A question gets asked of me all the time from young and old guitar students alike. They'll ask...

Nick, I would like to be able to play a song, but not put a lot of effort into practicing or learning. Do you have a magical wand that you could wave over me and make me a better player? – My most dedicated student

Well, I don't have a wand, but I do have a magical chord that can play three songs. Would you like me to show you?

Okay... Brace yourselves.

Ta Da!!!! It's the E chord!

This is the E chord in all its glory! If you've never read a chord box before let me explain how to read one. The vertical lines represent the strings. The thickest string is on the far left, and the thinnest string is on the far right. The horizontal lines represent the frets. The circles are where your fingers go. For example, In this chord, your 2nd finger would go on the 5th string, 2nd fret.

When you play the 'E' chord like this, you are playing what is known as an open chord. Open chords are chords that have open strings as part of the chord. As we can see, the 6th, 2nd, and 1st string are played when you play an 'E'. The other type of chord is known as a bar chord, or movable chord. This is when the player's hand holds down a note on every string, thus making it movable. Beginners typically have a lot of trouble playing bar chords.

One Chord Becomes Three!

This idea came to me one night as I was doing my nightly meditation routines...

It is scary how many parallels I could draw between the Dude and I.

I though about this magical 'E' chord. Theoretically, you could move the 'E' chord to the 6th fret and it would work as in 'A' chord. It would technically be called an, “Aadd9” but that is beside the point. All the player would have to do is move the open 'E' down to the 6th fret like so...

The same could be done with the 'B' chord. Just move the chord down to the 8th fret...

I had to test this theory out for myself! I picked up my guitar and tried the two new positions I had thought of, and they worked! Wow, I thought to myself, a beginner could play three chords by just moving an 'E' chord around on the fret board. Man, I'm pretty smart.

The Lesson.

For this first part of the lesson, I want you to be able to move this chord from open position to 6th and 8th frets, in different arrangements. Don't worry about rhythm or tempo, just be able to play the following progressions.

1.

|E / / / |Aadd9 / / / |E / / / |Aadd9 / / / |

2.

|E / / / |B / / / |E / / / |B / / / |

3.

|E / / / |Aadd9 / / / |B / / / |E / / / |

4.

|E / / / |Aadd9 / / / |E / / / |B / / / |

5.

|E / / / |B / / / |Aadd9 / / / |B / / / |

6.

|E / / / |B / / / |Aadd9 / / / |E / / / |

Don't worry about what 3 songs you can play with these progressions just yet. Just focus on being able to play these chord progressions clearly. I will say that all the progressions in the 3 songs use 1 or 2 of these progressions.

Good Luck!

NickelNDime out!

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