Chord Up And Up

Rise Up Shepherd And Follow Sheet Music For Guitar Chords

Guitar Chords Up the Neck: G, C, Em, D |Ep. 10|

Know all the basic chords? This exercise will get you started playing guitar chords up the neck, the first step to advanced rhythm guitar!

G, C, Em, D is one of the most common chord progressions in all of popular music today.

There is nothing more boring to listen to than a guitarist just banging away on the same 4 chords for an entire song.

Make your rhythm playing stand out by using chords from different places on the neck!

By adding variations of chords from all over the neck, even the most boring song or chord progression can be given life and kick.

Today’s workout consists of ALL the main shapes of the G, C, Em, and D chords on the top three strings, covering the entire neck (my Martin has 15 frets I can get to comfortably so we’ll call it there).

Learning these 3 string chord shapes all over the neck not only gives you a lot of options for spicing up your rhythm playing, but it is also one of the very best things for improvising and playing solos.

When improvising, you need to be able to find the chord tones (the notes making up whatever chord you are improvising over). You’ll want to emphasize them at times, avoid them at others, and resolve to them at the end of licks. Learning these 3 string shapes all over the neck will ensure that wherever you happen to be soloing on the neck, you know where the nearby chord tones are!

The Workout:

Make sure that each note of each chord is being produced clearly and without buzz. If you’re getting buzz or not hearing every note of the chord, you need to slow down.

Click here to get the High Quality TAB in PDF format for easier printing.

Instructions:

If you don’t have a good grasp of these chord shapes already, don’t worry about the metronome at first. Just play each chord in succession without regard to a beat until you get the shapes memorized. Once you can play the exercise just by reading the chord letters above the TAB without needing to look at the tab for the shape, you’re ready to start using a metronome. Feel free to include this time in your 15 minutes :P

Start a timer for 15 minutes.
Start a metronome at a very slow tempo (~60 bpm) and start running through the exercise.
Every time you miss a note or lose the beat, that repetition is a no-go.
If you get 3 no-go’s in a row, slow down 5 bpm.
If you get 2 good reps in a row, speed up 5 bpm.
Repeat until the buzzer and see what speed you’ve reached.

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