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58 Part II: Setting Up to Play the Blues Starting Out Simple: Blues Chords
Even Your Mom Could Play
The simplest guitar chords are called open-position chords (or basic chords),
and they occur down the neck (close to the nut) within the first three frets.
They combine open and fretted strings. If you’ve never played open-position
chords before, this book gives you a brief how-to. For an in-depth discussion
and detailed instructions, you may want to check out Guitar For Dummies,
2nd Edition.
In blues, like rock, open-position chords are used in acoustic blues, while
electric blues favors barre chords (which I cover later in this chapter). In particular,
though, the blues seems more liberal with regard to mixing open-position
and barre chords. Chords are classified by their quality, such as
Major
Minor
7 (also known as dominant 7)
Minor 7
Suspended (abbreviated “sus”)
7 suspended
More qualities exist, but the blues tends to limit itself to just the abovementioned
choices.
Figure 4-1 shows a chart of 20 chords that provide all the vocabulary you
need to play almost any blues song. Please flip back to Chapter 3 if you need
the rundown on reading a chord diagram. Note: Alternate fingerings appear
below the primary ones in parentheses.
The chart in Figure 4-1 is duplicated on the yellow perforated Cheat Sheet
located at the front of this book. You can detach this chart and keep it close
to you at all times. Tape it to a wall, prop it up on a music stand, or set it on a
table top next to any charts, sheet music, or song books you work on.
TEAM LinG