Beginning musicians are sometimes intimidated by the need to learn musical notation. Knowledge of the harmonic laws greatly facilitates the selection of the accompaniment, but this does not mean at all that a person who does not know the notes, having learned a sufficiently large number of chords on the guitar, will not be able to accompany himself.
Where to begin?
To start the selection of chords, of course, you need to listen to the song. Try to determine if it is written in a major key or in a minor one. Major sounds light and joyful, minor - sad. You may also come across a piece, one part of which is written in major, and the other in minor. It is best to write down the text and mark where one key ends and another begins. It is very important to determine which sound the song ends with. The overwhelming majority of popular music pieces end in the tonic. This way you will know the name of the key.
Harmonic sequences
The beginning musician can find the chord finder and chord progression chart extremely helpful. Recently, harmonic sequence spreadsheets have become more and more popular. They are, for example, in the GuitarPro program and its analogues. To pick up chords, you just need to find the key you want and see which sequences are associated with it.
It is also useful to remember the notation for keys. In digital codes, they are usually denoted by Latin letters, starting with the note "la", which is designated as A. Then follows the note "si", which is denoted as B in international tables, and as H in old Russian tables (since in this system B is si -flat). The sound "before" is designated as C, and then all the sounds of the scale - according to the Latin alphabet. Sharp and flat are indicated by the corresponding signs. You will find all the chords that apply to a given key in the sequence table. Listen to the song again and mark the places where one chord should be replaced by another.
Basic chords
If you don't have a determinant and a sequence table at hand, build harmony yourself. The first will be the tonic chord, then the subdominant, dominant and tonic again. This is the famous guitar "square". The subdominant is the fourth step of the scale, the dominant is the fifth.
In A minor, the subdominant will be the sound "d", the dominant, respectively, "mi". To build a tonic triad, define a major or minor third (depending on whether you have a major or a minor). So, in A major, the first chord sound will be "A", the second - "C sharp", the third - "E". In A minor, the second chord sound, a small third away from the bottom, will be a clean C. Construct the triads in the fourth and fifth steps in the same way. Quite a few songs can already be played on these chords. If you add a dominant seventh chord to them (a minor third is added to the triad on the dominant), you get an almost complete set. At the same time, at the first stage, it is enough to master the chords in one key. If you find it uncomfortable to sing in it, use a capo, which makes it possible to play all chords in the same position.
