#AFTER ALL GUITAR CHORDS PLUS#

These chords are often written with a plus sign (e.g “E+”). So you often hear chords progressions like this: | C | B dim D dim | F dim G# dim | C |Īll those diminished chords have the same notes, so one can be substituted for another. These means both chords have the same notes, the notes are merely stacked in a different order.

One final point about diminished chords: If you play a diminished chord and then play the same shape three frets up, you are playing an inversion of the chord. Now let’s add in a diminished chord right before that D7 chord | G C# dim| D7 |Ī ragtime sounding trick is to move from a chord to a diminished chord with the same root and back to the original. First, play through the following progression: | G | D7 | You can get a slightly jazzier sound when moving from diminished chords into a standard 7th chord. Note how the diminished chords are a half step below the chord that follows them. Try this classical sounding progression: | C min D dim | Eb B dim | C min | They are less common but not unheard of in rock and pop.ĭiminished chords often lead into other chords, usually by approaching a chord from a half step below it. They can be found frequently in classical music and early jazz and ragtime. These chords are often written as dim (e.g “E dim”).ĭiminished chords are strange little beasts with a dissonant quality. If you need help finding the notes on the guitar, see this diagram. To play specific chords you will need to move the chord shape to the correct position. For all the chords I demonstrate, the root note of the chord (for example, the C note in a C13 chord) will be the lowest note in the shape, found on the 6th or 5th string.

This is a 13th chord with a root note of C known as C13.Īs you can see, it’s the same shape, just moved up the neck. For instance, this is a 13th chord with a root note of G known as G 13. These are shapes that can be moved around the fretboard to form different instances of a type of chord. If you are not, you can still get some valuable information from this post though there may be some points of confusion.įor all the chords discussed I will be showing moveable chord shapes. Much of the advice I offered in the following post can be applied to these exotic chords: Learning chord shapes on the guitar.Īlso, for this post I am presuming you are familiar with the standard major, minor and 7th chords including, ideally, barre chords. You can then quickly apply that knowledge to your own songwriting and playing.Ī couple points of note: If you’ve never played these chords shapes before it can take a some time to get your fingers wrapped around them. For each chord I will provide some chord daigrams and explore a few situations where it can be used. I’m referring to these chords as “exotic” and penned this blog post to give a brief introduction to them, one that is not bogged down with music theory. You may get out on the web and read about chords that have letter names with numbers after them, like G 13, C 9, or A augmented. At a certain point, you want to expand beyond the standard guitar chords such as C, D, E minor and the like.

After all guitar chords