Moveable Chords

mendel

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Is the fretted shape, or the finger position being referred to???? I mean, a G shaped chord is still a G shaped chord regardless of what fingers fret the strings, right???
 
Right.

Ten characters.
 
Movable chords refer to chord positions in which all four strings are being held down by your fingers, so that when you move that position up or down the neck, it gives you the same type of chord.

Example: B7 played as 2322. Move the shape up one fret (3433) and you have C7. Move it up another fret (4544) and you have C#7 (or Db7) But you have a dominant 7th chord wherever you place that shape on the neck.

Another example: D7sus4 played as 2233. Move it up to 3344 and it's D#7sus4 (or Eb7sus4), and so on.
 
So regardless of how you make the core shape Of the chord, if it works, it works. OK. I was a bit confused about it with the book. I guess I will play around with it. Thanks guys!!!
 
I think Thumper makes an important point. Try not to think of it as a "G shape" but as a "Major chord shape". It gets very strange when you start talking about "playing G on the 4th fret". Because that's A. Unless your G is 0232 and by moving to the 4th fret, you mean 4676, in which case it's B.

It's much better the sooner you can be talking "play B" or "play A". It also opens your mind up to more possibilities. Free your brain from the first 3 frets, and the instrument opens up.

If you find the 1st paragraph confusing, focus on the 2nd :)
 
Here's an easy way to know what chord you are playing.
Play an "A" chord, find the root note (an "A"). No when you move that shape up the neck, the same finger will be the root note, thus the note.

This will work for the open chords (1st position) you know.
 
Mendel, are you doing Fretboard Roadmaps? If so, keep in mind that the shapes referred to in the book are kind of arbitrarily named - the G shape, D shape, B shape etc names refer to the chord they form in the first position only. Once they start moving, they form *different* chords but retain the same *shape*, and thus the same *name*, from the first position. For example, when the G shape moves one fret/a half step up the neck, it becomes an Ab chord, but is still the G shape.

I hope that helps. And if you're not doing Fretboard Roadmaps, feel free to disregard everything I just said!
 
Mendel, are you doing Fretboard Roadmaps? If so, keep in mind that the shapes referred to in the book are kind of arbitrarily named - the G shape, D shape, B shape etc names refer to the chord they form in the first position only. Once they start moving, they form *different* chords but retain the same *shape*, and thus the same *name*, from the first position. For example, when the G shape moves one fret/a half step up the neck, it becomes an Ab chord, but is still the G shape.

I hope that helps. And if you're not doing Fretboard Roadmaps, feel free to disregard everything I just said!

This is more or less the thing I don't like. It will ALWAYS be a G chord in your mind, and to figure out what it is, you'll be counting from G. SailingUke's method is best. Figure out which note is the "name" of the chord.

See, I shouldn't have written, as JaneRay1940 and SailingUke have done a much better job. Cheers, guys!
 
This is more or less the thing I don't like. It will ALWAYS be a G chord in your mind, and to figure out what it is, you'll be counting from G.

The funny thing about this - I'm actually taking a class with the author of Fretboard Roadmaps right now. In the book, there's a B chord moveable shape; in class, he keeps calling it a C shape; and a couple of my fellow students call it a Bb shape since that's the first chord we all learned using that formation. CONFUSING!

I agree, SailingUke's method is helpful. And, for those of us working through the Roadmaps book, it's a familiar concept.
 
Here's an easy way to know what chord you are playing.
Play an "A" chord, find the root note (an "A"). No when you move that shape up the neck, the same finger will be the root note, thus the note.

My uke teacher recently introduced me to this simple concept, and I am blown away by how powerful it is.

It quickly opens up the entire fretboard; and does away with the need for chord charts and tables.
 
Funny, I went about learning this from a completely different perspective. After I'd mastered the open chords, I started committing "second" and "third" position chords to memory, especially the C, F, G and Am's of the key of C. It wasn't until I started teaching myself the second/third positions of other chords that I grasped the whole "shape" idea. Meanwhile the basic upneck C-key upneck positions had burned their way onto the back of my retinas. To this day, whenever I struggle occasionally for an odd chord upneck, I'll often orient myself on the fly by using those "burned in" positions of C, F, G and Am, and then move those shapes up or down.

Another thing I find interesting about chord shapes is how, after awhile, you learn the relation they have to each other. I can work my way up the fretboard with, say, a I-VI-IV-V progression in the key of C by feel, without much thinking, and then transpose it into another key, say G, by just "feeling" where the VI, IV, and V are in relation to that first I (G) shape. It's just a natural expansion of the basic "shape" concept. I'm still a noob after 6 years, but I'm still learning -- and that's a big part of the fun.
 
Another thing I find interesting about chord shapes is how, after awhile, you learn the relation they have to each other. I can work my way up the fretboard with, say, a I-VI-IV-V progression in the key of C by feel, without much thinking, and then transpose it into another key, say G, by just "feeling" where the VI, IV, and V are in relation to that first I (G) shape. It's just a natural expansion of the basic "shape" concept. I'm still a noob after 6 years, but I'm still learning -- and that's a big part of the fun.

Yep - "the box" - the staple of bass and rhythm guitar players the world over! I've put together a chart of two "boxes" for ukulele. One starts with the root chord using the F shape, and one with the root chord using the C shape. All the chords you need are within a couple of frets either direction. Learn these two box patterns and you can play almost anything written in any key - and if somebody changes the key on you at the last moment you just move a fret or two.

I was going to attach a beta copy of the chart to this post but UU only allows 21kb for PDF attachments, so I chunked it onto the praiseuke site before I was really ready. Y'all can find it there, and I hope it doesn't confuse people further since I haven't had time to write the description that goes with it. Select the "Box" icon on this page to download the chart.

John
 
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