guitars

5684 readers

2 users here now

Welcome to /c/guitars! Let's show off our new guitar pics, ask questions about playing, theory, luthier-ship, and more!

Please bring all positive vibes to the community and leave the toxic stuff elsewhere.

Banner credit

Rules:

Treat others with respect. ALL others.
No spam
No self promotion
No NSFW
No circle jerk posts, there are other places for that silliness, and they are wonderful. Not here.

founded 2 years ago

MODERATORS

ArtVandelay@lemmy.world

How to better understand cord progressions? (lemmy.ca)

submitted 5 months ago by Fiivemacs@lemmy.ca to c/guitars@lemmy.world

16 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Hi all, I'm in the beginning steps of learning guitar. hands are very broken in, chords sound good, I know a few from 1st to 5th but I wanted a better understand of the progressions.

if it better to follow c, d , e, e# etc.. or c, g, a? or would it depend on the music? I'm focusing heavy on bluegrass. Doc Watson is a big focus for my end style, or Billy strings.

i currently practice/play about 4 hours a day 7 days a week. (a lot I know) my focus is flat picking and finger style mostly rather then traditional strumming.

does any.one have and good guides or books I should read up on for how to do good proper cord progressions? even a simple info graphic that is easily understandable for a beginner?

I'm focusing mostly right now on chord runs. C is memorized and working on getting some others that can meld with the c run.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] acosmichippo@lemmy.world 2 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (1 children)

Instead of thinking of everything in terms of C, it's common for musicians to use "scale degrees" for individual notes or Roman Numerals for chords. That helps to generlize music theory without confusing the different key notes.

for example A natural minor scale degrees:

a = 1

b = 2

c = (flat) 3

d = 4

e = 5

f = (flat) 6

g = (flat) 7

A natural minor chord roman numerals:

Am = i

B dim = ii (dim)

C = III

Dm = iv

Em = v

F = VI

G = VII

[–] batmaniam@lemmy.world 1 points 5 months ago

Oh I get that, but my brain just won't do it. I can translate it, but it goes "oh that's the E so it's the V". It's ok, I'm not a pro. I'm just happy something clicked.