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INTRODUCTION
Beginner guitar players are used to memorize as much as
possible chord shapes, and use them during their playing. In
case of movable shapes, such as barr chords, they memorize
the shape of the chord and the root note, in order to be able to
play different chords with the same shape. This is a good
approach to learn playing guitar, but it's not complete. Indeed,
if you consider a chord like an immutable shape on the
fretboard, you can't have any options to color your sound,
adding variations, substitutions, and the like. Chords are not
just static shape to memorize and repeat, but, knowing how
they are built, you can create and adapt them on the fly,
expanding all the potentiality of your playing. Knowing how
chords are built means knowing how intervals work on the
fretboard. In this ebook I'd like to give you an introduction
about intervals, chords, and how intervals create chords.

INTERVALS
In music, an interval is basically a distance between two notes.
In western music, the smallest interval is the semitone. The
chromatic scale is composed by 12 semitones, so to play the
scale you need to play all the semitones, one after the other.

The chromatic scale of C is:

C-C#-D-D#-E-F-F#-G-G#-A-A#-B-C
Depending on the number of semitones between two notes, an
interval gets different names. Here's the intervals table name
from wikipedia.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interval_(music)
So, for example, the interval between the note C and the note
G of our chromatic scale, is 7 semitones long. Looking at the
table, this distance is called a perfect fifth.
In the same way, if we start from the lower C of the chromatic
scale and we stop to the higher C, we cover a path of 12
semitones, named on the table perfect octave.

A distance can have different names, depending on the context.

For example, a distance of 6 semitones, can be called
augmented fourth or diminished fifth. We'll see this later.

FRETBOARD OCTAVES
The first interval that you should memorize on the fretboard is
the octave. Knowing your octaves is a great shortcut for
fretboard navigation. As you probably already know, two notes
spanning a distance of one octave (12 semitones) have the
same name (C-C), but different pitch: one note sounds lower
than the other. If you know how octaves are placed on the
guitar fretboard, you can easily navigate among the strings and
find your way. Have a look at the picture below:

Black dots represent always the same note (suppose a C). The
first and the sixth strings have the same notes (in standard
tuning),, thus you can find your note at the same fret (yellow
circle) on the first and the sixth string
string.. In the red circle, we
notice that a note on the second string, is placed also on the
fourth string, two frets upper, and on the fifth string, two frets
below. Same story for the yellow and the orange circles
circles, just
look at the diagram.
diagram If you memorize where octaves are placed
on your fretboard, you'll have a helpful visual aid for more
advanced fretboard geometry concepts.

Using octave concepts, you can identify the same notes on

different strings. Let's take as example the minor third interval:

The root note is the one marked with the black dot (fourth
string). We find a minor third on the upper string (fifth string),
but, using our octaves, we can find it also on the second string
string.

Another example: diminished fifth interval

interval. We can get it on
different
ent strings. This give us many options to vary and to color
our playing.

INTERVALS GEOMETRY
Chords are composed by a number of notes played at the same
time. The distances between the root note of the chord, which
gives the name to the chord, and each note of the chords, are
what we call intervals.
intervals. Depending on the kind of these
intervals, we can have different chords qualities.
qualities For example,
major
ajor and minor chords are
are composed by the root note, a third
interval (major or minor), and a fifth interval.
C major: root C,, major third E, perfect fifth G
C minor: root C,, minor third Eb, perfect fifth G
More complex chords are created by adding
ing seventh intervals,
ninth intervals,
ls, and so on.

Important intervals geometries you should memorize are then

minor and major thirds, perfect, augmented and diminished
fifths. An augmented fifth is a perfect fifth raised 1 semitone (7
-> 8 semitones), a diminished fifth is a perfect fifth lowered 1
semitone (7 -> 6 semitones).
If you add one octave to an interval , you get what we call an
extended interval; it is composed by the same note names but
the distance between the notes is one octave longer. For
example, a major second with one octave added becomes a
ninth (have a look at the following diagrams).
The following diagrams show the various options that one has
when he's building chords on the fretboard: it's useful to not
consider chords like immutable shapes but to learn the single
intervals and to assemble them in order to create specific
chords shapes as it needed. With practice, this will be easy and
automatic!
Graphic convention: in the following diagrams, the root note
is marked with a black dot. Other notes are represented by an
empty circle.

3 semitones
Minor Third

adding 1 octave:
Minor Tenth

consonant
enharmonic
equivalent:
Augmented Second

4 semitones
Major Third

adding 1 octave:
Major Tenth

consonant
enharmonic
equivalent:
Diminished Fourth

6 semitones
Diminished Fifth

adding 1 octave:
Diminished Twelfth

consonant
enharmonic
equivalent:
Augmented Fourth

7 semitones
Perfect Fifth

adding 1 octave:
Perfect Twelfth

consonant
enharmonic
equivalent:
Diminished Sixth

8 semitones
Minor Sixth

adding 1 octave:
Minor Thirteenth
Thirtee

consonant
enharmonic
equivalent:
Augmented Fifth

CHORDS CONSTRUCTION
Let's see some examples of chords constructions, using the
intervals we've just learnt (minor and major thirds, perfect fifth,
diminished and augmented fifth). Try to recognize visually the
intervals geometries you've seen on the previous diagrams.
Due the nature of the fretboard, in which the same note is
placed on different strings, for a given chord can exist different
fingerings and positions. The following diagrams are just one
among all the possible fingerings you can use.

Cmaj chord
Name variations: C major, CM, C
This chord is a major triad: root, major third, perfect
fifth.

Cm chord
Name variations: C minor, Cm, CThis chord is a minor triad: root, minor third, perfect
fifth.

Caug chord
Name variations: C augmented
This chord is an augmented triad (root, major third,
augmented fifth)

C-5 chord
Name variations: C diminished triad, Cb5
This chord is composed by the root, a minor third and a
flat fifth.

MORE INTERVALS
We can now move on and learn the remaining kinds of
intervals: minor second, major second, perfect fourth, minor
and major seventh, minor and major sixth, and so on.

1 semitone
Minor Second

adding 1 octave:
Minor Ninth
consonant
enharmonic
equivalent:
Augmented Unison

2 semitones
Major Second

adding 1 octave:
Major Ninth

consonant
enharmonic
equivalent:
Diminished Third

5 semitones
Perfect Fourth

adding 1 octave
Perfect Eleventh

consonant
enharmonic
equivalent:
Augmented Third

9 semitones
Major Sixth

adding 1 octave:
Major Thirteenth

consonant
enharmonic
equivalent:
Diminished Seventh

10 semitones
Minor Seventh

adding 1 octave:
Minor Fourteen
Fourteenth

consonant
enharmonic
equivalent:
Augmented Sixth

11 semitones
Major Seventh

adding 1 octave:
Major Fourteenth

consonant
enharmonic
equivalent:
Diminished Octave

CHORDS
PART 2

CONSTRUCTION

EXAMPLES

Csus4 chord
Name variations: C suspended fourth, C4, C#3
This chord is composed by the root, a perfect fourth and
has no third (suspended), then is neither major nor
minor.

C7 chord
Name variations: C dominant seventh, Cdom7
This chord is a major triad with a minor seventh.

Cmin7 chord
Name variations: C minor seventh, Cm7, C-7
This chord is a minor triad (root, minor third, perfect
fifth) with a minor seventh.

Cmaj7 chord
Name variations: C major seventh, CM7, C7
This chord is a major triad (root, major third, perfect
fifth) with a major seventh.

MORE CHORDS TO CREATE

Now you should have understood the mechanism, your job is to
create the other kinds of chords, exploiting the intervals
diagrams you now know well.
You can check your answers on the Fachords Chords Library
http://www.fachords.com/guitar-chords-library/

C7-5 chord
Name variations: C dominant seventh flat five chord,
C7b5, C7(-5), C7(b5), C7/b5
This chord is composed by the root, a major third, a
diminished fifth and a minor seventh.
C7+5 chord
Name variations: C dominant seventh sharp five, C7(#5),
C7#5
This chord is composed by the root, a major third, an
augmented fifth and a minor seventh.
C6 chord
Name variations: Csixth, Cmajor sixth

This chord is composed by a major triad and a major sixth

Cm6 chord
Name variations: Cminor sixth, Cm6, C-6
This chord is a minor triad with a major sixth
Cm9 chord
Name variations: Cminor ninth, C-9, Cmin9
This chord is a minor triad with a minor seventh and a
major ninth
C6/9 chord
Name variations: Cmaj6/9, CM6/9, CMAJ6/9, C6add9
This chord is composed by the root, a major third, a
perfect fifth, a major sixth and a major ninth
C7sus4 chord
Name variations: C seventh suspended fourth, C7-4,
C7sus
This chord is composed by the root, a perfect fourth and
a minor seventh. It has no third (suspended), then is
neither major nor minor.

C7-9 chord
Name variations: C dominant seventh flat ninth, C7(b9),
C7(-9)
This chord is a major triad with a minor seventh and a
minor ninth
C7+9 chord
Name variations: C dominant seventh sharp ninth,
C7(#9), C7(+9)
This chord is a major triad with a minor seventh and an
augmented ninth
C9-5 chord
Name variations: C ninth flat five, C9b5, C9(-5), C9(b5),
C7/9(b5)
This chord is a 7/b5 chord (root, major third, flat five,
minor seventh) with added a major 9th.
C9 chord
Name variations: Cdominant ninth, Cdom9
This chord is a major triad with a minor seventh and a
major ninth

Cmaj9 chord
Name variations: C major ninth, CM9, C9
This chord is a major triad (root, major third, perfect
fifth) with a major seventh and a major ninth.
C11 chord
Name variations: Cdominant eleventh, Cdom11
This chord is a major triad with a minor seventh, a major
ninth and a major eleventh
C13 chord
Name variations: Cdominant thirteenth, Cdom 13
This chord is a major triad with a minor seventh, a major
ninth and a major thirteenth

What's next?
To assimilate these concepts, you should take a well
know chords progression, and play it without using the
shapes that your muscles memorized in the past, but
building chords on the fly on different fretboard zones.
For example, play the C, G, Am, F progression starting
with the C root note on the 8th fret of the higher E string.
If you need help, write me at band@fachords.com

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