3 Chord Building Hacks

This all may seem obvious, but often as guitarists we are very caught in ‘Solo’ territory, where we work so hard on our technique, improvisation and licks that we forget none of that stuff really has any context without Harmony… aka Chords.

So understanding some ways that chords can be built, how to play different voicings, how to get more out of chords is actually the Harmonic/Melodic Underpinning that will really help our playing mean something, stand out and give us more options in the long run.

With all this being said, lets take a look at some simple chord building ‘hacks’… lets be honest, there are no real hacks when it comes to understanding basic theory. A foundational understanding of how chords are built from the Major Scale and basic intervals is going to be key for taking these concepts further. But hopefully I can provide some explorative ways of building Chords.

A simple way to begin is taking something like a 5^th interval. Maybe we’ll take the note A on the D string 7^th fret and E on the 9^th fret G string. This is our basic power chord shape. We could add some extra notes to this by finding a cool shape on the B and E string. Before we move on, different intervals stacked together can create all kinds of interesting textures and melodies when arpeggiated.

Lets add a little variety and look for another interval shape, for this example I’m going to add a Major 3^rd, starting from G on 8^th fret B string, grabbing its 3^rd, B on the 7^th fret E string. Now we have the notes A, E, G and B. (this spells A7sus2) There are lots of names we can give this combination, we could have come to this chord from other visualisation means, but I enjoy the concept of stacking intervals as a way of coming up with interesting voicings. There are 12 intervals, so there are at least 2 or 3 ways of visualising these on the guitar neck from each string, so there are plenty of options to explore!

Another perhaps more simple approach is to take basic CAGED voicings and move things around. Experiment with finding scale patterns around each Shape. For example, you might have an Am shaped Dm (Am shape barre chord at the 5^th fret D) there are different flavors of Minor scale, lets take the Natural Minor (D, E, F, G, A, Bb, C) see if you can play that as close to the Dm voicing as possible, this will give you lots of extra notes around the shape to experiment with swapping out. You’ll find lots of classic chord extension voicings this way.

Take a 3 or 4 note melody, simple is always a good place to start. Then see if you can turn those notes into one or two chords. If you're feeling adventurous, see if you can experiment with finding various bass notes that add even more movement to your melody. This is a great way to write music for a trio (Guitar, Bass and Drums)