I managed to have maybe four bars where I got a clean chord change within the bar. That’s right two different chords played in the same bar. Boom!

Sweet 😎 I reckon it took me about three months of making an unholy racket to be able to play a vaguely recognisable (to my ears!) ‘Need’ by Mudhoney (three chords).

Nice work mate. Keep at it and soon you’ll be wondering what the problems were.

So, anyway, remember this? Well, slowly, slowly, catchee monkey stylee, my guitar playing is coming along. I’ve got A, Am, E, Em, D, Dm, C and G now, and a growing repertoire of songs that I can murder, along with a handful of riffs that I can massacre 🙂

It’s fun, I’m enjoying it, it’s slowly starting to click. The change from C to D can go **** itself however…

The change from C to D can go **** itself however…

Slide the open C shape up 2 frets…

It doesn’t work for every song because it’s not a proper chord, but it adds nice colour to a lot of songs.

This works because C major and D major chords are commonly found together in ‘the people’s key’ of G major and/or E minor (which are probably the two most commonly used keys in guitar music). In G major or E minor keys the open G and e strings are kind of fair game. So you can embellish the D major chord with those notes. That won’t work in many other keys, but in those other keys you don’t often see C maj—> D maj chord transition.

It’s fun, I’m enjoying it, it’s slowly starting to click.

You’re winning! Nice one.

Have you tried any bar chords yet?

No bar chords yet, no.

Barre chords are tricky if you’ve never done them before; try power chords as an interim. You play the bottom note with your index, then next string using ring finger two frets up and Little finger next string same fret as the ring finger. It’s the simplest form of chord because it has no major or minor note. Works almost everywhere on the neck with the exception of the top two strings 🙂