Guitar Chord Building - EON

A 3 tone guitar chord is called a triad.

In this lesson, we will build the triads in C Major.

First let's review what we've covered so far...

The Major Scale pattern is 221-2221 (dial up the major scale).

2 = whole step & 1 = half step. On guitar, a whole step = 2 frets & one half step = 1 fret.

Here are some more points to remember about the major scale...

major scale points to remember, process is 2 2 1 2 2 2 1, where 2 is whole step or 2 frets and 1 is a half step or 1 fret, this can be done from any tone to build a key, each key has a distinct group of tones, major scale pattern produces the numbering for whatever is number one, numbering is one through seven, one through seven are diatonic, in major scale half step are between steps 3 and 4 then 7 and 8

We can build a LINEAR C Major Scale by starting on the C tone located on the 5th string, 3rd fret. Practice improvising with this scale.

Right
Left

Right

C Major Scale Linear on a grid and in tablature

Now that we are certain about the tones in the KEY of C Major, we build chords. Chords are created by selecting a ROOT (a tone to build something from), and then selecting Every Other Note (EON).

There are 7 tones in a Major scale; therefore, there are 7 triads (each tone becomes a root).

chord building process from tones one through seven, each tone becomes root of chord and triads are built by taking everything tone from each root, eon is every other note

Upper Case Roman Numerals = Major chords [I, IV, V]

Lower Case Roman Numerals = minor chords [ii, iii, vi]

Lower Case Roman Numerals with a Degree sign [o] = diminished chords [viio]

Go to Guitar Chord Charts

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