mendel
Well-known member
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???
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.
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.
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.