Chord Workshop 2020 – Day 9: E and A Style Templates (Part 2) w/ Quick Glance of Lesser Used Styles At this point you have the general idea on how to use E and A Style templates to get any standard chord you want. You also know that you CAN actually use the C and D Styles to find any standard chord. I'll just touch base with them. Next I'd like to show some stylized templates that can be used for any slightly NON standard chord set. Those would be: • maj7 (M7) and m7 chords • suspended (sus2 and sus4) chords • Dominant 7th chords Whaaaaat? Yeah. Ok that might not have been a huge surprise, but learning those stylized shapes will give you pretty much any and every chord you ever really need! Technically I haven't covered diminished ( º ) chords, but you also know the deal with those from a previous installment. You can alter the super unstable diminished (vii º) chord (if you want) by just taking the note from the (4) spot in the Major key and adding it to the (V) chord. That will give you a V7 chord. It will become super stable then, and you will be able to bypass that unstable (vii º) chord entirely. Quick Recap: In the key of C Major, the (vii º) is a B note. When made into a chord, it's Bº – and it's very unstable. In the same key of C Major, the F note is in the 4 (IV) spot. Take that note and add it to the G chord (V) in the key of C Major, and you have a G7 (V7) chord. Regular G Major uses G, B, D – but when you add the “F” to it, you have G, B, D, F ← that's 1 – 3 – 5 – b7. 1 – 3 – 5 – b7 is the formula for a Dominant 7th chord. So, G (V) becomes G7 (V7) – it's not only dominant, it's massively dominant. Ok, so there's that. How about we check out the easy way to make a maj7 (M7) and m7 chord anywhere you want. As a quick heads up, maj7 (M7) chords can be strange. This is mainly due to the fact that the original maj7 (M7) chord shape itself creates an oddity on its own. Unless you plan on working up some jazz you probably won't use maj7 (M7) chords all that often. “Imagine” by John Lennon has a Cmaj7 (CM7) in it, but that's easy. Here's the open Cmaj7 (CM7) chord. Beside it are other maj7 (M7) chords shifted: There you go! If you wanted to continue past Amaj7 above, just slide that pattern. Naturally you might be wondering . “Yeah but are there other open versions?” Sure! You aren't limited to moving that open Cmaj7 shape all over the fretboard. This looks just like an A Major open chord, but the movement from the 2nd fret G string (A) is now moved down to the A#/Bb note. So, Amaj7 (AM7) = A – C# - E – G# 1 3 5 7 Now, shift that sucker → This looks a little like a G Major open chord, but the movement here will be entirely too confusing. Gmaj7 (GM7) = G – B – D – F# 1 3 5 7 That's pretty hard → As you can see to the far right, yes – it's playable. But not really. There's no GOOD reason to attempt creating these maj7 (M7) chords this way when there are plenty of alternatives. However, when you start working with phrasings or lead, these CAN come in handy. They just aren't very user-friendly in the spectrum of chords. That's why we must examine as many options as possible. This one isn't terribly bad, but it doesn't feel good to me. Here we have what looks like an E Major with the D string shifted back. Emaj7 (EM7) = E – G# - B – D# 1 3 5 7 Another rather strange option → Now here's one you'll like. This looks like a D Major chord with the 3rd fret B string note (D) shifted back to the 2nd fret B string note. That's a C#/Db note. Dmaj7 (DM7) = D – F# - A – C# 1 3 5 7 Pretty neat, right? This one is VERY much like that of a power chord in terms of formation, but it does give you all the notes you need. As you can expect, you'd have to manipulate your fingers from the original open Dmaj7 (DM7) shape to represent the increase in shift, but it's still super easy. One question you might have is whether or not you can move that open Dmaj7 (DM7) shape back and get a C#/Dbmaj7 chord. Unfortunately that's a big ol' NO. Think about why. The open Dmaj7 is already open. So, you're left with an open D string note while the other 1st fret tones of G#/Ab (1st fret of the G string) + C (1st fret of the B string) + F (1st fret of the high E string) . and that gives you a Dm7b5. We don't have to worry about that chord. It's just making a point. When a chord is already in open position, you can't take it back any (as of now) to make it work. Thus, you can't get a C#/Dbmaj7 chord from the open Dmaj7 chord shape. But, if you go back to the open Amaj7 (AM7) chord shape (x-0-2-1-2-0) and use it, you'll get a nice C#/Dbmaj7 (C#/DbM7) here → x-4-6-5-6-4 End Result with Maj7 (M7) Shapes: If you're looking for a given “maj7 (M7) “ chord, you'll likely use either the Amaj7 open shape, Cmaj7 open shape or even the Dmaj7 open shape. The Emaj7 and Gmaj7 open shapes are pretty weird. The easiest are probably the Amaj7 and Dmaj7 open shapes. How about m7 shapes? Pfffft – just use either the open Em7 or Am7 chords. That's it! I didn't include fingerings here because you don't need them. Simply move them wherever you want and adjust accordingly. Pure logics will tell you what to do. Ok, so a few hints: Em7 → 3rd finger on the A string dot and 1st finger barres for all the rest. Am7 → 3rd finger on D string dot and 2nd finger on B string dot. Barre the rest. Here ya go! So why is this becoming much easier? It's not actually about the shapes. I suspect it's because you began to see how all of this starts from the absolute basic foundation of a given open chord. By starting out pretty heavy on the formulas and construction and all that stuff, we've slowly eliminated the need to continue on and on about what ultimately ends up being the biggest point on the fretboard. There's only 12 notes. They all repeat. If they all repeat, then you know that the fretboard is designed AS a template on its own. This includes notes, chords, scales, lead guitar . everything. All I've really done here is provide you with a basic framework to help you FIND pretty much every chord you need. This includes our suspended (sus4 and sus2) chords as well as our Dominant 7th chords. I'm skipping past the suspendeds for a moment and going to the Dominant 7ths. You'll see why below. When it comes to dominant 7th chords, there are definitely a few open ones that I recommend you learn. However, just like any other chord set we've worked with in the past – these open shapes can also be moved anywhere on the fretboard. How about we start with the open dominant 7th chords that I recommend you definitely learn first as somewhat of a recap: b7 = G b7 = A b7 = A#/Bb b7 = C (½ step back from tonic of A) (½ step back from tonic of B) (½ step back from tonic of C) (½ step back from tonic of D) I won't beat you over the head with too much here. After all, at this point you can likely remember that any given dominant 7th (7) chord features the 1 – 3 – 5 – b7 of a chord spectrum. You'll recall that you can find the b7 without even (necessarily) worrying about changing to a minor scale (because of the b7) by just taking the tone from the (7) Major scale spot and flattening it. As a step back to refresh, the (7) in any Major scale will be one fret back from the tonic. Below each chord diagram is the b7 property. b7 = D b7 = F A7 = A – C# - E – G (1 – 3 – 5 – b7) ← in A Major, the 7 = G#(Ab) (½ step back from tonic of A) (½ step back from tonic of A) Flattening the G#(Ab) gives us a G note. When it comes to logistics in guitar real estate, I'd only recommend learning two of these movable shapes. They will be your E Style and your A Style. Those two shapes alone will give you any and every dominant 7th chord you'll ever really need. Again, these open chord shapes should also definitely be learned as they are likely the easiest, but you simply won't be able to play every single dominant chord without moving it using either the E or A shapes. This should be pretty straight forward. If you think of how the open A Major and open E Major moves when working with their original shapes, the A7 and E7 shapes move the exact same way.