Guitar Chord Voicings: Playing Up The Neck

Go to Course: https://www.coursera.org/learn/guitar-chords

Introduction

### Course Review: Guitar Chord Voicings: Playing Up The Neck If you're a guitarist who has mastered the basics of open and movable chord shapes and is eager to broaden your understanding of chord voicings, the **Guitar Chord Voicings: Playing Up The Neck** course on Coursera is an ideal stepping stone for you. This course caters specifically to those who want to dive deeper into the world of guitar chords, focusing on triads, seventh chords, and their various voicings. #### Course Overview The course aims to guide you through the construction and application of advanced chord shapes, emphasizing techniques that will enhance your playing style and musical expression. You will start by learning about major and minor triad inversions, progressing to more complex concepts like power chords, drop-2 voicings, and chord substitutions. The course is structured to bolster your foundational understanding of chord composition, enabling you to create a richer harmonic experience when you perform. #### Syllabus Breakdown **1. Welcome to Guitar Chord Voicings: Playing Up The Neck!** - The course kicks off with an introduction that sets the stage for what to expect. It provides insights into the tools and mindset necessary for getting the most from this learning experience. **2. Triad Inversions** - This lesson is crucial as it introduces you to the concept of triad inversions. You'll learn how to rearrange the notes of a triad while navigating the guitar neck from high to low strings. Mastering inversions opens up a wealth of options for voice leading and improvisation, making this a valuable skill for any aspiring guitarist. **3. Barre and Power Chords** - As a significant part of rock and pop music, learning barre and power chords is essential. This lesson guides you through exercises to enhance your finger strength and dexterity while giving you tools to apply these chords effectively in various musical contexts. **4. Seventh Chords: Drop-2** - This lesson introduces the drop-2 voicing technique, which allows for smoother transitions between chords on the fretboard. With practice, you’ll find these voicings are not only pleasing to the ear but also relatively easy to execute, greatly enriching your harmonic palette. **5. Chord Substitutions, Diatonic Chords, and Gospel Chords** - The final lesson focuses on integrating everything you've learned by exploring chord substitutions and their applications in different musical settings. This will help solidify your skills and allow you to apply theoretical knowledge in practical scenarios, enhancing your ability to adapt songs creatively. #### Recommendations I highly recommend the **Guitar Chord Voicings: Playing Up The Neck** course for intermediate guitarists who are looking to elevate their playing. The clear explanations and structured approach make it accessible even if you're still working on finger strength and coordination. The exercises throughout the course are well thought out and will enhance your musical vocabulary, ultimately helping you become a more versatile guitarist. Whether you're interested in writing songs, playing in bands, or improving your soloing skills, the knowledge gained from this course will undoubtedly enrich your guitar playing. Enrolling in this course will not only boost your confidence as a guitarist but will also open up new musical avenues. So, if you're ready to take your playing up the neck and expand your musical expression, this course is an investment worth making!

Syllabus

Welcome to Guitar Chord Voicings: Playing Up The Neck!

Welcome to the course! Here we will cover all the details about the course and what you'll need to know to get the most out of your experience.

In this lesson, we'll learn how to rearrange the notes in a triad to create inversions. Inversions can be difficult to conceptualize on the guitar since the same pitch can be found on different frets and different strings. We'll work to make this concept as easy as possible by inverting triads from the high strings to low and from the lower range of the neck up to the higher frets. The more you know about chords on the guitar, the larger the number of options for you to use!

Power chords and barre chords represent a huge amount of the vocabulary used by guitarists in rock and pop music. Although they may be a bit tough on your fretting fingers at first, the many applications of these shapes make the effort worthwhile. In this lesson, we'll cover various exercises that will give you greater facility and command of these chords.

There are several ways to learn new voicing shapes on the guitar. Drop-2 is a term used at Berklee to describe a configuration of chord tones, pleasing to the ear, and, more importantly to guitarists, relatively easy to execute on the fretboard. It's the best way to play seventh chords on four consecutive strings. This lesson is going to give you plenty of practice in creating new voicing shapes on the fretboard and will help you develop the ability to play various seventh chords in all keys.

We've learned many guitar voicings for triads and seventh chords. This lesson will help you to solidify your grasp of Drop-2 Seventh chords. We'll also explore some new ways of using what we've already learned. Finally, we'll look at how to substitute chords using a standard lead sheet.