Do you feel a Lynyrd Skynyrd riff coming on? Figure 5

5-chords have an open ringing quality which means they cope better with distortion than their major chord equivalents. Though not technically G major we couldn’t resist including this G5 (“G five”) chord which does away with a major third altogether as it contains just roots and fifths. Enjoy exploring these chords – see you next month. The way that G major fits on the guitar makes it easy to flavour the basic chord with interesting notes like sixths, sevenths and ninths. These are the root, major third and perfect fifth, steps one, three and five of a G major scale.

Equipped with a capo to transpose to a key that suits your voice, huge numbers of new and exciting or old and existing songs will fall under your fingers.

READ MORE: Chord Clinic: Learn to play 10 interesting C major chord variationsĪs a result, G is very popular key with singer-songwriters.

This means all the essential chords in the key of G are easy to play without using a barre. It’s worth persevering with, however, as G major has great potential as a key C major and D major (chords IV and V in the key) are available as open string chords, as are chords II and VI, A minor and E minor. In its basic form, G major is not the easiest chord to hold down on guitar, involving a big stretch across the fingerboard that can be a challenge to beginners.

B major chord notea