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Guitar Lessons For Beginners – How To Learn Minor Chord Progressions In Just 3 Quick & Easy Steps

By Mike Hayes | October 20, 2009

Minor chords are a mystery for most guitar players; the fact
that there are various types of minor scales such as the
natural minor, harmonic minor and melodic minor simply adds to
the confusion. This one fact holds a lot of people back from
learning more about minor chords and chord progressions.

But what if there was a easy way to learn how to play minor
chords in less time than you thought possible? Here’s the good
news: there are lots of exciting ways to learn minor chords and
minor chord progressions.

Here is just three:

How To Learn Minor Chord Progressions

Step 1. relative minor substitution – one of the most basic yet
very effective ways of creating minor chord progressions is to
replace the “one” chord with the “sixth” chord.

Here is an example in the key of C:

Chords created from the C major scale

chord 1 = C; chord 2 = Dm; chord 3 = Em; chord 4 = F; chord 5 = G
chord 6 = Am ; chord 7 = Bdim; chord 8 = C

By replacing the “one” [C] chord with the “sixth” chord [Am] an
interesting variation of a basic chord progression is produced.

Basic chords;

C /// | F /// | G /// | C /// | becomes …

Am ///| F /// | G /// | Am ///|

which brings me to step 2

Step 2: minor blues progressions – Take a standard 12 bar blues
progression and change all the chords to minor chords.

Ex 1. 12 bar blues in the key of A using traditional major chords

A /// | //// | //// | //// | D /// | //// | A/// | //// |

E/// | D /// | A/// | //// ||

Ex 2. 12 blues with modified chord progression

Am /// | //// | //// | //// | Dm /// | //// | Am /// | //// |

Em /// | Dm /// | Am /// | //// ||

Step 3: Harmonic minor blues progressions – this type of
progression is almost identical to the minor blues progression in
step 2 except for use of a major [E] or dominant seventh [E7]
chord in bar nine.

Ex 3. 12 blues with harmonic minor chord progression using major
chord in bar nine.

Am /// | //// | //// | //// | Dm /// | //// | Am /// | //// |

E /// | Dm /// | Am /// | //// ||

Ex 4. 12 blues with harmonic minor chord progression using
dominant seventh chord in bar nine.

Am /// | //// | //// | //// | Dm /// | //// | Am /// | //// |

E7 /// | Dm /// | Am /// | //// ||

The reason why we can use either major or dominant seventh chords
for the harmonic minor blues progression is that chord five in
the harmonic scale [triadic version] is a major chord whereas
chord five in the harmonic minor [scaletone seventh version] is a
dominant seventh chord.

When creating a blues chord progression based on the harmonic
minor scale either chord can be used.

Triadic refers to a ‘three note’ harmonization of a scale whereas
the term scaletone seventh refers to a four note harmonization.

By now I bet you are ready to start cranking out more songs on
the guitar in less time than you ever thought possible, right?
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From Mike Hayes – The Guitar Coaching Guy & the Express Guitar
System

Topics: Beginner Guitar Lesson, Guitar Chords, Guitar Tips, Learn And Master Guitar | No Comments »

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