Learn the function of notes within a chord part 6

Putting it all back together, we can utilise each box and create the correct chord. With a little bit of practice, we no longer are stuck when we see a chord that we have not played before.

When looking at a chord name, we should see how each part of the name identifies any variation from the Major Triad and how we can use that to create rather than try to remember every single chord shape.

Also, when we are given a chord shape, we can see how it is constructed and what the function of each note is and most importantly, how moving each note affects the sound of the chord and what the new chord would be called.

Only open chords were covered in the last few blogs. When we use chords like this, it is unlikely that we would use open chord shapes. However, it is best to start the understanding and sow these seeds of knowledge to get the foundations in place before rethinking how chords work.

In simple terms, the chord boxes have:-

• Root note
• four common notes in the 3rd box (plus two uncommon)
• three common notes in the 5th box
• 3 common notes in the 5th or 7th box (plus one uncommon and one special)
• six common notes in the Add or Extension box

This gives us 216 possible chords for each of the five shapes covered, not including the uncommon, special, or alternative strings for each box. Moving these shapes to each fret of the neck gives us another 11 roots for each of the five shapes. I certainly cannot remember this amount of knowledge as individual items, but I can remember a few shapes and how to vary them.

Just a parting note on this topic for now. It may seem like I use the CAGED system for creating and remembering these chords, but I don’t. It is often easier to explain systems like this related to chords most guitarists know and for this purpose CAGED works very well. Trying to fit this box system into the five “CAGED” chords doesn’t work very well, but fitting it into triad shapes, and tetrad shapes with their inversions works very well.