This lesson will be in 3 parts. By the end of this series of lessons you will have a basic understanding of how all 3 note chords are constructed. You will know how to spell them, and how to apply that knowledge to the neck of the guitar. This will include major, minor, augmented, diminished, sus2 and sus4 chords. All of these chords contain only 3 different notes names. While you may strum 6 strings on basic G major chord, there is still only the notes G B and D. You just happen to have 3 Gs, 2 Bs and 1 D. It is often the case that one or more notes in a chord are doubled or tripled.

Basic G major chord with notes indicated

If you have gone through the basic chord construction lesson, you have a general idea of how chords are build. In this lesson we are going to expand that knowledge and take a look at how you can spell and build any type of chord 3 note chord. There is a lot of information covered in this lesson, and for most people it is going to take some study and practice before you are going to fully understand the concepts. Read the entire lesson all of the way through first. Then go back and start working on the concepts piece by piece. How to build chords that contain 4 or more different notes will be covered in another lesson.

Comparing major and minor chords