Have you ever wondered if there was a single perfect total chord workout? A daily routine that could create a real challenge for you. Especially when you consider all of the harmonies and chords that you will need to hit in that workout. Well, you're in luck, I’m going to deliver exactly that in this lesson...




If you want to try just a single total chord workout routine, and if you are new to this type of training, then you will want to do the "Triad" workout I'm going to cover in this lesson.

If instead, you want to adopt a more rigorous total chord split workout routine, then you will want to pair this up with doing a Seventh-Chord workout and perform both triads and sevenths in alternating fashion on Monday, Wednesday and Friday.

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In this session we’re going to talk about chords. But, we’re not going to go on and on about elementary shapes and simple songs that you should learn in order to get better at your chords.

Instead, we’re going to dig right into how guitar players can become really talented at; making chords, at playing them efficiently in songs, and also (most importantly), how you can use chords for both composing and enhancing your music.

Once we’re done this lesson, you’ll understand chord types that are important for you to practice. Plus, you’ll learn about a daily routine that you can get started on right away for working on chords in musical situations.

To study all this, I’m going to introduce you to a great web-site called “Auto-Chords.com,” and on that site, I’ll discuss how you can use it's web-apps as a practice and technical training tool for not only practicing the chords, but also for using chords within a key signature.

Practicing these skills will help you to be able to make up songs along with enhancing songs that you already know. This way, your music will start sounding a lot better - a lot faster.





STEP 1). 
CHORD HARMONY LEVELS:
Let’s get started with a break-down of chord types that are important for you to practice.

In music, we have different levels of chord harmony, they are;

- Dyads: These are not truly a chord since a chord in music requires 3-notes, but instead these are two note harmony (intervals). Guitar players often refer to these as "Double-Stop Chords." They are used in a wide variety of guitar riffs.

- Triads: The triad is the first true harmony in music and has 3 notes. Triads primarily consist of Major, Minor chord types and are used in a majority of Western music.

They can be found in all types of music. Guitarists learn them early on as "Open" and "1st-Position," patterns. Additional triads include the "Augmented," and the, "Diminished," but they are rarely applied in most songs due to their dissonance.

- Seventh Chord Harmony: 7th's are chords that have 4-notes. They can come across as sounding pretty Jazzy. They include; "Major 7," "Minor 7," "Dominant 7," and two options for "Diminished."

The 7th quality chords are more challenging and require more dexterity to play with ease of use. These chords are commonly found in Jazz, although Pop Music can sometimes offer up situations for them as well.

- Extended and Altered: Beyond the 7th chord, harmony can get much more sophisticated, with extended types called; “9th, 11th and 13th.”

Plus, speaking of Jazz sounds, we can also create chord alterations, like the “b9, b5, #9, and #5. Those chords are very Jazz oriented and mostly found within Jazz compositions.




STEP 2). 
GENERAL PERFORMANCE:
In a general playing sense, most of the music that we hear on the radio (popular songs), will be linked to the major and minor Triad chord types, along with a few seventh chord types performed once in awhile.

With Dyads (Double-Stop's), we’re generally going to be rather limited to finding them used for 2-note chord riffs in songs - played within certain intro’s and in specific song sections.

Discovering riffs that apply double-stops, would be more applicable to learning a specific song part, like the song riff in Jimmy Buffets, “Margaritaville,” or in Van Morrison’s song, “Brown Eyed Girl.”

This brings us to what is most important, and as you might have guessed from our discussion so far, that would be learning Triad chords to the highest level of skill possible.

Development of the Triads along with becoming highly aware of how to play Triad shapes all over the guitar is critical.

In shooting for a goal of becoming a talented chord strummer, you’ll need some technical dexterity and some physical skill along with the basic music theory awareness for using the triad chord types.

Generally, this work starts with the open and 1st position chord patterns. You can get my free hand-out covering all of these patterns by going to my web-site and checking out the lessons page titled, “The Basic Chords on Guitar.”

After that, you’ll need to begin the study of moveable triad chord patterns, which are often just referred to as “Barre” chords. If you need some help developing those, check out my Rhythm Guitar Lesson titled, “Winning the Battle Over Barre Chords.”

That "Barre Chords," lesson also comes with an excellent free and highly detailed handout to help you get started on a daily workout routine with playing Barre chords on the guitar neck.





STEP 3).
THE DAILY WORKOUT
As you’re getting started with building all the higher levels of skill with learning all of your open, and 1st position triads (as well as) the Barre chords, this brings us to the really fun segment of this lesson where we’re going to get you familiarized with both the use and application of all of these chord types.

As a way to practice the Triad chords at a more sophisticated level, you’ll want to start getting more organized with your knowledge of key signatures and how chords relate to the keys that are used to create popular music.

At this point I'd like to suggest that we head over to a fantastic chord development web-site that you can start using right away in order to help you develop this practice idea at a higher level. It’s called, “AutoChords.com”

My suggestion is that you hit the Auto-Chords website once a day and when you’re there, start by selecting a key signature and then focus on taking a run through all of the chords that are associated to the key.


This will help with developing your memory for the chords of a key and how the chord qualities will operate inside of each of the keys.

Then, you’ll want to start doing some practice on playing the chords of the “Main Progression” offered at the top of the Auto-Chords web-page.



Finally, make a study through the “Alternative” chord progression’s that are shown underneath the main progression. 

Remember those "Alternative," options will offer you ideas for running through the primary key’s relative minor harmony along with two other jam ideas based off of the keys built from the 4th and 5th chord steps of your primary key.



All in all, this workout will be an excellent approach for developing a lot of chord concepts in a nice compact exercise that’s all in one place. 





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