song chords

refusetolose

hi lads,

anyone know an easy way to figure out guitar chords for songs?

teekayd25

Try using the guitar's top string to find a chord's bass note - keep moving along the frets until you hit a note that sounds like it might be the one. If you find that the bass note is "C", you could then try playing different types of C chords. The majority of the time you will find that it is an ordinary major or minor.

Remember also that certain chords tend to appear together a lot, for example

F, G, C

or

A, B, E

riffmongous

like teekayd said, try to find the bass note of the first chord in the song,then see if the chord is major or minor. It will most likely be major so then once you find that look up the major scale for the note. So if the note is C, the C major scale will be

1--2-- 3--4-- 5--6 --7
C- D- E -F -G- A- B

so most pop songs use chords based on the 1,4,5,6 notes of the scale. The 1,4,5 chords will be major chords while the 6th will be a minor chord (C major, F major, G major and A minor). Then try playing one of these chords anytime you hear a change in the song. (just a quick note, the 5th chord could be a '7th' chord either)

If this doesn't sound right well then its possible the song is not starting on the 1 chord, so try using the C as the 4,5 of the appropriate scales. So C is the 4th chord in the 'key' of G, 5th in the key of F.

These are the rules for most pop, rock songs in major keys, you will need different rules for minor keys and other genres like jazz

refusetolose

thanks lads

ill give it a go....

riffmongous

Let us know how you got on, I've only ever tried it a handful of times myself

Herb Powell

If you're learning pop songs all you ever need to know is
E B C#m A

Malice

Moved to Playing & Techniques & Theory.

evolving_doors

Herb Powell wrote: »

If you're learning pop songs all you ever need to know is
E B C#m A

Hmm at first I went WHA?

But these are the chords for ' Don't stop believing' and that Adele Song' someonelike you' so i presume must be the chords for everthing else also..

Oh yeah one more tip- make sure your guitar is tuned correctly or there isnt alternative tunings/capo used in the song

ednwireland

Herb Powell wrote: »

If you're learning pop songs all you ever need to know is
E B C#m A

how come everything i want to play has F and Bm in it

riffmongous

ednwireland wrote: »

how come everything i want to play has F and Bm in it

You could try moving it to a different key, a more guitar friendly open key if its a problem for you. Its a pretty common technique in classical guitar where most songs are originally written for the piano.

JonathanAnon

riffmongous wrote: »

You could try moving it to a different key, a more guitar friendly open key if its a problem for you. Its a pretty common technique in classical guitar where most songs are originally written for the piano.

I move songs frequently.. It's easy if you use something like Excel.. Just take the sheet with the original chords and use something like the following to guide you through the chord tranpositions..

KeithTS

JonathanAnon wrote: »

I move songs frequently.. It's easy if you use something like Excel.. Just take the sheet with the original chords and use something like the following to guide you through the chord tranpositions..

That's a bit over the top when it comes to playing anything on guitar, we have the easiest instrument ever when it comes to transposing...bang on a capo and presto, or use barre cords and shift everything up/down as you feel.

For figuring out chords, make sure your guitar is in tune, a little bit off in either direction can really make it hard, then do what was mentioned above about finding your root and then finding whether it's maj.min or whatever.

Bets of luck