter Rhee
Aloha, Curt, All I can say is WOW! What you have accomplished is simply incredible! All the best — Glen Hirabayashi, The Aloha Boys
Folks, if you haven't stopped by Curt's site, do so right now! ..And get his books, they are fantastic. This guy knows his stuff and is able to pass it along too. — Alan Johnson Proprietor, The 4th Peg
I can highly recommend Curt's Uke books — I have four of them and they are excellent. — fatveg — Portland
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