Guitar Lesson Blog

THE A CHORD PLAYED IN 3 POSITIONS

Hello! Wanted to share with you a little bit of theory and to explain how it is possible to have different fingerings for the same chord. Guitar is a unique instrument, in line with some other stringed instruments in that that it allows to have the same notes in different positions. Consider the E on the 6th string for example. An open E on the 6^th string is the same note as E on the 5^th string on the 7^th fret and E on the 4^th string on the 2^nd fret. This is something that would be virtually impossible to do on the piano for instance, where each note has its own peach and can not be doubled. This creates the possibility for having multiple fingers for individual notes, intervals, chords and scales.

There are two reasons why this specific of guitar is so useful. First of all, having the ability to, let’s say, have the same chord in different positions proves to be very useful when switching from single note playing to chord strumming, or combining single notes with chords (listen to Jimi Hendrix’s masterpieces to get a feel for it.) The other reason is that the notes making a chord though being often times the same in pitch would be doubled differently in various positions of a chord on the neck.

Let’s consider a simple A-chord for example. It is built on the root (tonic), in our case A, the major third – C# and a fifth – E. And how do I know all this? I simply take the first, the third and the fifth notes of a major scale on which the chord is built.

So, the first chord, using an open A string is the well known A major chord in the second position:

As you may see, it starts from the root, which is an A, than it adds a fifth, followed by another A an octave apart, and finally we have a major third followed by yet another fifth an octave apart from the first.  You may wonder why the notes are not in order, but that is perfectly acceptable on the guitar. Let’s look at the second chord in the fifth position. Your first finger should bar the fifth fret, and putting your other fingers in the indicated positions you should have: root, fifth, root octave apart, major third, fifth an octave apart and another root note two octaves apart.

The following chord is a little tricky to finger, but all is possible with some practice. Here you have root on the 5^th string 12^th fret, followed by a major third, a fifth, once again the root octave apart and a major third octave apart.

Now here is the explanation to all of this – just as the scale is not played in one position, but can be played all over the fretboard, so the chords build on the notes of the scale can be placed in a number of places on the fretboard – thus giving you the ultimate freedom of expression.