Chords are made up of scales. The C major scale is the white keys of the piano. Chords are made up of thirds, which are two notes of the scale.

There are two types of thirds major and minor. A major third plus a minor third makes a major chord. A minor third plus a major third makes a minor chord. Two minor thirds makes a diminished chord.

The best thing to learn is that there is a “chord scale”. A set of chords where every chord is part of the scale. There are thus seven chords that correspond to the major scale.

Roman numeral notation helps with transposing between keys. Major chords are capitalized, minor and diminished chords are in lower case.

The entire chord scale is:
I – ii – iii – IV – V – vi – vii(dim) – I

Which in C major is
CEG – dfa – egb – FAC – GBD – ace – bdf – CEG

Cadence is a group of chords that form a musical progression.

The Louie Louie/Wild Thing/cadence is just I – IV – V – IV (in C major C – F – G – F).

The Heart and Soul (ballad) cadence is I – vi – IV – V (in C major C – Am – F – G).

Adding the V and the vii(dim) chords together (or adding a minor third to the V) makes a V7 or dominant 7th chord. This strongly implies the tonic I chord. In C major this is G7 implying C.

The 12 bar blues progression is I7 – I7 – I7 – I7 / IV7 – IV7 – I7 – I7 / V7 – IV7 – I7 – V7
In C major this is C7 – C7 – C7 – C7 / F7 – F7 -C7 – C7 / G7 – F7 – C7 – G7

Combinations of the three chord progressions above make up about 60% of all rock songs.

The only other thing is chord substitution. When there is a long drone it is possible to add varietyby substituting similar chords. It is also possible to play a melody on top of a chord progression by playing a series of higher order chords.

So that C – C – C – C – C might become C – C6 – C7 – Cmaj7 – C – Cmaj7 – C7 – C6 – C. Which imposes a blues scale over the chord.

The open tuning of a guitar is an inversion of the Am11 chord. This is the same as two triads sounding at once.

When in doubt it is usually okay to play a power chord which is the I and the V note together (in C major C + G).

That might sound like a lot but that is just about all there is to it in a nutshell.

Once I learnt the theory behind the difference between a dom 7 and maj 7 i got it.

Cheers dude!

Poor naming convention! Your ‘normal’ 7th chord or dominant 7 , has a flat 7th note in the scale, so 1 tone below the octave. The ‘major’ 7th is in reality a sharp 7th, so 1 semitone below the octave. It SHOULD really be called a ‘sharp 7th’ chord, not a major 7th chord. As you also have others with sharp 9th, sharp 11th etc.

Hi Harold, If you are a very beginner you should start with chords and songs. Once you know the basic, next step could be scales and soloing.
For lead playing (scales and solos) I recommend you to check out our best selling course:

https://guitarcontrol.com/main.php?gl=1577736

Regards,

Admin

Hi Adam, the difference between C7 and Cmaj7 is the 7th note, C7 has a minor 7th and Cmaj7 a major 7th. And that makes them 2 different kind of chords. C7 is a dominant chord and Cmaj7 major. So in any song you can replace any major chord with a maj7 one. Regards.