D Major Chord

Guitar FAQ: How long should you spend learning a chord?

Q: How long should you spend learning a chord on guitar?

A: The short answer is, ‘as long as it takes to memorize it and be able to play it effortlessly’ but that answer doesn’t really help you out so let’s look into this a bit deeper.

The reason why we learn chords is so we can use them in songs and jamming in general. Being able to see the chord name Em or G and instantly know where to place your fingers is an essential skill for every guitarist. On top of being able to place your fingers in the right place, it also helps to understand a bit about the chord. Understanding the type of chord you are playing will help you write your own songs or figure out how to improvise over the top of the chord. Do you understand the difference between Major and minor? What about suspended chords?

To be able to do the things above, there are a few different things you need to learn about each chord. Let’s look at what’s involved in learning chords and what’s actually worth learning. The picture below is from one of the flash cards available in our 50 Essential Chords Pack.

D Major Chord

When looking at the information on the card, there’s a few points worth learning:

  1. The chord shape and finger positions
  2. The notes used in the chord
  3. The chord formula
  4. The Guitar TAB layout

Let’s look at each point and why each one is important to learn.

1. The chord shape and finger positions

Obviously all the other information about the chord is useless if you can’t actually play the chord. Learning the shape of the chord and the fingers used will help you memorize the chord faster and actually play it. There are a few tricks you can use to memorize the chords faster. Check out this lesson to learn how you can use a couple simple mnemonic devices to memorize the chord shapes.

2. The notes used in the chord

This is something too many guitarists neglect to learn. Quite often beginners will memorize the chord shape then move on to new chords. Spending a little time to memorize the notes used in the chord will have a big impact on your playing later on. There’s a couple reasons why this information is important but let’s look at the main reason:

If you understand what notes are used in any chord, you will have a much easier time improvising over the top of chords. If you know the chord D Major (shown above) uses the notes D, F# & A then you know straight away that you can use those notes when improvising and they will sound great when D Major is played in the backing chords. Without knowing anything else about theory this information on it’s own is enough to improve your improvisation abilities.

3. The chord formula

If you plan on one day writing your own music then this information is extremely important. The chord formula explains the intervals used in each type of chord. This means you can use the formula to come up with chords you don’t yet know. For example: if you wanted to use the chord C# minor in your song, what notes do you need to play to come up with the chord? If you know the formula for a minor chord the answer comes easy. With this information you can figure out any chord you need – without it, you would need to memorize all the chords and the notes used for each chord. Once you spend the time understanding the theory you will appreciate how valuable it is. This lesson will help explain chord formulas.

4. The Guitar TAB layout

This may not be as important as the other points listed, but it does help you when you need to learn songs from TAB. On the left of the card shown above, you can see the chord in Guitar TAB format. Whenever you see this number pattern in TAB you will know that it’s the D Major chord. Spending a little bit of time memorizing the pattern each chord makes in TAB format will help you read TAB faster. This type of skill will come naturally over time, so it isn’t as important as the other aspects of the chord – but it does help you out now.

How long it takes to memorize a chord

When you consider the four points above, it really shouldn’t take too long to memorize any one chord. The notes used the chord, the chord formula and the Guitar TAB layout can be memorized very quickly. Spend a couple minutes now studying the D Major card above to get an idea how easy it is to memorize this information.

The hardest part in learning guitar chords is actually learning to play them. This takes a while because it will take quite a few attempts before your brain starts to learn the position of the fingers on the fretboard. It takes at least 20 repeats of any task for your brain to start to remember it so you will need to repeat the chord over and over before it starts to sink in.

Fortunately this is easier than it sounds. Simply spending 5-10 minutes each day playing the chords is enough to memorize them. Some people have written to us about our 50 Essential Chords Pack to let us know that they managed to memorize all 50 chords in under a month. They followed out ’30 Day Guide’ included with the pack which details a 10 minute daily practice plan. Following this plan most people will be able to memorize an average of 1 chord a day. As long as you practice regularly you will memorize the chords. On the other hand if you only practice every couple of days or only a couple of times a week it will take you a lot longer to start to remember the chords.

Our guide to learning 50 chords in 30 days

So in short – if you follow the right practice plan, you can realistically memorize an average of 1 chord per day. Try out our 30 Day Plan included with every 50 Essential Chords guitar flash cards pack to learn 50 easy chords chosen for beginners. 10 minutes a day is all it takes.

 

Spanish Guitar Lick

Lick 008 Spanish Guitar

This lick really isn’t a ‘lick’ – it’s more of a template you can use to create your own licks. Look closely at the lick and you will see that it’s simply a three note repeating pattern with the bass note moving up a scale. The idea behind this lick is to improvise with the bass notes to create your own interesting licks. The whole idea is to get a Spanish sound in your playing.

Spanish Guitar Lick

The scale used – Phrygian Dominant

The bass notes move up a scale but you will probably notice there is quite a jump from the first fret F to the fourth fret G#. We don’t see this type of jump in our standard Major scale. This type of scale is actually the Phrygian Dominant mode. Don’t let the name scare you off – just think of it as any other scale. The only difference is the intervals used. This lick uses E Phrygian Dominant to help you achieve a Spanish sound. Many Flamenco guitarists use the Phrygian Dominant mode to achieve this sound as well as the Phrygian mode.

Improvising using this lick

Start off by practing the lick as shown. Get used to playing the three note pattern. You need to play this with your fingers in this order – thumb, index, middle. Alternatively you could play it – thumb, middle, ring. The choice is yours. Play it over and over again with a metronome and build up the tempo until you can play it easily at a high pace. Once you can play it as shown, practice moving backwards down the scale. Then practice going up and down the scale. Once you memorize the notes used and can easily move up and down then you can start improvising.

The unique thing about this mode is the jump you can see from F to G#. If you focus your improvisation around these two notes you will bring out the exotic flavour of the mode. So you could start your improvisation by playing E, then F, G#, F G#, A etc. Play around with moving back and forth between the notes, repeating the same notes and jumping past notes.

Here’s a few ideas you can use to improvise using this lick:

  • Slide between the notes
  • Add vibrato to the bass notes
  • Change the tempo as you play (speed up or slow down)
  • Use hammer-ons or trills on the bass notes
  • Continue the scale past the notes shown (try to figure out the notes all over the fretboard)
  • Add in some chords that fit the scale (eg: E Major)

If you can spend a lot of time simply improvising with this basic lick, you will find your ability to come up with new creative ideas will improve. The point of this simple exercise is to help you learn to create your own interesting licks. After you master this lick, try using a different scale or mode.