Inquiry Post # 10

E Major chords.

Remember Dyads from the 2 note blues? chords in western music are (mostly) triads.

So how do we build chords?

Let’s take a look at a fretboard again (the bottom is the 6th string aka the low E string. It’s the thickest one on a guitar),

from https://www.guitarlessons.org/lessons/guitar-notes/

and the first octave of the E Major scale

The notes are a little hard to see but they are,

E F# G# A B C# D# E

To build a chord, The first note is the Tonic or root of the note and since we are building an E major chord we’ll start with E. Next, you need the 3rd and the 5th from the scale. So, if we start at E, that’s G# and B.

But you ask, the guitar has 6 strings! what about the other three strings!? Good question. With those other three strings we repeat notes within that chord. So, The tab for E major looks like this, (The 6th string here is to the far left)

When we compare this to the fretboard image above we’ll note that on the first string, which is played open (indicated by the 0) we are playing a high E, the second string which is also open is a B, and even though the 3rd string when played open is a G when – when we press our finger into the first fret, it turns into a G#, Same Idea with the 4th string or D string, When we press our finger on the second fret it becomes an E. And again on the second fret of A string, it becomes a B note. And finally the 6th string is played open, thus it is an E. So we have E, B,E,G#,B, and E

Which is the 1,3, and 5 notes on the E major scale.

And the E major scale in chords sounds (sorta) like this,

Cheers!

Rick