Practicing the Diminished and Augmented 5th Chords

In some guitar lessons these type of chords usually are not being dealt at an early stage but i chose to deal with these as early as the songs you are longing to play may not always go with just simple chords. The diminished and augmented chords are beautiful passing chords one must not treat these as optional chords to play even though when some printed songs with chords say it so. In some songs these chords come in parenthesis as it can be optionally played but you better try to play it when listed because it enriches your tone harmony hearing judgement. You enrich your chord accompaniment analization by always trying to play all even those optional chords. I want to prepare your fingers as early in playing these chords.

Diminished 7th and augmented 5th chords are somewhat difficult for beginners to execute so this exercise is best applied early before youe develop to yourself the unliking attitudes towards hard chords. Some guitar players i've encountered in the past though already learned still have the unliking attitudes towards other necessary hard chords because they tend to get away with those from the early stage of their guitar learning and so their playing enthusiasm affected. Its best to remember in guitar, the harder the chord finger position, the more beautiful it might have been applied. As you maintain your playing, you will realize that your ear will long for this sound later thats why its best if we tackle these chords as early. Here are some of the commonly used Diminished and Augmented chords. For speedier learning, we will include two different diminished or augmented chords for every practice pattern.
   

The important thing to remember is that the Ddim chord formation is also called the G#dim, Bdim or Fdim chord. You can practice your fingers here with some chord combinations like this: D - Ddim - Em - Bbdim - D. Do this in a two downward thumb stroke for every chord with just a single downward thumb stroke at the last chord. Here and in the following exercises below, you will start getting familiarized on how the diminished chord harmonizes with other chords.

                                                                 

  

Adim chord formation is also called the Cdim, Ebdim or F#dim chord. You can try these practice pattern: F# - Adim - G#m - Ddim - F# in a 2 downward thumb stroke for every chord and just a single downward thumb stroke at the last chord.

  

The Bbdim is also being called the C#dim, Edim or Gdim chord. Do this practice pattern C - Bbdim - Dm7 - Ddim - C.

  

The Caug chord formation is also being called as the Abaug or Eaug chord. Try to practice this chord pattern: C - Caug - F - Aaug - Dm7 - G - C.

   

Aaug also goes by the name as the Baug, Dbaug or Faug chord. The practice pattern goes this way: A - Aaug - D - Daug - Bm7 - E - A.

   
Daug is also being called the Bbaug or Gbaug chord. You can have these chords for practicing: D - Daug - G - Gaug - Em - A - D

  

As for Gaug chord position, this is also called the Ebaug chord. So you can have these chords to practice: G - Gaug - C - Caug - Am - D - G. Remember, in all these exercises above you will just strum the chord twice with downward thumb stroke and the last chord with just a single downward thumb stroke. If you're going to practice any of these in countless repetitions, all of the chords are strummed twice and just do the single downward thumb stroke at the very end.

   

Finger Positioning and Tone Hearing Exercise

Another important exercise is not only for your fingers but to start your ears also to get acquainted well with the similarities and differences of the chord tones when strummed. More often learners never get to notice how chords were chosen or preferred to be used in a song. Beginner guitarist or even an average player sometimes dont have the habit of getting the feel of the chords in a song. Here in this exercise not only we are going to practice our finger strecthing technique but also learn how to acquire the ability to feel the differences of the chord sequence patterns.These chord patterns can be used in the same part and melody of the song yet emphasizing a different angle of emotions and mood of the song. Its recommended to do this exercise always so that you will develop the chord tone observing habit and this will help you to develop your song accompanying skills in the future.

First, about stretching, beginners often find it hard to shift their fingers correctly from G major chord position going to C major chord. Here is the whole sequence of chord exercise that we are going to learn today shown below.
G-C-D-C-/G-Am-Bm-Am-/G-C-D-C-/G
In this exercise, you can first familiarize your fingers with just G and C alone repeatedly if you find yourself still slow. After constant practicing you can add a chord to the sequence one by one until you completed the whole pack of chord sequence shown here. Its recommended to do it with just a single downward strum of the thumb for every chord for speedier learning pace. Notice that on the second pack of chords, G-Am-Bm-Am, your fingers are being trained to acquire a faster grasp of the Bm (B minor) chord as this speed is necessary also for a versatile hand movement adjustability.You must be doing this whole pattern repeatedly as one type of finger exercise.

Second, about your tone hearing exercise, your ear will be introduced to hearing and identifying tone similarities and differences in the chords. You will gradually learn to filter sounds that makes the chord a minor or a major one. The ability to analyze tone and feel of it comes gradually through constant everyday practice.

Basic Vertical and Horizontal Finger Movement Exercises

Learning the guitar requires setting priorities at a gradual pace. We also must set our interest at a controlled pace in order for us not to leave out other important factors needed in the skill. Before arriving at a stage where you can simultaneously read and play guitar music sheets or some guitar tablatures, you have to make your hands properly fitted enough to do it. Since you knew already the basic guitar chords, lets have some
finger exercises for more articulate playing.

For our basic vertical movement left hand exercises, you can
1. Start to position your fingers at E major chord,strum a single downward thumb stroke then go to A major, a single downward stroke again then go to D major also at a single strum. After that you can reverse the direction say, from D major to A major and then to E major. Do this at their minor chords alos as in Em, Am, Dm also. D minor chord is somewhat harder to position so better practice it more. Since this is done for every single strum only, start yourself at a slower pace.

For our basic horizontal movement exercise
2.Start yourself with E major chord, then do the F major chord, then G major chord and going back to F major down to E major again for a single strum stroke. Do also the A major chord followed by Bb (B flat major), then the C major chord at the 3rd fret at the same finger position. Reverse the action. Remember the F major and Bb major chord are somewhat harder to execute since this is nearest to the nut of the guitar. Do this also on their minor counterpart like from A minor, to Bb minor, down to C minor. These will require extra pressing force in order not to  leave any strings from being muffled. Practice this at countless times for a better hand grip development.

When doing the barre chord like Fm (F minor), Gm(G minor), support your forefinger by your middle finger to exert more force and  about the Bbm (B flat minor) and the Cm (C minor) chords, this requires constant practice for your wrist to get acquainted with that pressure point since this position is lower and not quite comfortable for the wrist.

The Third Strumming Pattern Lesson

Our third strumming pattern consist of leaving a specific beat empty of action. This strumming pattern gradually makes you play the song with style and somewhat in a carefree mode. Its also good to keep in mind that the first strumming move somewhat gives the impression of a more heavier stroke than the succeeding ones as is what usually happens in any musical score. In our strumming lessons, for the meantime I recommend that you only use your thumb and not the whole four fingers in your downward stroke and use only your forefinger at the upward stroke. If you use the whole four fingers at the downward stroke it will produce a noisy, sharp, dominating tones not ideal to do at an early learning stage because you are suppose to be learning to produce the sound in a milder and observable way. As we go learning different strumming patterns, you also are being brought into appreciating different music genre.
In this illustration below, if you're not still familiar to cope up learning through note representations, you must follow strictly the normal speaking manner of the phrase on the fourth row cause it precisely give the correct strum accent. Notice that the fifth beat which falls always in beat "3" was encircled to denote that its always empty of strumming action. When it says empty of strumming action, I mean you can still perform the movement of your hand in beat "3" in order for you not to loose your beating rhythm or momentum but you must not touch the strings at this point. This may take constant looking at the phrase and with steady repetition to familiarize the strumming style or you can just remember those two words "you" and "buzzed" as the points where you are not going to touch the strings. After constant practice, try playing this without looking at the phrase to gain the true feel of the play.
In this style you will learn how to play the likes of some good country or folk music like "A Horse With No Name by America, "Sugar Mountain" by Neil Young, "Crazy Little Thing Called Love" by Elvis Presley and many more. When you happened to hear the original version of the music, some instrumentation or some movements may be added to the music so just stick to our strumming pattern in order not to be disoriented. The encircled portion are only shown in order for you to map it clearly where you've been through, to allow you to see the difference between strumming patterns and to acquaint your hand to strumming changes.

First and Second Strumming Technique Applications

In the previous lessons, you were introduced to the very basic movement of strumming and that is the single downward stroke with the thumb at indicated numbers of a measure alone. On our second strumming lesson I introduced you the single alternating downward and upward strumming at every count of a measure as in "1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and" where at the first beat "1", you will do a downward stroke. On our first strumming technique I already given you the song "Amazing Grace" but now you can try this also at the following songs: I Need You sung by America; I Was Looking For Someone To Love by Leif Garret; Hey Jude by The Beatles; Father and Son by Cat Stevens; Reality by Richard Sanderson. All you have to do is just to adapt your beat and strum to the slowness or fastness of a song tempo.

Now for our second strumming technique you can try the songs like Teach Your Children by Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young; Blowin In The Wind by Peter, Paul and Mary; I'll Never Find another You by The Seekers. Although these songs might be too old for you, I strongly suggest you first try these songs cause it brings the very basic strumming movements. You can search all of these songs around the internet and from these songs, you will now have an idea where in your array of personal favorite songs these two kinds of strumming fits. Just for a short review i will again post these two strumming note representations.
1. Single Downward Stroke                    
     1     2      3      4  - one measure (4/4 time signature)              

2. Single Alternating Downward and Upward Stroke   
      1   and    2   and    3   and    4    and - (4/4 time signature)

Also, under this type of strumming lies the march time music. This has also the same single downward and upward stroke but the only difference is the musical note presentation or the manner on how you will do on the guitar this accentuated strumming pattern. It goes like this:

In order to help you more in gaining the proper accent in this strumming pattern, I created the rhyme on the fourth row of the illustration and all you have to do is to adapt the movement of your strumming hand to the manner this rhyme is normally spoken. This is in a 2-bar 4/4 time signature measure in marching movement and I suggest you to execute this pattern in a continuous mode to speed up the development of your skills. Many songs including march time songs are fitted to this kind of strumming pattern.

What Factors Others Find Useful in Guitar Playing

As a learned and experienced guitarist, i had been into lots of group playing and individual playing encounters. Some guitarist who are good at mathematics seek the help of their speedy mathematical ability in identifying the chords to take especially when it comes to song transposition or on the spot accompaniments. This really helps i agree. Some people are naturally gifted by ear to dig the right chords to take and some find visual forms as a big help in transposition and accompaniment.What I mean by visual form is they learn it through as physical formation and sequences of their fingers.
For me, not only on guitar playing but in any other musical instruments, I recommend to learn it all by ear, learn it by finger formation/position, learn it through mathematical calculation and learn the instrument by feelings and emotions and of course by watching how other players play.
First thing is to find which of these fields gets you more speed in acquiring playing mastery. If you're good at mathematical way than acquiring the right chords by ear, enrich it. If you're good by ear so improve yourself at this field. The beauty of doing such self-help improvement is that you will find yourself not stopping to acquire the next skill after the other.

Learning Basic Chord Sets

Today we will deal with the most frequently used chord sets in many beginners songs. Just to review what we previously learned, i already introduced you the major chords like A, C, F, Bb, G, D and E. The minor chords are Am, Bm, Fm, Em, Dm and also some of the seventh chords like A7 and B7 chords. Of course these are not complete arrays of all the chords but what's important here not to neglect are the basic uses or sets of chords that a beginner must familiarize with before he go any further.

The three-chord set goes usually this way: A - D - E and back to A again. On D major key it usually is D- G - A and back to D. On G major key, its G - C - D and back to G again. On C major key, its C-F-G and back to C. On E major key its E-A-D and back to E. What's important here is for you to acquire a grasp of your first melodic flow of tunes. You're starting to build a certain frame of melodic flow in your mind.

Another set of chord is the 4-chord major-minor chord combination playing. As a beginner guitarist, as i mentioned before, we must established some skeletal framing of tunes as what usually happens in most of the songs. This is not the only tune framing that we will tackle here but lets just begin from the basics. Lets begin with key of C.

Here they are:
on C major its C-Am-Dm-G-C,
on D major its D-Bm-Em-A-D
on A major its A-F#m-Bm-E-A
on G major its G-Em-Am-D-G
on E major its E-C#m-F#m-B-E
on F major its F-Dm-Gm-C-F
on B major its B-G#m-C#m-F#-B
on Bb major its Bb-Gm-Cm-F-Bb
For the moment, try to practice a simple alternating downward-upward strumming method for every beat in a time signature as in- "1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and" so this means a downward stroke for every number indicated and a upward stroke for every "and" indicated in the measure. It will be better if you continuously do some limitless counting in order to familiarize your strumming hand.

Learning The Barre Chords

One of the important part of beginner lessons in guitar is familiarizing our fingers to the barre chords. These chords are important to learn in order to be able to play music in all its path. We have to exert patience and effort to execute these chords as these requires combined efforts of pressing the strings, checking correct finger positions and producing the clear tones. It really pays to be patient here cause at the end you will make your musicality reach its point of versatility. As you get familiar with these well, you will find it later that you're not exerting effort anymore and so the full freedom of achieving good performance is just a few steps away.

Lets start with the F major chord. This is the complete chord in F major and the number on the side indicates first fret of the guitar where the chord will start to form.

  

But for the meant time if you want a much easier chord position in Fmajor, you can do this one below.

As you can see your forefinger here is pressing two strings simultaneously. The first and the second string at the first fret. Learn to apply an extra pressure on these 2 strings to make it sound clearly. Don't let your forefinger be placed on top of the metal line because it will muffle the strings. Your middle finger here is pressed at the third string, second fret and the ring finger at the fourth string, third fret. The two "X" signs signifies those string not included.

Another frequently used chord as a beginner is the F#m (F#minor) chord. In the following illustrations are the complete version of the chord which is done at the second fret as indicated by the number beside the box.

  

Now here again is the more simpler version of F#m if you wanted a more gradual or easy learning. Check that the pressing force you apply to your forefinger is enough to let those 3 strings soundly clearly. As you practice this frequently be observant on the equality of all the tones produced. When you've familiarized your fingers in executing this barre chord, i recommend to shift your playing to a more complete chord version as the one posted above to be able for you to achieve some fuller and heavier tones in playing.

Another frequently used is the Bm chord (B minor). Here's the complete version

  

And here is the more easier one. Curve your fingers middle, ring finger and small finger a little to make the fingers apply a perpendicular direction of force upon the strings and to avoid muffling other strings.

Now here is another form of barre chord that is also important to learn as this form can be adjustable anywhere in the fret board. This is the Bb chord (pronounced as B flat major).

  

Another important thing to keep in mind is all the barre chords can be adjusted in either high or low which means you can move it a fret lower or higher without changing the finger positions. In this case you can know all the corresponding barre chords by analyzing it. 

In the guitar fret board, at the first fret, we can do two positions of barre chords and these are the Bb major position and the F major position. If you're on Bb major position, you can see at the table above that if you adjust your position on the fret board higher by one fret (means you're at 2nd fret), you are now doing a B major chord at that unchanged finger position. The rest of the chord names on the table follows as you move in the next fret and so on. Here you will find that another form of D major chord in this finger position is at the 5th fret and E major at the 7th.

The same goes with the F major position on the first fret. If you look at the table, adjusting this position to the next fret will give you the F# or Gb major chord, G major on the 3rd fret, A major on the 5th and so on.

Single Alternating Downstroke and Upstroke Strumming

Since you've been introduced previously to a single stroke downward strumming, you have to practice it everyday for speedy gain and familiarization. You can try researching other simple guitar beginner songs and it usually will give the array of simple chords you've learned. Usually these songs comes in a three-chord or four-chord display. Be always on the watch not to mute the designated "O" or "open strings" in the chords. As a beginner guitarist, you must learn first to sound the strings sharply or as clear as possible before learning those muting techniques.

The second strumming method i will introduce to you is the simple alternating downward and upward stroke. Remember in the previous lesson, i made you to do a single downward strum only at the indicated numbers of the time signature. In this second strumming lesson, you will learn to insert an upward stroke between the indicated numbers and this you will do at the part "and" of the time signature.

For example in 3/4 time signature "1 and 2 and 3 and", the upward stroke is done at the word "and". In your first strumming move, begin your first strumming move at the first indicated number, that is "1".

Additonal Basic Chords

As we put into practice those first batch of fundamental chords, we now gradually add some new ones to learn. These new added chords puts you in a different finger stretching manner and its better that we grouped this chords as to types of execution for a more focused chord execution practicing.

As we can see in the C chord diagram the ring finger is at the 3rd fret (5th string), the middle finger is at the 2nd fret (4th string), the forefinger at the 1st fret (2nd string). The C chord needs extra finger stretching effort on your 3rd finger but eventually your finger will get used to it later with ease. Just practice it many times.

  

Here at the A chord diagram the ring finger is pressed on the 2nd string at 2nd fret while the middle finger at the 3rd string at 2nd fret and the forefinger at the 4th string 2nd fret also. In the diagram the 5th string indicates "O" which means "opens string" so this string is included in the play and the 6th string with an "X" sign which means "dead string" is not included in the play.

In the G chord your ring finger is in the 1st string (3rd fret), forefinger at the 5th string (2nd fret) and your middle finger at the 6th and largest string (3rd fret). Incline your guitar finger board in a little upward position towards you for a more easy chord executions. Always see to it that the open strings are not muted by the other fingers.


  

The B7 chord is also a useful chord in many fundamental songs to learn. Here your middle finger is pressed on the 5th string (2nd fret), forefinger at the 4th string (1st fret), ring finger at the 3rd string (2nd fret), leave open the 2nd string and your little finger at the 1st string (2nd fret).

Learning How to Strum Your First Song

For our first application of a downward stroke strumming by your thumb, lets take the song "Amazing Grace".  Whats amazing at this song is it gives the most basic movements of the strumming hand in executing the chords. Here you can just do a downward strum in a very natural movement. You will just follow your hand's instinct to move. This song is in a 3/4 time signature  which means you are going to count this way: "1 and 2 and 3 and" as one whole measure. You are going to do a single downward strum of the thumb only at every indicated number of the beat no matter how fast or slow your counting is.

When your left hand's chord execution speed still can't adapt when you try to play a song, don't worry just take your time but be able to continue doing as this scenario is just a natural stage you will pass by. You will feel some small pains on the tip of your fingers as your learning goes but it will later be gone as you focus on.

How to Prevent Unwanted Muffling of the Strings While Playing

As much as possible we should make each finger be perpendicular to the fretboard. When you hold the strings down as in applying extra pressure, the tendency of your finger is to curve and thus enable you not to mute the strings lying underneath that finger. Advanced players use to mute the strings by damping the palm of the right hand on the strings while enabling other strings to sound clearly, but this too can unintentionally happen in most of those beginners. Whether one is left handed or right handed player make sure that the palm of hand strumming the strings is suspended above the bridge and the strings.Its advised to hold the guitar in a perpendicular position so that the moment your hand execute some chords the fingerboard its not inclining in near position of the palm.Also for a more easy playing, make the guitar fret board a little inclined upward going near you so that the palm edge beneath your forefinger will not touch the lower strings that cause it to mute especially when you're playing an E, E7, Em, Am or C chord. When playing a simple A & D chords, always watch your third finger as its tendency is to touch the lower string beneath it causing that string not to sound clearly or not to sound at all. This part is often unintentionally done by beginners who usually think that upon achieving right finger position they will think that all strings are sounding but the truth is it don't. So always see to it that the lowest string is not being muted by the third finger. The third finger has always the unwanted  tendency to make a straight finger position thus muffling other strings in the process. Applying pressure on it enable the finger to curve thus keeping it from touching the string under it.

Learning Basic Strumming Method

For the basic strumming, i'd given you previously some idea and illustrations of strumming. When we start to learn executing chords on the guitar, the other hand instinctively try to strum the strings just to hear the sound. We must not go too far at once about learning chord executions while leaving behind these basic strumming techniques. Strumming is the next movement upon every chord execution. So upon learning some of the basic chords here we will learn about strumming at its basic stance.

"1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and" - repeat this sequence of counting over and over in your daily practice. This counting starts with the downward thumb stroke upon the strings  For more easy strumming, you can strum by your thumb at those indicated numbers only in pure downward thumb strokes. It should be like this:

1  and  2  and  3  and  4  and
D        D         D         D        ( D = down stroke of the thumb; in some lessons they use arrows pointing downward)

Repeat this counting for at least 2 times in a single chord and then change your chord and do the same counting. This is done for more speedy hand familiarization of strumming and chord executions. You can make any series of chord progressions like for example: you start from "G", then "Em". followed by "Am", then "D" and back to "G".

Basic Guitar Chords and Proper Finger Positions

Other beginners may still encounter some confusions in reading the chord chart so i think it will be much better if we have an illustration of the proper finger positions on the fret board. Be sure that all the pressed strings sound clearly and the open strings are not muted by other fingers during the chord playing.

 
Its important to curve your fingers in pressing the strings so as not to touch other open strings. I personally prefer to learn beginning guitar lessons without using a pick to acquaint ourselves to different tones of our fingers when strumming or plucking the strings. For me its important to learn to connect our bare fingers to the instrument first before we use guitar picks. While we started to enjoy how we improve in chord execution, we must not disregard how the strings sound individually because sometimes there exist some unnecessary buzz in each strings we play. Though it seems you can already sound the string, sometimes it has a distorting sound not usually noticed when you strum a chord wholly. The beginners often neglect to check how individual strings sound cause they are preoccupied in the joy of being able to sound a chord.

    

When you reached the proper finger stretched position the first time you sound a chord, always remember this needed effort for speedy finger positioning familiarity and dexterity. Constant practice is a must. Start by a single downward strum by your thumb and make your left hand fingers just adapt to strum time duration of the right hand for acquiring balance familiarization.

  


After you had learned to execute properly these first group of basic chords by a single downward stroke of the thumb, you must add some extra right hand activity. Lets say by these basic chords, learn to play by adding an upward stroke after every downward thumb stroke motion thus you can have an alternating downward (thumb) and upward (forefinger) strokes at a repeating count of "1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and" and continue that until your both hands feel some extended effort to continue for another set of counts.

Guitar Basic Strumming and Notations

Before we start to learn different strumming methods, lets see briefly some important musical symbols to consider

a "whole note" counts this way 1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and
half note - 1 and 2 and;
quarter note - 1 and

                       Today we will learn about the basics of guitar strumming. On the illustration below, notice that on the first line, we use the standard 4 beats in a bar music counting to gain the proper movement of the right hand in a down-up strumming movement.                                     

   

The second line denotes the kind of note a single strum movement will be timed. Here at the illustration we used the eight note notation which signifies that you have to move your hand in a down and up manner 8 times. The third line signifies the alternating down and up motion of the right hand in a strumming manner. The arrow pointing downward means strumming the guitar by your thumb in a downward motion beginning from the string closest to you which is the thickest string going down to the first string nearest the floor while the arrow pointing upward means strumming it beginning at the first string nearest the floor which is the thinnest string going up to the last string closest to you. Hear this audio of this strumming pattern. Position your fingers in key of G chord.

I recommend also to try your hand at some basic chords given here previously and just try this strumming pattern at its basic counting measures. I prefer to learn fundamental strumming methods with bare fingers to get the real touch and feel of the play at the first learning. You can use the back of your thumb when strumming upwards slightly touching your thumbnail as smooth as possible.