Intro to Chord Shells

Chord shells are based around the concept of playing the bare minimum amount of notes to get the chord to sound, the concept only really works for four note plus chords.

We'll start with Dominant seven chords, (1, 3, 5, b7) refer back to my earlier post about harmonizing scales.

The most important notes to play in these four note chords for a guitar player are the 3rd and the 7^th, the reason being that the 1 and 5 are strong enough that if you leave one of them out the listener can fill in the blank. Also the bass player will generally cover the 1 and the 5, filling out the chord.

So we're going to play the 3^rd and 7^th on our 3^rd and 4^th strings, notice that no matter which one you put on top gives you the same shape

E---A---D---G---B---E
|---|---|---|---|---|
|---|---X---|---|---|
|---|---|---X---|---|
|---|---|---|---|---|

Now, alone these shells sound rather bland, so we're going to add either the root OR the fifth on the fifth or sixth string, filling out the sound, we now deal with two shapes.

E---A---D---G---B---E
|---|---|---|---|---|
|---|---3---|---|---|
5---R---|---7---|---|
|---|---|---|---|---|

E---A---D---G---B---E
|---|---|---|---|---|
R---|---7---|---|---|
|---|---|---3---|---|
|---5---|---|---|---|

Now, provided you can find the root on your fifth or sixth string, you can play and dominant seven chord. Now what do you do if you want a major 7 chord? Simply raise the 7^th, lower the 3^rd for a minor 7^th, lower the 7^th for a 6 chord, etc.