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You are here: Experts > Music/Performing Arts > Musical Instruments > Guitar - General > Major chord shape
Expert: Dave Dixon - 11/9/2009
Question
Hi there! I was wondering where do the major chord shape come from, i mean if you look at any major chord you can see that you have to use the same shape even on chords played from the 5th string(i.e. a B major chord) but in this case you don't use your middle finger to press the 2nd string on the second fret because the 2nd string is tuned differently so you press it on the 3rd fret but it is always the same shape. So i'll put the question again : where do this shape come from ?
Answer
Chords are made up of a series of notes from a scale. In the case of a major scale, the 1st, 3rd and 5th notes from the scale (so, in the case of B major, the chord contains B, D# and F#. The shape used for that chord is the one necessary to include these notes.
As another example, the C major chord contains the notes C, E and G = these are all 1 semitone (1 fret) higher than the notes in a B major chord, so you can simply move the B major shape upthe neck by 1 fret from B major to get a C major chord.
If you'd like to know more about chords/scale then you might like to take a look at my website where I publish guitar/musi tutorials. Go to www.cyberflotsam.com and follow the "Music" link from the main menu.
Regards,
Dave
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