How to memorize chord shapes (especially four or more note chords)

Harmony & Theory
#1

Hey there,

recently I purchased the Beato book (I saw his name mentioned here before, but in case you don’t know: essentially it is a book where you can find a lot of scales and chord diagrams, things about chord progressions and general music theory etc.) because of a great discount that he offered. I already knew that this is not like a comprehensive course but more like a sort of reference book.
I bought it mainly to increase my knowledge about chord progressions and chord shapes because I would like to be able to use more unique chord shapes for improvisation (I mean, if you read a simple A minor chord, it is very awesome what you can do with these three notes if you play that one chord in different inversions and voicings).

The chord diagrams in this book are helpful, however, since I want to increase my repertoire with shapes of seventh chords, it is a bit overwhelming at the moment. There are about 70 pages with nine diagrams per page about drop 2 and drop 3 voicings alone, which makes roughly about 600 shapes. That is impossible to memorize (although I am aware of the fact that some of them, like a diminished major 7 chord, are seldom encountered).
I know how these chords are built and where to find the intervals, but that takes a few seconds to think about and it is at least likely that I can not come up with a shape that is easily playable on the fly. That was my intention with just memorizing some of them.

Is the memorizing process a bad idea? How would you go about learning them? I also thought about writing some riffs where I focus on maybe just two inversions of a specific chord and try to play that on different stringsets, which seems so far to be the most meaningful way.

#2

I’m not sure about anyone else here, but I surely cannot memorize thousand of guitar chords. It’s like trying to learn a language by reading and memorizing the dictionary. You just can’t do it.

I’m in a fundamentals program by Art of Guitar that gives you sets of chords to build on using the CAGED system. A few chords a week to totally memorize (like 5) and the next week u only change or add/remove one note to the next difficulty. Then each chord is learned t hrough Extended practice songs

So by the next lesson module, introducing new chords isn’t new, its only an alteration of the ones you learned.

Example: Module 1 (Basic C, A, G, E, D and b chords)
extended practice sessions to use those same chords in a song.
Another extended practice session,
yet another. These practice sessions are simply follow/play alongs with tabs on screen and download.

Module 2
Introduce Minor version of previous chords.
Practice sessions x3 , same as all the above
Also practice the old chords in the same song

Module 3
Introduce add 2 chord
All the same as the first module, still practicing previous chords in song

Module 4
Introduce 7th chord
Same as what I said in previous…

MOD 5
Then barre chords…

Mod 6

Dim chords

Mod 7
SUS chords

Etc.

Costs me 10.95 a month, its great!

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#3

If your goal is to comp you should be familiar with theory. It’s not necessary to be good but it can be the connective tissue between fret board knowledge and harmony.

While there is some memorizations involved it isn’t a broad spectrum learn every chord kind of mentality. Theory translates really easy to guitar because of the similar shapes. If you learn just the diatonic harmony of C on guitar it will help immensely. Know every interval and which chords are minor and major just in C. Just the major scale. Do re me fa so la ti do. Be able to identify every note in every chord in the key of C. And what the intervals are. Learn tye relative keys of C major. A aeolian, F Lydian, D Dorian. Etc.

#4

I don’t think even the greatest guitar players or the ones with the best or most interesting chords will have memorized hundreds of thousands of different shapes. You’re right in that it’s too much information to take in. I have the Beato Book too and while I haven’t gotten to that part of the book yet I would imagine I’d feel pretty much the same way you do about trying to memorize that many chord shapes. What I would probably do if I were digesting that would be to play each shape a couple of times in different keys and then focus on the shapes that I liked the sound of the most. I would imagine that’s probably what Rick intended when he wrote the section like that in the first place.

There are also other ways of learning interesting chord shapes, and it’s doing like you said and focusing more on the notes themselves than the general shape. My guitar teacher gave me a scan of a book he has by Mick Goodrick on stuff like this called the “Almanac of Guitar Voice Leading” and it’s very fun. The exercises are entirely progression-based and Goodrick doesn’t give you tabs; it’s up to you to figure out where on the guitar to play the chords and how to do it. The volume I have only covers triads and sevenths, but it goes super in-depth with all possible inversions. I’ve done the triadic exercises so far, which are in “close” and “open” form, and some of the open triads sound really nice. It teaches you to find the same notes on the fretboard in different spots without reference, and it sort of gears you towards thinking more about the way you transition between chords than the actual chords themselves, which, in my opinion, is where the magic happens. Really good guitar book if you can get it.

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#5

I am not a student of chords but I recall that Steve Vai spent about 30 minutes listening to a single chord when he hurt his hand and needed surgery (apparently on an acoustic guitar).

I wonder if the following makes sense:

  1. Use theory to enable you to explore the space of chords, you can generate them all yourself with a few rules (or your book).
  2. Listen to the chord for a while (what, five minutes?) and determine if it “resonates” with you.
  3. If you love it, memorize it, otherwise skip it.

Perhaps this is like searching for great sounds in a modeling amp. :rofl:

I tune in 4ths is because it makes chords extremely regular. But I suppose as long as you look at the B and E strings as bumping the actual chord shape one fret towards the bridge that should massively reduce the memorization that you need.

As an exercise, look at the book (presumably written in standard tuning) and imagine that it was tuned in 4ths where you would have to push the two dots on the B and E strings towards the nut by one fret; all of a sudden, you’ll notice that lots of things are starting to look the same… the power of 4ths. If this doesn’t make sense I can mark up some chord charts and show you, it’s always better to memorize less if one can get away with it.

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#6

Try setting a smaller goal…for example - ‘memorize drop 2 voicings with root on 6 and 5’.

Then make music with these constantly. Apply them to music you know, improvise, use them as a way to find target notes etc. It can be applied to any style of music.

Move on to another small group once you feel you’ve really ‘embodied’ the both the voicings and the music that comes from them.

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#7

Well this is more of a jazz comping thing, but I prefer the shell voicings approach. Find the couple of notes most important to the flavor of the chord, i.e. 3rd and 7th. (Bass player has the root covered.) Then add another note or two to taste, as you can find them.

This way the emphasis is on knowing the basics of theory and fretboard visualization/mapping, and not having thousands of shapes memorized.

#8

If that is honestly true, then idk why you need help. The chords have a formula, and if you know that formula, and you know the notes on the fretboard, you should be sorted?

No one knows all the chords, there are to many variations, but a serious guitarist will know the fretboard and the basic recipe for the chords, you pretty much have everything you need?

If you honestly memorize the notes on the guitar and the formula for the various chords you will pretty much be set for life…?

#9

Am I incorrect in saying that? I’m fairly sure there is little point in memorizeing the shapes, you’ll be given so much more freedom and understanding by memorizeing the fretboard notes and then the formula for the type of chord you want. You can find every single possible chord that way without memorizeing shapes.

#10

I’d sort of agree. Know the basic shapes. But know which part is what (root, 5th, etc). The better you have mastered the fretboard, the easier that gets.

Then you can practice altering them to get different chords. But in the context of playing an actual tune, which is what makes it stick better. Or at least, it makes it more fun when you tire of mindlessly drilling through inversions.

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#11

You can’t determine this without context – the ugliest chord can sound fabulous if it’s in the right spot.

Hey there, it’s a good question. Many suggestions here already, so I’ll throw in a few more:

  • I find practicing shifting inversions up and down the neck useful to see how the chord changes, and to find different sounds, but it’s not useful for real playing or comping. It’s rare that I shift a chord up and down the neck while strumming/comping.
  • Work on chordal improv – take a simple tune/melody, and play the chords along with it, trying to keep the melody in the top strings going.
  • Then take that same thing, and start applying some constraints: play it only in the first few frets (1-5 frets-ish), then middle (3-8th frets), high middle (5-12), etc etc. This forces you to find different inversions and sounds.
  • As always, take lots of breaks – this can be hard on your fretting hand. Be sure to minimize your use of force.
  • When you have the chords under your fingers, take a break, and repeat the next day or whatever (the usual idea for a practice schedule ). This is a gradual process, to build up some muscle memory.
  • Don’t forget to really listen to the chords as you’re playing them. No mindless strumming! See if you can pick out each note from bottom string to top string, see if your ear can “unlock” the chord’s sound.
  • You can also practice this stuff away from the guitar – mental practice – once you have a fluid, free chord shift going on. A lot of this is mind work.

Good luck and let me know how it goes! z

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#12

I am not sure if others have mentioned this, but I found very useful to practice chords on songs. I play mostly jazz and I learned a lot of drop2 voicing just by practicing comping or chord soloing over standards. And I agree with what others mentioned that you probably can’t memorize all the chords, but you can learn and understand shapes which will make it easier to actually use the chords. I suggest starting from familiar shapes, as others have mentioned.