Guitar Chord

In music, a guitar chord is a chord, or collection of notes usually sounded together at once, played on a guitar. The notes of the chord form an arpeggio when played sequentially rather than simultaneously. Chord voicings designed for the guitar can be optimized for many different purposes and playing styles.

Guitars can vary both in the number of strings and their tuning. Most guitars used in popular music have six strings and are tuned (from the lowest pitched string to the highest): E-A-D-G-B-E' (standard tuning). The intervals present among adjacent strings in this tuning can be written (in semitones) 5-5-5-4-5 (with perfect fourth intervals except for one major third interval between the G and the B). Conventionally, the string with the highest pitch (the thinnest) is called the first string, and the string having the lowest pitch is called the sixth. Standard tuning requires four chord-shapes for the major chords. There are separate chord-forms for chords having their root note on the third, fourth, fifth, and sixth strings. For a six-string guitar in standard tuning, it may be necessary to drop or omit one or more tones from the chord; this is typically the root or fifth. The layout of notes on the fretboard in standard tuning often forces guitarists to permute the tonal order of notes in a chord.

Guitar chords are dramatically simplified by the class of alternative tunings called regular tunings, in which the musical intervals are the same for each pair of consecutive strings. Regular tunings include major-thirds tuning, all-fourths, augmented-fourths, and all-fifths tunings. For each regular tuning, chord patterns may be diagonally shifted down the fretboard, a property that simplifies beginners' learning of chords and that simplifies advanced players' improvisation. On the other hand, in regular tunings, some conventional guitar chords may be more difficult to play.

Conventionally, guitarists double notes in a chord to increase its volume, an important technique for players without amplification; doubling notes and changing the order of notes also changes the timbre of chords. It can make a possible a "chord" which is composed of the all same note on different strings. Many chords can be played with the same notes in more than one place on the fretboard.

Read more about Guitar Chord:  Musical Fundamentals, Playing Chords: Open Strings, Inversion, and Note Doubling, Standard Tuning, Alternate Tunings, Conclusion

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