What are chord tones? The chord tones are the tones or intervals used in creating chords. The chord tones are the odd numbers in a major scale. The chord tones consists of the root of the scale, which I would call the one, the third, the fifth and the seventh. For example, if I was in the key of C, the chord tones for a C major chord would be C, E, G, B, or 1357. What are the benefits of knowing the chord tones?

The benefits of knowing your chord tones is it really helps you see that the guitar neck better they can help you create chords understand chords, they can help you solo, play arpeggios, create melodies, create rhythm, parts and many other things. Let's take a look at some examples. One example of why chord tones are very important to understand is it helps me build chords and it will help you build chords as well. For example, if I need to play a G major chord, I know that a major chord has roots thirds and fifths, ones threes and fives. So when I play this G major chord, it's all made up of roots, thirds and fifths. For example, if I get through and tell you what each chord 10 is, it's a root, fifth root, third, fifth, and then the root again.

That's really important if you want to change and create different types of chords. If I want to turn this into a G major seventh chord, for example, I need to have a seventh in so I can put, I can put a seventh here I can go 1357. I'm going g B, D, F sharp. I can also put a seventh in right here. If I want to play different types of chords, if I need to turn this into a G minor chord, what I can do is I can play G major and I can take this B lower down a half step to a B flat, which is a third down to a flat third. So that takes that made G major chord and turns it into a G minor chord.

If I need to play a G dominant seventh chord, the chord tones for that are 135 and flat 7135, flat 7135 flat seven. So what I have to do is I get rid of this root here, I put in a flat seven that turns it into a dominant seventh chord. This This course is only really dealing with the the major chord tones, the 135 and seven. I'm just trying to show you how, by understanding the chord tones you can create many different types of chords, whether it's major chords, minor, major seventh minor, seventh, diminished chords, have many chords, there's a G augmented many different types of chords. So that's one example why understanding chord tones is really important for creating chords. One example of how chord tones really helps me with my guitar playing is let's say I have to create a corporate progression using the chords G, C and D, I could play it like this.

Maybe I don't want to use open chords, or maybe there's another guitarist in the band, or maybe there is a part that's playing some lower notes, the chords out here on the bottom of the neck. So maybe I want to play something up a little higher. So I like to use things that are called triads, that's basically it's just three chord tones, the root, third and fifth. So if I could play a G chord like this, then I could play C like this, and then D like this. And that's just me knowing my chord tones. The reason I know this is a little c triad is because it's part of a C bar chord, where it has the third the fifth and the root, and then the same exact chord up here for D, whereas the third to fifth in the room, so I could play the same.

I could play it up here knowing my court cones for D, C, and D. So it's not what Sally. But maybe I want maybe maybe that's a little too high sounding, I want some maybe some lower notes. So I can take this triad since I know my chord tones, I can just play a triad based off the strings, two, three and four. So g would sound like this. Then we have C and then D, or I just move it up where it's a root, third fifth. So that that little chord progression with Sally and I could play it down here as well.

I could play I could play it like this. So understanding my core tones really helps me very quickly create different rhythm parts, for different types of chords that you're going to need to play. And that is one An example of how chord tones can really help you with your guitar playing. Alright, another example of how you can use chord tones to better your guitar playing. One thing that I do is I use a lot of chord tones, I'm always thinking about chord tones. When I'm playing guitar solo, let's say I'm going to play going, I'm going to be going from a G major chord, let's say if I'm in the key of G, that will be the one chord to the three chord, which would be B minor.

So I could just solo over top of the G major scale, the scale. But as the chords are changing, I want it to sound like my, my mic guitar solo is following the chords better. So I'm probably going to emphasize the core or at least one of the chord tones in the next chord, which is the B minor chord. So maybe I'm going to want to emphasize maybe the flat third or the root. So if I'm playing, let's say over the G I want to focus I'm gonna play some G major scale stuff here. And then when I get to that B minor, it's gonna sound really nice if I choose one of the chord tones in that chord, so I'm going to choose this one, then we'll get back to G, maybe I'll target the root.

But that's a real quick example of it's called chord tones, soloing, where you're really very aware of what chord tones are in the next chord, and then you target those, so that your, your soloing sounds a lot more like you're following the chords. And that's what a lot of top guitar players do, and it just makes your playing sound great. So that's another example of how chord tones can really help you improve your guitar playing. Now that we've talked a little bit about what chord tones are and how they can be beneficial to your guitar playing, let's take a look at how to play the major chord tones for positions one through five