Virtual Star Guitar Lesson 9
The next chord in the key of G that we are going to learn is the D Major chord. It looks like this.
Are these chord diagrams starting to make sense? Can you tell just from the diagram how to place your fingers? Here is a picture of the neck showing where you place your fingers.
This is what it should look like when you play it.
Go ahead and give it a strum. The D chord should sound like this.
Audio Example C9_1:
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Let’s give it a try with a drumbeat. You should be familiar with guitar tab notation so I am not going to go into detail of what to play. These is a simple whole note example using downstrokes. Each note will get 4 beats.
(Click to enlarge)
Give it a try along with me.
Audio Example C9_2:
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Ok. Good. Now give it a try by yourself.
Audio Example C9_3:
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Let’s try a similar example using half notes. Here is the tab. It is played just like the previous example except each note gets two beats instead of 4.
(Click to enlarge)
Let’s try it together.
Audio Example C9_4:
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Now give it a try by yourself. Are these chords starting to make more sense?
Audio Example C9_5:
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Let’s try an example using both whole and half notes. Can you hear in your head what it should sound like?
(Click to enlarge)
Give it a try along with me.
Audio Example C9_6:
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Now try it by yourself.
Audio Example C9_7:
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Ok. It sounds like you are getting the hang of it. Let’s try a mix of whole notes and half notes, but we will also throw in the C and G chords we learned in the previous chapters. Take a look at the tab. Can you hear in your head what it should sound like?
(Click to enlarge)
Before we get started, you may have noticed something new at the end of this tab example. I am talking about this.
In music notation, we call this a tie. It basically ties two notes together. As you can see, the tie connects two whole notes in this example. Since one whole note gets 4 beats, two whole notes will get 8 beats. Note that you will not strum the second whole note. You will just strum the first whole note and hold it for 8 beats.
(Click to enlarge)
Ok. Go ahead and give it a try along with me.
Audio Example C9_8:
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And now by yourself.
Audio Example C9_9:
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Ok. Great! We are making some real progress now. By the way. Are you practicing the previous lessons each day? As a warm up, you should try to run through each of the previous lesson practice pages. There is a link to each practice page on the main Beginning Guitar page. You should be able to play each lesson perfectly before moving on. We are fixing to put both the chords and notes together. Make sure you are ready before you continue.
Continue on to Lesson 10…
View the Virtual Star Guitar lesson index…
Do you have any questions or comments on this lesson? If so send me an email and I will respond shortly. rbrewer@myguitaruniversity.com