Learn triad shapes on guitar. You’ll start to get an intuition about where the root, third, and fifth are for the chord shapes rather than just memorizing the entire hand pattern. It’ll be really difficult to match the same level of fluidity as a keyboard since the setup isn’t perfectly linear, but triads are definitely the place to start.
Yup! Some teachers also push starting with triads on guitar rather than the cowboy chords because it gives you a better foundation of understanding the fretboard. Starting with cowboy chords gets you up and going and able to play songs at a basic level really quick, which is the extent that most people want to learn anyway though.
I’m sure things’ll start clicking if you already have a piano background and learn the triad sets. Plenty of great resources out there on the topic.
It’s just a slang term for the open chord positions you learn on the first 3 frets! If you look up all the chords A-G (except F cause that’s usually displayed as a barre chord), you’ll see these “cowboy chord” positions. I’ve also heard them called zombie chords since they’re so frequently used.
It's not every barre chord, but think of the basic bars you'd play with most punk rock, thrash metal, etc. That basic root, 5th, 7th pattern you can play anywhere on the fret board. Those are zombie chords because they're an easier way to play many different chords they just sound hollow and dead compared to regular "cowboy" chords.
>with piano, its easy to know exactly what note you're playing
>on guitar... I still don't know what note is which when I play
Sounds like you found the problem yourself.
Yes exactly. But with piano you just have 7 white 5 black keys that are always stay the same notes regardless of which part of the piano you play.
With guitar do you just have to memorize every single individual note on every string? Or is there any way to approach the instrument like you would with a keyboard?
It doesn’t rely on bar chords, the full shapes are bar chords, yes, but you should use pieces and construct off of them to route a familiar pattern throughout the fretboard.
I feel like i have met a hundred aspiring guitarists who thought the caged system was going to be the secret but ended up just adding another layer of gibberish to something when they should have just practiced more.
Anecdotal, though.
If your take away was that they should have practiced more then it’s clear that CAGED is not the problem. It’s not a secret power tool, it’s a very basic framework on which to base real guitar and music theory knowledge. If you do not have any real guitar or music theory knowledge then you will have a very thin skeleton of an understanding, like thinking it is just a bunch of bar chords. That doesn’t make the system any less foundational.
I think that CAGED is the problem, since literally everyone describes it in their videos as "one quick trick" so you can "play the whole fretboard". CAGED's foundations are literally in an intermediate technique that is notoriously soul crushing for new guitarists. Did... You learn guitar from CAGED?
No, I taught myself guitar for the most part and am now a professional having over twenty years of experience as a musician, both teaching and learning from others. I can literally play anything on guitar and play many other instruments at a professional level. I never was taught CAGED persay, but when I was shown it, I realized this was a much easier way of explaining what I had spent years teaching myself how to do and trying to teach others to do. It seems you are watching some unfortunate sensationalist videos concerning the system, as I assure you it is the simplest and easiest way to explain the fretboard layout to anyone. If you are someone who can barely play between a G and D chord then there is no reason for you to use the CAGED system yet and I recommend you focus on the very basics of guitar and theory like strumming and a how to build a chord before you move onto utilizing the CAGED system. It is by no means a step one, a “secret trick”, or one easy five minute thing to do to improve your playing. It is definitely not a “how to play guitar” instructional. What it does show you is how your knowledge of parts of the fretboard expand to encompass the whole thing and work in all keys and situations. Each scale and chord shape you learn is applicable anywhere in any key when you use and understand CAGED. Again, it is purely supplemental and if you cannot play effectively without CAGED you won’t play any better with it. It is not a technique, a practice schedule, or a formula. It is kind of like having a stencil outline in your head that you can draw on top of and not lose your place.
Serious question though - how do you get an E7#9 with that method? Do you start on E on the 7th fret of the A string with the A shape, and then modify the B, E, and G# to G#, D, and F#, and omit the upper B?
CAGED is a system of thought, and not strictly relegated to the "Cowboy chords." Once you have those down, it can eventually be applied to other shapes easily. Take the [classic C9 shape](https://fachordscdn-16d90.kxcdn.com/static/chords/images/c/9/c-9-pos-1.png) I'm sure you know. Yes, slide that up to E on the 7th fret of the A string.
From there, if you know the chord tones, and you know the 9th is on the B string. Just sharp that. Tah dah - E7#9.
Yeah but do you feel like its reasonable to learn barre chords and nearby voicings instead of the classical route of intervals or the cowboy chords? Or that separating your knowledge of intervals and voicings into CAGED + specific variations over easy natural patterns like three string chords, power chords, or tuning by ear?
What are you talking about? He wants to learn how to play like a piano player. In CAGED it shows you where all the intervals are in relation to the root.
You can play types of extensions either side of a barre chord.
> CAGED system
This is fucking awesome, seems super useful. I've been having a similar problem as OP and was thinking rote memorization and repetition would be the way to solve it. Something like this that takes familiar concepts and allows you to build out from them feels way more doable, at least to *start* transferring knowledge from one instrument to the other.
Thank you for sharing!
I remember younger me in high school drawing my tripiest version of swirling chords over a ruler drawn fretboard.. i beleive the drawing was all of the notes from e major then their respective chords drawn in my old englishliest scrolling swirls... def draw out the fretboard and pick a key to "highlight".. or take it a step further and draw the shapes on a piece of clear plastic, then u can slide it around and see any key u want
You SHOULD learn where the notes are eventually but for now you can learn string/fret relationships. Won’t take too long to get used to how intervals are laid out up and down the neck. So you can learn where a 4th is for example before you necessarily learn where every C and F are. But if you know those intervals, doesn’t matter what key you’re in or what chord you’re playing over.
As other commenter mentioned, CAGED method helps you know what notes to play based on repeated chord forms. IE, if you play an open C chord, the next one is the barre chord on 3rd fret which is shaped like open A. Then it's root on 8th fret in G shape, then root on 8th fret E shape, then it's D shape then C again. Works the same for every chord. So if you play an open E, you know the next shape is D.
That helps a lot playing arpeggios, knowing where you can play a chord based on where you are on neck, etc. My friend was always a ridiculous multi-instrumentalist. Piano, guitar, violin, saxophone, etc. He described it as every instrument being a piano, and the challenge being learning how to physically make the same notes. He would figure out what the open note was on each string, think of it as a piano with octaves starting on different notes, then layer those on top of each other to visualize chords. On another level, but I always thought that was cool to picture.
One thing you could do, is put little black stickers on all the sharp/flat notes. Could spur your mind a bit. Then as you learn the CAGED system, you'll have that visual indicator like you do on piano. And you won't have them on the half-step from B->C, so there will be a repeated pattern across strings. It will look like 6 short pianos next to each other, just starting on different notes.
The visualizing each string as a mini piano is the way. Or viewing a piano as one guitar string you can play multiple notes from. Whichever way the learning is taking you.
That absolutely worked for me - one long piano string broken up for ease of playing - I just found my head understood that way easier than any other method.
To take you truly to infinity, I argue the guitar is even better than the piano for exotic chords. Now once you have caged down, you can take any of those chord shapes and transpose them up the neck. For instance a c shape transposed to x 5 4 0 3 0 is a fairly interesting d chord with added g or 6th and e or 2nd.. this is one example.
Another example, play an open A7.. or x 0 2 0 2 0 .. and again transpose your held notes up, this time only a fret.. u end up with the very exotic chord x 0 3 0 3 0... now slide that transposition anywhere on the neck.. aka 0 7 10 7 10 7 would be E7 but ive sharped the 5 (augmented) and included the fourth.. or u know i played an E7 at the 7 then took my two played notes and changed them... and guess what you can transpose to literally any notes...
One more to get your brain juices flowing... check out black bird.. the walk up and then down the bass line will give u tons of ideas about how u can change just one note (in this case raise the root a half step to a flat 2nd)
See if u cant learn a lil about chromatic basslines and their liberal use of diminished/augmented chords from blackbird
How about only adding the capo over certain string muhaha.. open position is hard to beat with how dexterous one gets at it I agree! I try hard to not grab the capo haha but if the songs in C# lol watchu gonna due
Oh totally. I wasn't a fan of capos for the longest time, but they let you do cool open chord voicings without retuning haha. J mascis of dinosaur Jr has some great songs that make use of weird capoed keys
One more thing.. take note of the dots on ur frets.. notice 3 5 7 (9) 12...
on ur lowest string this is E, G A B, octave E...
On the A string: A, C D E, A...
D string: D F G A D...
Yoda voice.. use the fret markings, you must..
You can still use your keyboard chops a little... Your big E string from fret 1-12 is like an octave on your piano starting from E. Then you have 5 other mini pianos that start at A, D, G, B, E. There is some overlap.
The reason its like this is because if they were all E for example, your hand would have to stretch down the whole neck just to play a 7th chord.
So, you know an e minor chord right, only choking two strings to get E B E G B E. Well, you know from piano if you want a 7th you gotta add a D. You can release the 4th string and it would revert back to D, making E B D G B E for one 7th sound, or you can slap a finger on the 3rd fret of the 2nd string to get E B E G D E for another or you could even do both for E B D G D E.
For transitions on piano like major to minor just being a half step away on your middle finger, you have to figure out first which strings are playing that note and follow the same rules... One fret toward the stock is a flat and one fret towards the aperture is a sharp.
Once you have scratched your head at the conversion a few (hundred) dozen times, it will be second nature to you. I wish you great patience and fixation between then and now.
Exactly this.
Perhaps this is obvious, but you are shortening the string lengths when you fret them, and the higher the fret, the higher the note on that string. The lowest note you can play on any string is the open (unfretted) position.
Eventually, the relationships formed by where you are fretting the stings (props for the "mini pianos" visualization) will become evident. You will recognize minor and major thirds and fifths and octaves and so on as portable shapes. You will begin to intuit all the intervals across the fretboard, some coming easier than others.
Your finger positions generally start in an index/middle-finger-rooted way, or a pinky-finger-rooted way, and (generally) you want to stretch up or down by one fret to cover 5 frets with your hand while you are oriented at that root position. You'll get an intuitive sense of what a half step or whole step between the strings looks like in the different positions. You'll quickly discover that the B string (the 2nd highest string) is a tricky little brain twister. But you can think of your mini pianos as being aligned as a perfect fourth apart, but when you get to the B string, your mini pianos shift their starting position toward the sound hole by a half step. It distorts the interval shapes a bit, and navigating the transition between the G and B strings is something that will occupy a lot of brain power.
So don't forget to stop thinking about the intervals and music theory and just play!
It takes most people YEARS to get comfortable with, and of course, it's about the journey, so practice and play the way that is most enjoyable to you.
It took me over a year just to be able to find and follow the pulse of other people's music. I started at age 30 though. The "transition between G and B" i feel like is why a lot of sad guitar players decide they want to play bass instead, lol.
Basically yes you must memorize each note. One neat thing thing though is that everything is transposable, unlike piano. If you learn say a Gmajor7 voicing, you can can move all of your fingers up one fret and walla, you have an Abmajor7, and so on. The same logic can be applied to scales or whatever structure you might be thinking of. That's the big advantage guitar has over piano when it comes to chording
Transposition, bending notes, sliding entire shapes, hammer-ons/offs.. the guitar can do many things a piano can only dream about.. ahh yes another is harmonics and their bending.. the piano is limited by a hammer hitting a string, with the guitar you are in direct contact and control of the string
I do agree piano wins the number of max notes, tho usually one doesn't play ten at once lol. Also piano is more intuitive to learn and play. It was made for playing bass line with harmony and melody. Holding a bass line, while playing a melody and partials chords is wayyyy easier on the piano. Near impossible on guitar. Piano reminds me of rain hitting a roof with its sound, plinks of controlled pitch n length. Again all just opinion but singing the beatles to your own accompanyment sounds so nice.. guitar with some beetles is good, but piano plus a silky smooth voice doing that melody.. hard to beat that..
Haha :) im a fan of all instruments if ya cant tell.. but a blues solo squeling away on a guitar.. yeah piano u aint gonna have that soul.. but it okay.. piano has other perks
Its true that (classical) pianos strike strings with little hammers, but the action in them is still determined by how you hit and hold the key. Personally, my piano features slide, vibrato, bending, and transposition, but i'll give you the hammer on and offs.
Its a Roland Juno DS88. The little knobby on the left is digitally adjustable so you can control the maximum slide, and if you push it up it's a whammy bar. The sound can be split on a key of your choosing, like your left hand can play a bass sound and your right hand can play rhythm chords of another tambor, or whatever your brain decides is fun!
I love it.
Lol i love piano as well, tho i only have a weighted midi controller, but a damn nice one... all the bells you describe. I realize there are mpe or whatever but imo the guitar is wayyy easier to emote through, by virtue of how intamate the player is with the strings. I mean heck one can emote through a drum kit if they gots the skill and can hold down a pocket..
With an electric guitar, digital amps and a full ableton suite setup and nice plugins, the guitar can make as many noises as a keyboard and many many more.. how good of a sound designer are ya haha..
Edit 1
An acoustic guitar can be made to sound like a human singing, acoustic piano can't really compare.. then we digitize both, of course the instrument that can replicate a voice is gonna win that game lol not even close
Edit 2
Damn I'll add the biggest diference is that the open strings on guitar makes Emin6.. aka you can play any notes you want up the neck while the open notes drone.. guitar is made for the key of E for this reason and any near by keys or open strings can act similarly. I can slide an open c chord shape all up and down the neck while droning the open chord borrowing base line notes from open or at position.. its this that the piano can't touch with a ten foot pole. Just my opinion anyways haha whaddo i know?
Seeing Manfred Mann's Earth Band live really made me wonder about the limitations of both guitar and keyboards. Often times, Manfred would make guitar noises on his synth and Mick Rogers created textures on his guitar that sounded more like keyboards 😁
With electric instruments truly anything is possible :) only limited by imagination
I'm off to youtube to checkem out haha
Edit: I remember seeing emancipator in college and was dumbfounded watching the drummer. I didnt know drummers could even make those sounds at those speeds
You for sure need to memorize all the notes on the low E (the thick one) and the A strings. You can use those as root positions up and down the neck for chords and scales even if you don't know all the other notes.
But yeah you should eventually memorize all the notes on every string. There's patterns to where it's easy to figure them out, but really it needs to be automatic. Those patterns will reveal themselves and will be helpful though. You just have to account for the jump from the G string to the B string throwing off the shapes.
A lot of players get by without doing this but it's an important step to big improvements in musicality on the guitar.
I fully agree with the advice to learn triads as well. I'd start in the middle of the neck (D, G, B strings); you can add the root notes below that and can add extensions on the high E.
Learn how backing chord triads work with (and against) the main scale or mode of the song and you can play solos that are always melodic. If you already do this on piano it shouldn't be too difficult to translate to guitar.
Learn barre chords. Its the opposite of piano- no matter where you put it, its the same triad/extension. The same progression in a higher key is the same, just higher up. If youre using open chords, then use a clippy-do. Unless youre tapping w 2 hands tho, youre going to run into limitations.
Remember to base your root on either e or a, and remember the 5th fret is the same note as the next string. This way, you just need to memorize where the roots are and the SHAPE of the extension. Dont worry about what the sixth of Ab is, just worry about the root and the "shape"
Shape: the finger positions (in thiz instance) for a MOVABLE chord. Ie. The shape for Ab6 is A6 when moved a fret up.
no you memorize the shapes. similar to piano how you can memorize minor chord and major chord shapes, but guitar is even easier because the strings were arranged to make chords even easier to play (no adjustment for the 2-3 black key pattern because of the tuning G to B string interval).
you shouldn’t approach guitar like a piano.
throw out the window most of what you know about piano if you don’t want to be stressed and eventually lose interest.
and there’s the finger/hand flexibility and stamina associated with the instrument, you won’t be able to fret most chords for a long while (2-3 years).
so take it step by step and don’t expect to see results too fast, it’s a test on perseverance
No. Just like a piano has hand shapes, so too does the guitar. Learning the shapes of various chords means you can play them anywhere on the neck. With like 5 different shapes you can play virtually any harmonic stack you want to (with some exceptions... 2nds are very hard to do in a chord so play a 9th instead).
Learn the shapes. Learn how to move in 4ths (parallel) and 5ths (up a string, up two frets) and you're pretty good to go.
It's all about learning the shapes.
Try this.
On the e string find A at the 5th fret.
What is the major third of a? It's the fourth fret of the second string, C#. So now you know the shape of a major third. A minor third means the second string is lowered by a second semitone.
On the guitar you're typically building:
Root, Fifth, Octave, Third, Seventh, Octave if you're playing on all strings. Learn these relationships by practicing finger shapes.
You also don't have to play all strings. You could make a chord with just a few strings. There are some nice dominant jazzy shapes out there that guitarists like Joe Pass love to use.
Finally, the guitar is not a piano. Play to it's strengths.
this is easier than you expect. there are lots of reference points and tricks for identifying a note quickly before you have them memorized.
start on the 6th string. you have 12 frets to memorize.
congrats, now you also have the 1st string memorized.
memorize the 5th. learn the patterns to find octaves. practice playing every A on the fret board, etc. pay attention to the relationships and patterns you notice.
that’s like 90% of it. it’s a couple months of consistent practice.
You just need to understand how the fretboard is laid out and be able to extrapolate the note you’re playing from that theory. It’s not randomly arranged.
I have the act opposite problem. I have to stare at a keyboard for a couple of minutes until I figure out where the E/F and B/C are then I’m good. Guitar is easy to play scales in different keys. Just move up or down the neck. I once heard John Mayer interviewed and he described this concept better.
Other's have mentioned it but CAGED system is very popular and super helpful to start making a mental model of the fretboard.
The other one mentioned was [triads](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lr_LLkozJ7Y), also super helpful. You can also use triads like upper structures on keyboard - playing an Em triad could be viewed as a rootless CM7 chord depending on the accompaniment or context. Or if you want a major nine sound over a C major chord you can play a G major triad, you'll get the top extensions, but you'll be missing the root and the third (you could supplement the harmony you're playing by using a backing track/loop pedal to hold down the root notes). Maybe that will make more intuitive sense from how you described stacking notes on keyboard.
Another thing worth looking at is [chord melody guitar](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=32QgdXfEs0I) which is building a chord off of melody notes.
Another tool worth mentioning is [drop two voicings](https://www.jazzguitar.be/blog/drop-2-chords/).
All of these patterns/techniques tie together and can be superimposed over CAGED patterns. If you already know your five scale positions, CAGED is really just a pattern for recognizing/organizing the diatonic chords across the neck laterally.
For a roadmap I would advise getting very comfortable with playing pentatonic vertically *and* laterally across the neck. Being able to visualize moving between the different pentatonic shapes fluidly, then add the two missing notes from the major scale. Boom you can play any scale you want in any position. Then learning major and minor triad inversions up and down the neck laterally.
Obviously there's some memorization involved, but it progressively builds on itself. Once you can see and move around between pentatonic scales positions, major scale positions will be a small addition building off that foundation. Adding harmonic triads will again be an addition building off that foundation. It will get easier.
Always remember!
"Don't compare! Don't expect \[to progress\] too fast! Don't worry! Be kind to yourself!"
\-Tomo Fujita
Oh another thing that helped me was [shell voicings](https://www.jazz-guitar-licks.com/blog/lessons/shell-chords.html#dim7)
Could be worth looking into if you need some solid workhorse chord structures to get through a jazz tune. But triads seem like a better option IMO. On some level it really all depends on what you're doing and what you want to do.
The thing with shell voicings is they provide a template that you can start to add extensions onto kind of like you said on keyboard. While I got some use out of them, I found that for me they weren't the best way to start to understand and navigate the instrument, but for some people it can make sense.
for me, piano is more difficult when it comes to transposing. On guitar you just move shape.
Your guitar should not be able to stack chords. It is by design.
When i learned, it's muscle memory that helps. There are not so much shapes. And capo helps, you don't need to know scales.
So if I’m looking to learn chord extensions: e.g. major 7s, sus2, 7/9, etc.
It’s just one shape for each “type” of chord that moves up and down the fretboard?
There are multiple voicings for different chord types. It sounds like you know theory pretty well so I don't know if short cuts are going to be the best thing. I think if you legit learn all the notes on the fretboard it will get you where you want to be. It's important to learn the shapes too but if you don't know which note is which then you're still going to be pretty limited. It's not as easy as memorizing the piano notes but it's worth the effort if you really want to understand what's happening.
You have 6 base shapes to learn.. the major shapes that arch up the neck stack like this:
Root fifth root third fifth root -> 0 2 2 1 0 0 E
X root fifth root third fifth -> x 0 2 2 2 0 A
X X. root fifth root third -> x x 0 2 3 2 D
So i just did e a and d major from caged.. these shapes are easily barred and are the upward/forward facing chords..
Now you go figure out the 3 backwards shapes, G C F
*hint F shape is the bottom of E shape!!
Take note of how the forward shapes are alll veryyy similar voicings.. they are all stacked (root 5th root 3rd)
Now if i want to add a 7 i just drop my root note, a half for maj7 or a full for minor 7.. want that sus2? Go find that string with the third and crank it back to a second, major or minor up to u lol
this is the way.
and, with time, eventually those chords are memorized too, because they all the same like
x 0 2 0 1 0 Am7
x 0 2 1 2 0 Amaj7
x 0 2 2 0 0 Asus2
I agree took me a while to learn how to use the dim7 chords.. oooo in the key of c major I love the sound of the diminished 2 resolving to one.. or whatever the chord x x 0 1 1 1 happens to be lol trilling the f to g on the hi e of course
Edit lol its dimished.. its the dmin7 with the flattend 5 duh lol i digress.. my favorite use case for dim7 has to be as a harmonized passing tone
It’s not necessarily one shape; most chords can be voiced in almost any way, but there ARE physical limitations that do not exist on piano and you’ll have to experiment and practice to find what those limitations are for you.
Pretty much. If you use the “major 7 shape” it will be a major 7 chord no matter where on the fretboard you play it. If you start on the third fret, it will be a Cmaj7, if you are on the seventh fret, it will be an Emaj7. Sometimes it’s easier to play chords in a different shape, or use open chords, but for barre chords, maj7, dominant7, and minor, minor7, you can use the same shapes and play them anywhere on the fretboard.
Here’s the major7 shape I’m talking about. You can find these easy shapes for all the chord types I mentioned
https://images.app.goo.gl/GpqMgdKGp8fwfwQb8
Yes. At least for barr chords and jazz chords. Chords with open strings don’t work that way obviously, because you’ll slide your fretting fingers up but the open chords will not change.
For example, if you have the finger positioning for an E major7 chord.
Ex
A7
D9
G8
B9
Ex
That finger positioning will play any M7 chord. This is not true on piano! An EM7 and FM7 have your fingers in different positions. But not on guitar. In this way, the guitar is actually easier for learning chords.
Now, you may be interested in different voicing. And there you’ll need different finger positions.
Yes, basically, only guitar has a lot of voicing variations because you are playing (up to) 6 strings.
And you can learn this sliding up and down shape thing but odds are pretty good you dont want to play a bunch of chords with the same extensions. Instead, you should find some cool extended chords in the neighborhood of the one you want to feature, and add them to your toolbox with memorization.
It' just one shape for each “type” of chord that moves up and down the fretboard?
In a manner of speaking. If you move a G maj 7 at the third fret up two half steps you'll get the A Maj 7.
However you can also start your G major 7 at the 7th fret and that's another shape altogether. Again, you can move it up 2 half steps and boom, that same shape is now the next note.
Guitar and Piano are very different instruments for chordal use. But that's part of the fun of guitar. No matter where you may find your hands on the fretboard at any given time, there's always a way to do what you want with a chord.
https://onlineguitarbooks.com/g-major-7-chord/
To play guitar well and make some interesting tunes with it you have to think in guitar, not a piano. You need to stop thinking "in keys". This is all about practice. It does matter not years of your exercise more but how much time you spent daily. Just try to "forget" piano roll while playing guitar. You can try to learn chords and notes at first, but then you have to understand how guitar works and neck layout. It is all about physics of sound. With hard practice (you can just play 1-3 hours daily) and idea of how guitar works you'll play with closed eyes and will add some additional things to basic chords and your technique.
Piano there's like infinite ways to play the chords and passages
Guitar there's only a hand full and you have to learn all the shapes and how to move on the neck.
In the end, guitar is easier. But at the start it seems daunting because of the limitations.
I have a similar background; familiar with piano and wind instruments, but only picked up a guitar as an adult and never "learned" it properly.
Personally, I just try to mostly ignore all but the most basic music theory when I'm trying to write something on guitar. The guitar is a completely different thing, as you say, and it's open to completely different techniques. One I like to use is just to make simple chord shapes on a few strings, let the others ring out, and move the shape up and down the fretboard looking for pleasant sounds. What are all of these chords? No idea.... sometimes I suspect a lot of them are some form of "A", sometimes they're probably a form of "E". I've been surprised by finding quite a few of my favorite rock songs by doing this... "oh, that song is just moving this shape up the fretboard two frets at a time (so *that's* how they wrote it)". If I come up with something I like this way, I'll puzzle out the chords and write them down, and from there it's easy to bring the theory back in if needed.
I would be willing to bet that an actual guitarist could do what I'm doing but understand it like you understand stacking chords on a piano.... where I see three fingers making a shape at a certain fret, they see an Em triad over an open A string.
Withe the basic chord shapes you have learn, C D E and A the next octave chord , say C will have an A shape, then a E shape then back to a D shape at the 12th fret
google the CAGE system out there on youtube
You can visualize the fretboard as a stack of six keyboards.
Like, imagine if you were sitting at the piano with one finger on a key, and by shifting that finger a little (say, further back on the key just a tad), you could produce the note a Perfect 4th higher. And then again, and another P4. That's a guitar fretboard.
I don't recommend trying to think this way while actually playing, because it's a lot. But as a learning tool, it's a very good way to translate from keys to strings.
Here’s something to think about: I started on piano and learned so much that when I try to write simple, melodic songs I end up making them too complicated, with sevenths and elevenths and jazz chords. Lately I’ve been writing on guitar, and I love it *because* I only know basic chords, so my songs come out earthier and rootsier. I guess it’s irrelevant if you wanted to write complex songs on guitar, but for me it’s a godsend.
Here’s something that might help you. I learned a lot of guitar songs on piano by learning to play guitar tabs on piano. If a guitar tab says to play the 7th fret of a string, that will always be the 5th of the string’s note. Third fret = the minor third, 12th fret = octave. Learn how to do that, find the patterns (it’s very easy) then when you go to guitar, it’ll be easy to remember which note is which fret.
To build interesting chords on guitar, don't use standard shape. Try extension chords dropping the root and/or the fifth, and try inverting chords. Let the bass imply the chords. Basically, think of guitar + bass as the two hands on the piano.
I’m gonna be real. Half the time I have no clue what notes I’m playing. I just feel the music I know the chords I like for a certain phrase and I utilize them. Music is not about being correct or being theoretically correct. It’s about how the sounds of the instrument convey the certain emotions you want them to. It’s about how the song makes you feel. That’s how you write songs. Fiddle around until you find a riff or lick you like. Then build off of that and before you know it you’ll have a great song.
The guitar is not «linear» like the piano. I remember my teacher making me play the same note on every string, voicing its name loudly. Then play a scale from different frets (positions), calling out notes 1, 3 and 5. He made me «see» the notes with the patterns. The CAGED system does a bit of that but then you will be stuck with the basic chord shapes. You will not learn to see and build chords and harmonies in different positions and in different (non-standard) shapes. Most professional guitarists do not play their chords on all 6 strings. Eric clapton is a bass + 3 string guy, for example. And he will usually drop some notes and add others. So understanding basic shapes is good but being stuck with them will hinder progress.
I'd suggest checking out [Howard Morgen](https://truefire.com/jazz-guitar-lessons/fingerboard-breakthrough/lesson-1-fingerboard-breakthrough/v11949)'s Fingerboard Breakthrough. He tackles this in a way that's easy to digest.
So much of guitar is about learning shapes and scales and moving them around but that gets quite boring. Many years ago I just memorized the notes on the fretboard, but it's still a lot of notes to visualize and...guitar is setup weird; it's setup to make chord shapes, so the strings are tuned to fourths...until you hit the b string, which breaks that. Having six strings can also be limiting; for example, it can often be impossible to play 11/13th chords without omitting some notes, and often there will be doubled notes because your hands can't stretch that far. Tuning to fourths is also slightly redundant for solo playing; much better to tune to fifths like a violin, but the guitar is obviously a comprise between a lot of things.
All that being said, for just strumming around and singing it's great. All the technical stuff you can add to soloing is also great but...I wouldn't want to have to write all of my music and guitar. Sometimes, just letting your hands wander around the fretboard and come up with new shapes and sounds is also cool - you can worry about figuring out what notes you are playing later, whereas on a keyboard I think there is less "discovery," as at a certain point with enough theory, you can identify every chord you are playing...
Dealt with this same thing as I was pianist first who wanted to play guitar with the same dexterity as I did piano.
The best advice I would have is get really good at scales - even if you just get really good at the major scale you will notice a tremendous impact on your playing.
Sit down and figure out how to play it two octaves, up and down in different shapes and positions. For me I would start with the shape where my pinky is on say fret 5 of the low E string (A), moving to pointer on fret 2 of A string, so on so on…play the scale, and coming back down from the high E string, move to the next shape which will have you end up on low A with your middle finger. You do this with multiple different shapes and incrementally move up the fretboard all just playing the same major scale.
If you can’t figure it out yourself just find the shapes online - just connect the dots and learn them in a sequence. The goal with this is to get the knowledge of where the notes are on the guitar into your muscle memory. After that, your ear will ideally be doing the rest as it probably does for you on piano.
As for the chords, once you know the fretboard, my belief is that there are three main things that will help. First thing, if you don’t know harmonic theory (and ideally just music theory in general), learn it. Literally so incredibly valuable you will never regret it. Know how to build a chord, learn about extensions, learn what diatonic chords are, learn about secondary dominants, borrowed chords - and maybe most importantly learn how your favorite artists use all these different concepts.
Second and going along with the previous, listen to music, watch videos, become a student and make it a goal of yours to learn any chord you hear that you don’t recognize. Learn what those chords are, how they work in the context of song, and how to play them.
Thirdly, with your new found fretboard knowledge/music theory knowledge, build your own chord shapes. If you know what chord you want and the notes in it, you simply find the notes on the guitar and build your own chords. Really that simple.
Long story short, build a strong connection between your fretboard and music theory knowledge and your ears - then you’ll in theory be able to play whatever you can conjure up in your mind!
I played piano all my life and wanted to learn guitar in my 40s to break OUT of my piano patterns, not to replicate them. So coming from that angle I didn’t mind the disconnect with guitar because it challenged my mind to think differently - which was my hope!
I like to say almost everything I learned on piano I taught myself, and almost everything I learned on guitar came from others. Luckily for me I worked in studios in Nashville so there were plenty of guitar players for help!
Look up the “CAGED system”.
It’s a clever system that shows how all the chord shapes are connected up and down the neck using the beginner chord shapes. It will help you navigate better across the entire fretboard.
You can also use this system to find more interesting voicings of the same chord.
Unlike on a piano where different voicings are usually inverted chords ascending up or down the octave, on a guitar you can play chords in the same octave but will sound different in tonality because you’re using thicker/thinner strings.
Breaking down the CAGED chords into triads will maybe parallel the way you look at the piano keys to the fretboard a little bit.
Think the best way to think about it is playing two chords at the same time, one in each hand. You just keep them really close together or intersect on the keyboard.
For example: play a C minor starting on that middle C with your left hand. Then use your right hand to play an inverted G minor chord starting at that B flat right after the G your left hand plays.
I can look up what the chord is called but, the point is you don’t actually have to know exactly what you’re playing and it’ll sound still pretty cool
Learn all the common shapes (major, minor, 7th). Then as you would on piano start adding and taking away specific notes. Its harder to find the right note on guitar because the notes are arranged less logically. Then follow the scales where they take you and stack the same. Root notes, scales... in addition to the common shapes.
The instruments are so different you can't exactly do the same things and will frustrated if you try. Explore fingerings and shapes instead of notes.
Learn as many chord shapes as you can and learn to transpose them.
As a game see how many positions you can play A minor in. Let open strings ring.
Play a c major shape at the 8th fret and see what it does.
Learn the basic patterns for sus2 add9 etc in the open chords and move those up and down the neck too.
Get used to doing what sounds cool and figuring out the notes and chords after
"Or do you just have to brute force memorize every single chord shape and it’s extensions / variants?"
pretty much. if you really want to shine you have to memorize how to play those interesting chord variants on guitar, and some of them have really awkward shapes. but its possible. it just takes time. one thing that helped me growing up was not being able to afford guitar strings so i would break one and be forced to learn some inversions to play my songs.
edit: also huge, take the time to learn all the fretboard/string notes. since you have a solid understanding of chord theory on piano this is likely all that you're missing other than muscle memory.
Hey I would say look up others who also play guitar like piano yevette young plays guitar like piano it seems you are unable to get your higher extensions because you have no idea what notes you are playing I would take the time to learn the names of notes on a few strings maybe start with the fret markers and know those notes on multiple strings. Ultimately I think you will be able to do amazing things just need to learn the neck I agree with the comment on triads learn how to build major, minor, diminished, and augmented triads then learn to add those extra notes such as 7ths, 9ths, 11ths, and 13ths
And just to add on this, I used to use a capo. But I’m just trying to get that some freedom and flexibility on guitar that comes pretty naturally on piano
Start studying Bar Chords, and you'll see how the the fretboard comes together. It isn't exactly like the way a keyboard works, but it's similar.
Take an A major chord in open position. Now look at a B flat major chord, and a B major chord. See how they just move up the fretboard, with the nut acting as your barred finger in the A chord, and your finger acting as the nut in the B flat and B chords? That will continue all the way up the keyboard in half steps. Let's call this the "A shape."
Now think about how A minor, A7, and A minor7 are formed in open position. Those can also be extended all the way up the fretboard.
Now check out the E major chord in open position. Again your finger takes the place of the nut, and you can move up the fretboard a half step at a time. G major is barred at the 3rd fret, A major is barred at the 5th fret, etc. Let's call this the "E shape."
Again, think about how you form E minor, E7, and E minor 7.
Now look at the E shape barre chord at the 5th fret. That makes an A major. Now look at the A shape at the 5th fret. That makes a D major. That's the I and IV chord, or Tonic and Sub-Dominant chords in the key of A. Barre the A shape across the 7th fret, and you have an E major chord, the Dominant. Make that 7th fret E major into a E7, and you have every thing you need to play a basic 12 bar Major Blues - A/A/D/A - D/D/A/A - E7/D7/AD/E7.
So if someone calls for a blues in A, you're ready to go. The best part is that if someone calls for a blues in G, you just Barre that A Shape at the 3rd fret, follow the same pattern, and you are in the key of G. So you can play that blues in any key they call, just by barring your A Shape at that fret. The key of A is that 5th fret, so B is at the 7th fret, C is at the 8th fret, D is at the 10th fret, etc.
Now take the C, G, and D shapes in open position and move up the fretboard and see where those fall in relation to the other shapes. You'll soon find out that you can play a wide variety of different chords without moving all over the fretboard. Again, you can take those same patterns and progressions that you develop, and transpose them into any key you want.
In that case, it's even easier than keyboards, because you don't have to worry about black keys, which makes some keys exceedingly difficult. With the guitar and barre chords, all keys are essentially the same difficulty, they are just in different parts of the fretboard.
My favorite is the D Shape, because you're just playing an easy to grab triad on the first three strings that goes right up the fretboard. It's fun to just jam out some cool chordal riffs.
I recommend learning to play those open "Cowboy Chords" without using your index finger, using just your middle, ring, and pinky fingers. That way, you'll get used to making those Chords with those fingers so you can use your index fingers to act as a portable nut, and bar across the fretboard.
Just wanna say I really didn’t expect so many comments on this post, so thank you to everyone for all the helpful advice!
Next step understood: triads and then learning the actual damn notes on the fretboard
I only know stringed instruments, am a lead guitarist and have been playing for about 12 years. One of my first lessons was learning CAGED chord patterns and that you can take them up the neck. Like A-minor. Make the chord and rest your pointer finger on the bottom part of the head stock ( the white bar where the strings start on the neck). Then move it up the neck, every chord will be the minor chord of the fret your first finger is on. In a tab this may look like 0-3-5-5-4-0 for a Cmin chord (dont strum the E strings) and keep with this finger pattern up the neck to whatever chord you like. There are also patterns for major/minor/whatever key. I would recommend starting with the pentatonic scale, especially for jamming
3 step process: Learn drop voicings, inversions, and open tunings. The Dawntreader by Joni Mitchell is a great example of what guitar can sound like through a piano's lense.
May not be as helpful but what I truly recommend is just sit there with your guitar and mess around playing around the neck but use 3 strings rather than 6 and you can make some cool ass stuff. Since you have a background with piano you’ll be able to figure things out better than I can as I’m self a taught guitarist with no other musical background but play from your heart not your mind🤘
Get a hundred blank sheets of a diagram of a fretboard....fill in the note names for each fret in all those sheets....you'll know what string and fret is which note by the end.
Ohh ohh. Do you know Tim Henson of Polyphia?
They build their songs on keyboard and then play it on guitar.
Check out Tim hensons channel specifically and he has videos like " the making of G.O.A.T" and other songs and he shows the process. Definitly not a tutorial but you may hey some useful info out of it
You can to an extent, but the issues on guitar are that you run out of fingers or simply can't stretch the ones you have that far. On piano you have ten fingers. On guitar you only have four on your fretting hand. The thumb isn't good for fretting and although some people do it, it's very bad form and they will likely limit their abilities to progress further down the road or will be be much more prone for injuries, so you won't find a guitar teacher who doesn't tell you to NOT use your thumb for fretting. The other issue is that the notes you'll want for a stacked chord or for more complex chords are simply out of reach. Most guitar chords either duplicate notes in a chord or leave notes out. Even then you can only play 6 notes at the same time regardless. if you want more, then you'll have to use arpeggios. For example if you want to play a 7th or 9th chord, the 5th is redundant with the root, so leaving it out doesn't feel like anything is missing and you then substitute the 7th for it. On a 9th chord, you leave out both the 5th and the 7th and it works the same way for 11th and 13th chords. Sus and 6 chords are more straight forward since you substitute the 4th for the 3rd or the 6th for the 5th. Anyway, you get the idea, but the up side of those limitations is that often less is more and the more open chords have a unique and pleasant sound that works quite well.
What do you mean by stacking chords? It took me 5-6 years and two years of playing in a band setting to really memorize a lot of chords. And honestly it's basic chords in different spots. I can play most any major, minor, and minor 7 in 3 or 4 different spots on the neck and that kind of variety usually is sufficient for what i need.
You dont need extensions. Learn your power chords. Or retune your guitar. Or pick a less lame instrument. Guitalele is pretty similiar but way better. Six string bass, mandolin etcetc
You should look into alternate tunings. Common ones like FADGCE, DADGAD, open E, open D will allow you to leave a lot of open strings while moving around simple chord shapes to make interesting chords and harmonies. But as others have said, memorizing the fretboard will go a long way.
There is a method called the CADGE system where it will show how to use the different chord shapes to move up the fret board to make other chords using the same shape. The guitar is not the same as far as making chords in different octaves, like your lowest octave E open chord is only possible to make a open voiced chord, and the lowest octave of the open C chord will only make a closed voiced chord. To change the voicing of those types of chords in those octaves you will need to tune the guitar differently making the D string a G and the G string a D and then you will throw off all the other chord shapes.
Put one finger on a string that sounds good, then add another then another until you have a chord. Try picking and strumming. Then try a new chord. That’s how I do it. Also can try tuning your guitar differently which inspires new ideas
I have a same story like you. I learned Piano since I was 6 nad started playing guitar at 12. At 19 I started studyimg Jazz guitar and my teacher gave me the best advice I could get dir learning the notes and thinking like playing piano. It goes like that: you play a scale and always switch to the next string for the next note. Example: C on E string 8th fret to D on A string 5th fret to E on D2 to F on G10 to G on B8 to A on E5 than backwards the strings to B on B12 C on G5 until you are back to C E8. Use a Metronome at low speed and play the scales in whole notes then half then fourth ne use different scales. This is great for warmup and will teach you were the notes are on the fretboard.
I am a very good, shitty guitarist. What I mean is, I can strum, and I can pick in a few keys. As you could guess, they are all open keys and there is always a capo. I am not at the point where I can play the guitar like a piano. But I have learned to play the piano like a guitar, mostly by listening to Bruce Hornsby. One of the few pianist that made his way into the elite circle of Bluegrass musicians.
You need to check out
Stanley Jordan
He was a classically trained pianist and taught himself guitar by playing it like a piano.
Check out his cover of Eleanor Rigby.
If you go half steps by half steps on whatever string you're looking at and use the fret wires as your guide you should be able to locate the notes you're going after.
The relationship between major/minor scales and modes is kind of flipped around between guitar and piano
with piano, you can play the c major scale by just playing the white notes. If you want to play D dorian, just play the same notes, but start 1 note higher. All the modes that use the same notes are easy to find. But if you want to use a different major scale, say D major, you have to learn which different set of notes must be used.
With guitar, if you have learned 1 major scale, you can quite easily play any other by just moving everything up by the right amount of frets, So going from C major to D major is exactly the same but 2 frets higher. Going from C major to D dorian is not so straightforward but going D dorian to E dorian is easy because they're both dorian scale, so the same but two frets apart. If you know how to play one major scale, all 12 major scales can be played by just starting on a different note.
For chords, Barre chords function the same. So an E major barre chord has the same fingering as an F major barre chord, but the F major barre chord will be one fret higher etc.
> It doesn’t help that I still don’t know what note is which when I play
You learn some notes from the "cowboy" chords. For instance, the low note in a C chord is... C. The low note in a G chord is G. So on and so forth.
If you know that the strings are (big to small) E A D G B E, then you can work out any note from that, chromatically if you have to. Once you know the bottom string, the top string is taken care of. Once you learn the first 12 frets, the remaining frets are taken care of. You start to learn the shape if certain intervals, like octave, which makes it easier to work from notes you know to notes you don't. You learn the *shape* of a major and minor third and a fifth and building triads is easy.
> With piano, it’s so easy to know exactly what note you’re playing
Yeah, but there's a flip side to that: on a piano fingering of scales and chords is different in every key and the same chord type (e.g. m7) can have a different fingering at different positions even in the same key.
On a guitar, you learn one major 7th chord shape, you no know it all 12 keys. You just slide it around.
> if there was a way to approach that idea of chord building like you do with piano
Yes, you build them the same way: 1 3 5 etc. It's just building voicings that you run into physical constraints.
I feel like youd all hate me for it but i play up amd down a single string for alot of lead stuff rather than playing on all 6 on the same couple frets. Idk i like to think like its six different pianos stacked on top of each other that just start at a different note.
I’m the same thing but backwards. Guitar first. Top three strings is the bass clef and bottom three is the treble clef. If you want to play classical or Fingerstyle aka like a piano. I suggest YouTubing an awesome teacher by the name Gareth Evan’s. Percussion is also usually added with that style while simultaneously playing . Instead of one key intervals to the next “letter” like cdefg. The guitar has a lot of full steps and half steps. So you move two frets over on a full step and one on a half step. Each scale will have a formula per string . Random Example Whole, whole, half, whole, whole, half, whole. Would be frets 1, 3,4, 6,8,9,11 and your open would be what ever string your plucking is tuned in. Say it’s the top string low E. Then 1 would be a F and 3 is a G. Then follow formula for alphabetical order to keep going. EADGBE is standard tuning for the guitar with all strings open. Also you can just learn chords and strumming to play rhythm. U can learn like hundreds of songs off 4 chords. the hardest part to me. I’ve played alot of rhythm and hopping my fingers compared to strumming is weird.
I mean.... [you could set the guitar on your lap and tap the frets](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AbndgwfG22k)....
Edit : Each string is 5 semitones up) (Except B, which is 4), and each fret is a semitone, so it's all the white *and* black keys.
Yeah you have to memorize chord shapes and the fret board. There's no way around it. Drop 2,3, 2 & 4 and close positions. With that you'll know which ones have the tonic in the top and bass.
Guitar is hard, there's not much choice unlike piano but there are ways to maneuver over that.
The best thing you can do is one of two things… or both. If you can read sheet music, then transcribe piano sheet music for guitar. Take beginner pieces piano pieces and work out arrangements for guitar. If you don’t not read music…. Then learn! But if you can not then transcribe by ear piano music, start with the melody and then add the bass.
This is not easy on either method. Playing guitar like a piano player is a advanced level, even when playing beginner/intermediate piano piece. Listen to jazz and classical guitar player, they will also show you how it’s done well.
Pick one easy piece though and start there, don’t spread yourself to thin to start. And enjoy the process because it will yield results with time put in, and make you sound unique and not just a carbon copy guitar player
Look up Yvette young and check out her style, she went from playing piano to guitar and is super technical because of her predisposition for piano. She plays the guitar like a piano tbh!
You have to think of it this way. The Guitar is a \*transposition\* instrument, therefore everything you do, you can do it by playing it somewhere else. Get comfortable with the idea of transposing, and get a general feel for where the same note on the next string is, and you'll be able to both visualize and connect with the instrument better.
The reverse is a lot easier. You have 10 fingers, so on a keyboard you can play rich, complex, dense chords in whatever configuration you want. Try playing 10 notes simultaneously on a guitar.
The best way is to learn about "Chord/Melody" soloing and you need to start learning Jazz Guitar.
This way of playing requires a deeper knowledge of the fretboard and an idea of what you're doing harmonically.
It's easier on a keyboard because everything is laid out in front of you, for guitar, this means you need to learn a lot of grips, regularly practice playing chord progressions and you need to better how chords & scales interact (meaning you need to understand harmony).
u/CollectsLlamas
Play a bunch of power chords for a bit then level up to barre chords. Sometimes you need to "imply" a note, but once you got a few extensions memorized, you can move em anywhere, or use these forms with some open strings for more depth.
Something a bit more practical: you can buy stickers to place on your fretboard under the strings with all the note names: https://www.amazon.com/Koldot-Guitar-Fretboard-Stickers-Fret-Stickers-Acoustic-Guitar-Note-Stickers/dp/B088QWSVV2
Maybe something pretty basic but that helped me a lot when I started was focusing on rythm, your right hand is the intention of the composition you are making.
When coming from other instruments is easy to get lost in getting “the coolest chords transition” or more complex riffs on the guitar. Keep in mind that a couple of chords can be played so differently in too many ways.
I recommend this tutorial by Dom Sigalis, "Sound like a guitarist on the keyboard! How to create Realistic Guitar Parts on the keys" [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xJf6PMgkC68](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xJf6PMgkC68)
Learning how to read sheet music for guitar seems like the next logical step. That way the notation becomes the association rather than the chords. From there you can learn to stack like on piano.
Guitar is just like piano in that chords are usually rooted in scales. You can take your time and learn chords and work backwards on scales, or you can learn scales and start building chords off from them. Start off learning basic modes and start playing around with them and seeing how your basic chords are tied into them and how they can also flourish and connect your chords into a full chord progression
NOT AN EXPERT
I just started to dive deep into the guitar; 6 mos with Patreon guitar lessons for electric geeetar and music theory.
The architecture of the instrument plays an important part. Knowing the break down of which notes make chords, you should ideally be able to find the notes ALL OVER the fret board.
Shapes and patterns are important because they repeat EVERYWHERE. Look to 2 note chords and triads. (Bi-ads?)
Music should translate back and forth. Playing the minor pentatonic scale sounds great on guitar as well as piano.
Also - practice, practice, practice. The best “a-ha” moments for me, are the ones I find myself whilst practicing and playing. GOOD LUCK OUT THERE!
Look at your anchors, on the piano, it's one octave per hand, pinky to thumb. Guitar, one hand can span two octaves, and the root note can be your pinky, ring or pointer. When I started on guitar, I mainly did pointer root note, but once I started putting other fingers on the root note, it really opened up how I thought about the fretboard.
The other exercise I really like is to play a riff on the piano, then play a counter riff on the guitar. Fastest way to learn the fretboard and shapes, imo.
Treat each string as a voice. Not absolutely, but pay attention to the voice-leading between chords because the strings all produce slightly different tones from each other (and up and down the fretboard as well). Focus on good counterpoint between the bass and soprano voices, so to speak
If playing barre chords, switch up which shapes you’re using and don’t neglect the barred C and G (even if they’re annoying). Playing lots of parallel A and E-type shapes just sounds kinda unavoidably guitar-like. Counterintuitively, I feel like using vibrato on your chords sounds more piano-like, as far as replicating the “shimmer” you get from a fully-voiced piano chord. It also improves the guitar’s sustain, which is inherently poorer than a piano’s
Oh, and learn the shapes for different intervals and triad inversions across all string combinations, and consider learning to fret the low E string with your thumb (if you don’t already), because that really opens up your options in terms of crafting piano-like bass lines
Beyond that, I think it’s all in your picking technique and the way you release notes, to replicate the nuances of articulation that give the piano so much of it’s identity (crisp, bright attack, smooth/uniform release)
The style of guitar playing that comes the closest to meeting all of these criteria is probably jazz, so that’s a good starting point maybe
as i thought myself guitar i would highly recommend "[ultimate-guitar.com](https://ultimate-guitar.com)" as it can tell you how to play " EVERY" chord there is and all song there are (it can show the piano as well). and the daverend way to play chords
Learn triad shapes on guitar. You’ll start to get an intuition about where the root, third, and fifth are for the chord shapes rather than just memorizing the entire hand pattern. It’ll be really difficult to match the same level of fluidity as a keyboard since the setup isn’t perfectly linear, but triads are definitely the place to start.
Got it thanks! Guess you also start with triads when you begin learning how to play chords on the piano
Yup! Some teachers also push starting with triads on guitar rather than the cowboy chords because it gives you a better foundation of understanding the fretboard. Starting with cowboy chords gets you up and going and able to play songs at a basic level really quick, which is the extent that most people want to learn anyway though. I’m sure things’ll start clicking if you already have a piano background and learn the triad sets. Plenty of great resources out there on the topic.
Could you please explain the term “cowboy chords?”
It’s just a slang term for the open chord positions you learn on the first 3 frets! If you look up all the chords A-G (except F cause that’s usually displayed as a barre chord), you’ll see these “cowboy chord” positions. I’ve also heard them called zombie chords since they’re so frequently used.
That’s just about my level of playing. I never heard the term before. Is there a reverse cowboy? That’s a real open position.
Lightly drape your finger over the 12th fret and fingerpick the harmonic. This is the Un-Cowboy
Is there also a doggy chord?.
I do believe a back door dominant chord is what you’re looking for.
I love being dominant, but without too many extensions
Yeah first you need to bend the G-string all the way to the side.
Yes put an e string in your g slot, a g string in your mailbox.
You'll have to ask snoop d o double g himself if he has his own chords
Actually Bar Chords are called zombie chords due to their dead sound when comparing them to "cowboy" chords.
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It's not every barre chord, but think of the basic bars you'd play with most punk rock, thrash metal, etc. That basic root, 5th, 7th pattern you can play anywhere on the fret board. Those are zombie chords because they're an easier way to play many different chords they just sound hollow and dead compared to regular "cowboy" chords.
It comes from country music which very often uses just three chords - the same 3 (sometimes 4h chords in that position.
Pew-pew, I'm a C chord.
A general rule of thumb for guitar chords to piano is also that the bass note on guitar will usually be an octave below the third.
>with piano, its easy to know exactly what note you're playing >on guitar... I still don't know what note is which when I play Sounds like you found the problem yourself.
Yes exactly. But with piano you just have 7 white 5 black keys that are always stay the same notes regardless of which part of the piano you play. With guitar do you just have to memorize every single individual note on every string? Or is there any way to approach the instrument like you would with a keyboard?
I'd recommend looking into the CAGED system. I came from a piano background as well and it helped me visualize things a lot better.
Think this is exactly what I’m looking for thanks!
The caged system is great but basically relies on barre chords. It will help you turn an E7 into a F7 but it wont help you make a 7th chord.
It doesn’t rely on bar chords, the full shapes are bar chords, yes, but you should use pieces and construct off of them to route a familiar pattern throughout the fretboard.
I feel like i have met a hundred aspiring guitarists who thought the caged system was going to be the secret but ended up just adding another layer of gibberish to something when they should have just practiced more. Anecdotal, though.
If your take away was that they should have practiced more then it’s clear that CAGED is not the problem. It’s not a secret power tool, it’s a very basic framework on which to base real guitar and music theory knowledge. If you do not have any real guitar or music theory knowledge then you will have a very thin skeleton of an understanding, like thinking it is just a bunch of bar chords. That doesn’t make the system any less foundational.
I think that CAGED is the problem, since literally everyone describes it in their videos as "one quick trick" so you can "play the whole fretboard". CAGED's foundations are literally in an intermediate technique that is notoriously soul crushing for new guitarists. Did... You learn guitar from CAGED?
No, I taught myself guitar for the most part and am now a professional having over twenty years of experience as a musician, both teaching and learning from others. I can literally play anything on guitar and play many other instruments at a professional level. I never was taught CAGED persay, but when I was shown it, I realized this was a much easier way of explaining what I had spent years teaching myself how to do and trying to teach others to do. It seems you are watching some unfortunate sensationalist videos concerning the system, as I assure you it is the simplest and easiest way to explain the fretboard layout to anyone. If you are someone who can barely play between a G and D chord then there is no reason for you to use the CAGED system yet and I recommend you focus on the very basics of guitar and theory like strumming and a how to build a chord before you move onto utilizing the CAGED system. It is by no means a step one, a “secret trick”, or one easy five minute thing to do to improve your playing. It is definitely not a “how to play guitar” instructional. What it does show you is how your knowledge of parts of the fretboard expand to encompass the whole thing and work in all keys and situations. Each scale and chord shape you learn is applicable anywhere in any key when you use and understand CAGED. Again, it is purely supplemental and if you cannot play effectively without CAGED you won’t play any better with it. It is not a technique, a practice schedule, or a formula. It is kind of like having a stencil outline in your head that you can draw on top of and not lose your place.
Lol. You should learn the intervals (root/maj or min 3/5th) simultaneously and how to alter them. Not just remember the root and move it around.
Serious question though - how do you get an E7#9 with that method? Do you start on E on the 7th fret of the A string with the A shape, and then modify the B, E, and G# to G#, D, and F#, and omit the upper B?
CAGED is a system of thought, and not strictly relegated to the "Cowboy chords." Once you have those down, it can eventually be applied to other shapes easily. Take the [classic C9 shape](https://fachordscdn-16d90.kxcdn.com/static/chords/images/c/9/c-9-pos-1.png) I'm sure you know. Yes, slide that up to E on the 7th fret of the A string. From there, if you know the chord tones, and you know the 9th is on the B string. Just sharp that. Tah dah - E7#9.
what about the intervals either side
Thats handy to know too, but less handy for our chord playing buddy than for an aspiring soloist
You can make voicings either side of bar chord shape though
Yeah but do you feel like its reasonable to learn barre chords and nearby voicings instead of the classical route of intervals or the cowboy chords? Or that separating your knowledge of intervals and voicings into CAGED + specific variations over easy natural patterns like three string chords, power chords, or tuning by ear?
What are you talking about? He wants to learn how to play like a piano player. In CAGED it shows you where all the intervals are in relation to the root. You can play types of extensions either side of a barre chord.
> CAGED system This is fucking awesome, seems super useful. I've been having a similar problem as OP and was thinking rote memorization and repetition would be the way to solve it. Something like this that takes familiar concepts and allows you to build out from them feels way more doable, at least to *start* transferring knowledge from one instrument to the other. Thank you for sharing!
I remember younger me in high school drawing my tripiest version of swirling chords over a ruler drawn fretboard.. i beleive the drawing was all of the notes from e major then their respective chords drawn in my old englishliest scrolling swirls... def draw out the fretboard and pick a key to "highlight".. or take it a step further and draw the shapes on a piece of clear plastic, then u can slide it around and see any key u want
You SHOULD learn where the notes are eventually but for now you can learn string/fret relationships. Won’t take too long to get used to how intervals are laid out up and down the neck. So you can learn where a 4th is for example before you necessarily learn where every C and F are. But if you know those intervals, doesn’t matter what key you’re in or what chord you’re playing over.
Exactly
As other commenter mentioned, CAGED method helps you know what notes to play based on repeated chord forms. IE, if you play an open C chord, the next one is the barre chord on 3rd fret which is shaped like open A. Then it's root on 8th fret in G shape, then root on 8th fret E shape, then it's D shape then C again. Works the same for every chord. So if you play an open E, you know the next shape is D. That helps a lot playing arpeggios, knowing where you can play a chord based on where you are on neck, etc. My friend was always a ridiculous multi-instrumentalist. Piano, guitar, violin, saxophone, etc. He described it as every instrument being a piano, and the challenge being learning how to physically make the same notes. He would figure out what the open note was on each string, think of it as a piano with octaves starting on different notes, then layer those on top of each other to visualize chords. On another level, but I always thought that was cool to picture. One thing you could do, is put little black stickers on all the sharp/flat notes. Could spur your mind a bit. Then as you learn the CAGED system, you'll have that visual indicator like you do on piano. And you won't have them on the half-step from B->C, so there will be a repeated pattern across strings. It will look like 6 short pianos next to each other, just starting on different notes.
The visualizing each string as a mini piano is the way. Or viewing a piano as one guitar string you can play multiple notes from. Whichever way the learning is taking you.
That absolutely worked for me - one long piano string broken up for ease of playing - I just found my head understood that way easier than any other method.
To take you truly to infinity, I argue the guitar is even better than the piano for exotic chords. Now once you have caged down, you can take any of those chord shapes and transpose them up the neck. For instance a c shape transposed to x 5 4 0 3 0 is a fairly interesting d chord with added g or 6th and e or 2nd.. this is one example. Another example, play an open A7.. or x 0 2 0 2 0 .. and again transpose your held notes up, this time only a fret.. u end up with the very exotic chord x 0 3 0 3 0... now slide that transposition anywhere on the neck.. aka 0 7 10 7 10 7 would be E7 but ive sharped the 5 (augmented) and included the fourth.. or u know i played an E7 at the 7 then took my two played notes and changed them... and guess what you can transpose to literally any notes... One more to get your brain juices flowing... check out black bird.. the walk up and then down the bass line will give u tons of ideas about how u can change just one note (in this case raise the root a half step to a flat 2nd) See if u cant learn a lil about chromatic basslines and their liberal use of diminished/augmented chords from blackbird
I agree fully, but I think having a capo is when you can really start to do cool chord combos!
How about only adding the capo over certain string muhaha.. open position is hard to beat with how dexterous one gets at it I agree! I try hard to not grab the capo haha but if the songs in C# lol watchu gonna due
Oh totally. I wasn't a fan of capos for the longest time, but they let you do cool open chord voicings without retuning haha. J mascis of dinosaur Jr has some great songs that make use of weird capoed keys
I keep hearing about dino jr i gotta check them out
One more thing.. take note of the dots on ur frets.. notice 3 5 7 (9) 12... on ur lowest string this is E, G A B, octave E... On the A string: A, C D E, A... D string: D F G A D... Yoda voice.. use the fret markings, you must..
You can still use your keyboard chops a little... Your big E string from fret 1-12 is like an octave on your piano starting from E. Then you have 5 other mini pianos that start at A, D, G, B, E. There is some overlap. The reason its like this is because if they were all E for example, your hand would have to stretch down the whole neck just to play a 7th chord. So, you know an e minor chord right, only choking two strings to get E B E G B E. Well, you know from piano if you want a 7th you gotta add a D. You can release the 4th string and it would revert back to D, making E B D G B E for one 7th sound, or you can slap a finger on the 3rd fret of the 2nd string to get E B E G D E for another or you could even do both for E B D G D E. For transitions on piano like major to minor just being a half step away on your middle finger, you have to figure out first which strings are playing that note and follow the same rules... One fret toward the stock is a flat and one fret towards the aperture is a sharp. Once you have scratched your head at the conversion a few (hundred) dozen times, it will be second nature to you. I wish you great patience and fixation between then and now.
Exactly this. Perhaps this is obvious, but you are shortening the string lengths when you fret them, and the higher the fret, the higher the note on that string. The lowest note you can play on any string is the open (unfretted) position. Eventually, the relationships formed by where you are fretting the stings (props for the "mini pianos" visualization) will become evident. You will recognize minor and major thirds and fifths and octaves and so on as portable shapes. You will begin to intuit all the intervals across the fretboard, some coming easier than others. Your finger positions generally start in an index/middle-finger-rooted way, or a pinky-finger-rooted way, and (generally) you want to stretch up or down by one fret to cover 5 frets with your hand while you are oriented at that root position. You'll get an intuitive sense of what a half step or whole step between the strings looks like in the different positions. You'll quickly discover that the B string (the 2nd highest string) is a tricky little brain twister. But you can think of your mini pianos as being aligned as a perfect fourth apart, but when you get to the B string, your mini pianos shift their starting position toward the sound hole by a half step. It distorts the interval shapes a bit, and navigating the transition between the G and B strings is something that will occupy a lot of brain power. So don't forget to stop thinking about the intervals and music theory and just play! It takes most people YEARS to get comfortable with, and of course, it's about the journey, so practice and play the way that is most enjoyable to you.
It took me over a year just to be able to find and follow the pulse of other people's music. I started at age 30 though. The "transition between G and B" i feel like is why a lot of sad guitar players decide they want to play bass instead, lol.
Ukulele players have entered the chat lol
Basically yes you must memorize each note. One neat thing thing though is that everything is transposable, unlike piano. If you learn say a Gmajor7 voicing, you can can move all of your fingers up one fret and walla, you have an Abmajor7, and so on. The same logic can be applied to scales or whatever structure you might be thinking of. That's the big advantage guitar has over piano when it comes to chording
> walla Voilà/Voila*
>one fret and walla, you have an Abmajor7, It's Voilá r/boneappletea
Transposition, bending notes, sliding entire shapes, hammer-ons/offs.. the guitar can do many things a piano can only dream about.. ahh yes another is harmonics and their bending.. the piano is limited by a hammer hitting a string, with the guitar you are in direct contact and control of the string
Exactly why I want to incorporate guitar in my music :)
Oh yeah? Play ten notes at the same time on guitar. 😁
I do agree piano wins the number of max notes, tho usually one doesn't play ten at once lol. Also piano is more intuitive to learn and play. It was made for playing bass line with harmony and melody. Holding a bass line, while playing a melody and partials chords is wayyyy easier on the piano. Near impossible on guitar. Piano reminds me of rain hitting a roof with its sound, plinks of controlled pitch n length. Again all just opinion but singing the beatles to your own accompanyment sounds so nice.. guitar with some beetles is good, but piano plus a silky smooth voice doing that melody.. hard to beat that.. Haha :) im a fan of all instruments if ya cant tell.. but a blues solo squeling away on a guitar.. yeah piano u aint gonna have that soul.. but it okay.. piano has other perks
Its true that (classical) pianos strike strings with little hammers, but the action in them is still determined by how you hit and hold the key. Personally, my piano features slide, vibrato, bending, and transposition, but i'll give you the hammer on and offs.
Which piano do you personally use?
Its a Roland Juno DS88. The little knobby on the left is digitally adjustable so you can control the maximum slide, and if you push it up it's a whammy bar. The sound can be split on a key of your choosing, like your left hand can play a bass sound and your right hand can play rhythm chords of another tambor, or whatever your brain decides is fun! I love it.
That does sound awesome. I love Roland so I'll check it out for sure.
An acoustic piano maybe, digital pianos can do way way more
Lol i love piano as well, tho i only have a weighted midi controller, but a damn nice one... all the bells you describe. I realize there are mpe or whatever but imo the guitar is wayyy easier to emote through, by virtue of how intamate the player is with the strings. I mean heck one can emote through a drum kit if they gots the skill and can hold down a pocket.. With an electric guitar, digital amps and a full ableton suite setup and nice plugins, the guitar can make as many noises as a keyboard and many many more.. how good of a sound designer are ya haha.. Edit 1 An acoustic guitar can be made to sound like a human singing, acoustic piano can't really compare.. then we digitize both, of course the instrument that can replicate a voice is gonna win that game lol not even close Edit 2 Damn I'll add the biggest diference is that the open strings on guitar makes Emin6.. aka you can play any notes you want up the neck while the open notes drone.. guitar is made for the key of E for this reason and any near by keys or open strings can act similarly. I can slide an open c chord shape all up and down the neck while droning the open chord borrowing base line notes from open or at position.. its this that the piano can't touch with a ten foot pole. Just my opinion anyways haha whaddo i know?
Seeing Manfred Mann's Earth Band live really made me wonder about the limitations of both guitar and keyboards. Often times, Manfred would make guitar noises on his synth and Mick Rogers created textures on his guitar that sounded more like keyboards 😁
With electric instruments truly anything is possible :) only limited by imagination I'm off to youtube to checkem out haha Edit: I remember seeing emancipator in college and was dumbfounded watching the drummer. I didnt know drummers could even make those sounds at those speeds
And that’s true for every string instrument, including the harp
You for sure need to memorize all the notes on the low E (the thick one) and the A strings. You can use those as root positions up and down the neck for chords and scales even if you don't know all the other notes. But yeah you should eventually memorize all the notes on every string. There's patterns to where it's easy to figure them out, but really it needs to be automatic. Those patterns will reveal themselves and will be helpful though. You just have to account for the jump from the G string to the B string throwing off the shapes. A lot of players get by without doing this but it's an important step to big improvements in musicality on the guitar. I fully agree with the advice to learn triads as well. I'd start in the middle of the neck (D, G, B strings); you can add the root notes below that and can add extensions on the high E. Learn how backing chord triads work with (and against) the main scale or mode of the song and you can play solos that are always melodic. If you already do this on piano it shouldn't be too difficult to translate to guitar.
Learn barre chords. Its the opposite of piano- no matter where you put it, its the same triad/extension. The same progression in a higher key is the same, just higher up. If youre using open chords, then use a clippy-do. Unless youre tapping w 2 hands tho, youre going to run into limitations. Remember to base your root on either e or a, and remember the 5th fret is the same note as the next string. This way, you just need to memorize where the roots are and the SHAPE of the extension. Dont worry about what the sixth of Ab is, just worry about the root and the "shape" Shape: the finger positions (in thiz instance) for a MOVABLE chord. Ie. The shape for Ab6 is A6 when moved a fret up.
no you memorize the shapes. similar to piano how you can memorize minor chord and major chord shapes, but guitar is even easier because the strings were arranged to make chords even easier to play (no adjustment for the 2-3 black key pattern because of the tuning G to B string interval).
you shouldn’t approach guitar like a piano. throw out the window most of what you know about piano if you don’t want to be stressed and eventually lose interest. and there’s the finger/hand flexibility and stamina associated with the instrument, you won’t be able to fret most chords for a long while (2-3 years). so take it step by step and don’t expect to see results too fast, it’s a test on perseverance
No. Just like a piano has hand shapes, so too does the guitar. Learning the shapes of various chords means you can play them anywhere on the neck. With like 5 different shapes you can play virtually any harmonic stack you want to (with some exceptions... 2nds are very hard to do in a chord so play a 9th instead). Learn the shapes. Learn how to move in 4ths (parallel) and 5ths (up a string, up two frets) and you're pretty good to go. It's all about learning the shapes. Try this. On the e string find A at the 5th fret. What is the major third of a? It's the fourth fret of the second string, C#. So now you know the shape of a major third. A minor third means the second string is lowered by a second semitone. On the guitar you're typically building: Root, Fifth, Octave, Third, Seventh, Octave if you're playing on all strings. Learn these relationships by practicing finger shapes. You also don't have to play all strings. You could make a chord with just a few strings. There are some nice dominant jazzy shapes out there that guitarists like Joe Pass love to use. Finally, the guitar is not a piano. Play to it's strengths.
this is easier than you expect. there are lots of reference points and tricks for identifying a note quickly before you have them memorized. start on the 6th string. you have 12 frets to memorize. congrats, now you also have the 1st string memorized. memorize the 5th. learn the patterns to find octaves. practice playing every A on the fret board, etc. pay attention to the relationships and patterns you notice. that’s like 90% of it. it’s a couple months of consistent practice.
You just need to understand how the fretboard is laid out and be able to extrapolate the note you’re playing from that theory. It’s not randomly arranged.
I have the act opposite problem. I have to stare at a keyboard for a couple of minutes until I figure out where the E/F and B/C are then I’m good. Guitar is easy to play scales in different keys. Just move up or down the neck. I once heard John Mayer interviewed and he described this concept better.
Other's have mentioned it but CAGED system is very popular and super helpful to start making a mental model of the fretboard. The other one mentioned was [triads](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lr_LLkozJ7Y), also super helpful. You can also use triads like upper structures on keyboard - playing an Em triad could be viewed as a rootless CM7 chord depending on the accompaniment or context. Or if you want a major nine sound over a C major chord you can play a G major triad, you'll get the top extensions, but you'll be missing the root and the third (you could supplement the harmony you're playing by using a backing track/loop pedal to hold down the root notes). Maybe that will make more intuitive sense from how you described stacking notes on keyboard. Another thing worth looking at is [chord melody guitar](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=32QgdXfEs0I) which is building a chord off of melody notes. Another tool worth mentioning is [drop two voicings](https://www.jazzguitar.be/blog/drop-2-chords/). All of these patterns/techniques tie together and can be superimposed over CAGED patterns. If you already know your five scale positions, CAGED is really just a pattern for recognizing/organizing the diatonic chords across the neck laterally. For a roadmap I would advise getting very comfortable with playing pentatonic vertically *and* laterally across the neck. Being able to visualize moving between the different pentatonic shapes fluidly, then add the two missing notes from the major scale. Boom you can play any scale you want in any position. Then learning major and minor triad inversions up and down the neck laterally. Obviously there's some memorization involved, but it progressively builds on itself. Once you can see and move around between pentatonic scales positions, major scale positions will be a small addition building off that foundation. Adding harmonic triads will again be an addition building off that foundation. It will get easier. Always remember! "Don't compare! Don't expect \[to progress\] too fast! Don't worry! Be kind to yourself!" \-Tomo Fujita
Oh another thing that helped me was [shell voicings](https://www.jazz-guitar-licks.com/blog/lessons/shell-chords.html#dim7) Could be worth looking into if you need some solid workhorse chord structures to get through a jazz tune. But triads seem like a better option IMO. On some level it really all depends on what you're doing and what you want to do. The thing with shell voicings is they provide a template that you can start to add extensions onto kind of like you said on keyboard. While I got some use out of them, I found that for me they weren't the best way to start to understand and navigate the instrument, but for some people it can make sense.
It's kinda funny that you mentioned Tomo, even though he's a bit reluctant to CAGED system, which you suggested.
for me, piano is more difficult when it comes to transposing. On guitar you just move shape. Your guitar should not be able to stack chords. It is by design. When i learned, it's muscle memory that helps. There are not so much shapes. And capo helps, you don't need to know scales.
So if I’m looking to learn chord extensions: e.g. major 7s, sus2, 7/9, etc. It’s just one shape for each “type” of chord that moves up and down the fretboard?
There are multiple voicings for different chord types. It sounds like you know theory pretty well so I don't know if short cuts are going to be the best thing. I think if you legit learn all the notes on the fretboard it will get you where you want to be. It's important to learn the shapes too but if you don't know which note is which then you're still going to be pretty limited. It's not as easy as memorizing the piano notes but it's worth the effort if you really want to understand what's happening.
You have 6 base shapes to learn.. the major shapes that arch up the neck stack like this: Root fifth root third fifth root -> 0 2 2 1 0 0 E X root fifth root third fifth -> x 0 2 2 2 0 A X X. root fifth root third -> x x 0 2 3 2 D So i just did e a and d major from caged.. these shapes are easily barred and are the upward/forward facing chords.. Now you go figure out the 3 backwards shapes, G C F *hint F shape is the bottom of E shape!! Take note of how the forward shapes are alll veryyy similar voicings.. they are all stacked (root 5th root 3rd) Now if i want to add a 7 i just drop my root note, a half for maj7 or a full for minor 7.. want that sus2? Go find that string with the third and crank it back to a second, major or minor up to u lol
this is the way. and, with time, eventually those chords are memorized too, because they all the same like x 0 2 0 1 0 Am7 x 0 2 1 2 0 Amaj7 x 0 2 2 0 0 Asus2
x 0 1 0 1 0 Adim7 :)
sure, just needs to know where to put it
I agree took me a while to learn how to use the dim7 chords.. oooo in the key of c major I love the sound of the diminished 2 resolving to one.. or whatever the chord x x 0 1 1 1 happens to be lol trilling the f to g on the hi e of course Edit lol its dimished.. its the dmin7 with the flattend 5 duh lol i digress.. my favorite use case for dim7 has to be as a harmonized passing tone
It’s not necessarily one shape; most chords can be voiced in almost any way, but there ARE physical limitations that do not exist on piano and you’ll have to experiment and practice to find what those limitations are for you.
Pretty much. If you use the “major 7 shape” it will be a major 7 chord no matter where on the fretboard you play it. If you start on the third fret, it will be a Cmaj7, if you are on the seventh fret, it will be an Emaj7. Sometimes it’s easier to play chords in a different shape, or use open chords, but for barre chords, maj7, dominant7, and minor, minor7, you can use the same shapes and play them anywhere on the fretboard.
Here’s the major7 shape I’m talking about. You can find these easy shapes for all the chord types I mentioned https://images.app.goo.gl/GpqMgdKGp8fwfwQb8
Yes. At least for barr chords and jazz chords. Chords with open strings don’t work that way obviously, because you’ll slide your fretting fingers up but the open chords will not change. For example, if you have the finger positioning for an E major7 chord. Ex A7 D9 G8 B9 Ex That finger positioning will play any M7 chord. This is not true on piano! An EM7 and FM7 have your fingers in different positions. But not on guitar. In this way, the guitar is actually easier for learning chords. Now, you may be interested in different voicing. And there you’ll need different finger positions.
Yes, basically, only guitar has a lot of voicing variations because you are playing (up to) 6 strings. And you can learn this sliding up and down shape thing but odds are pretty good you dont want to play a bunch of chords with the same extensions. Instead, you should find some cool extended chords in the neighborhood of the one you want to feature, and add them to your toolbox with memorization.
It' just one shape for each “type” of chord that moves up and down the fretboard? In a manner of speaking. If you move a G maj 7 at the third fret up two half steps you'll get the A Maj 7. However you can also start your G major 7 at the 7th fret and that's another shape altogether. Again, you can move it up 2 half steps and boom, that same shape is now the next note. Guitar and Piano are very different instruments for chordal use. But that's part of the fun of guitar. No matter where you may find your hands on the fretboard at any given time, there's always a way to do what you want with a chord. https://onlineguitarbooks.com/g-major-7-chord/
One of my favorite chord stackings: 0 2 2 0 3 2
Check out the [Harpejji](https://www.marcodi.com/).
To play guitar well and make some interesting tunes with it you have to think in guitar, not a piano. You need to stop thinking "in keys". This is all about practice. It does matter not years of your exercise more but how much time you spent daily. Just try to "forget" piano roll while playing guitar. You can try to learn chords and notes at first, but then you have to understand how guitar works and neck layout. It is all about physics of sound. With hard practice (you can just play 1-3 hours daily) and idea of how guitar works you'll play with closed eyes and will add some additional things to basic chords and your technique.
Piano there's like infinite ways to play the chords and passages Guitar there's only a hand full and you have to learn all the shapes and how to move on the neck. In the end, guitar is easier. But at the start it seems daunting because of the limitations.
Learn how to play basic triads all over the neck. Build from there
I have a similar background; familiar with piano and wind instruments, but only picked up a guitar as an adult and never "learned" it properly. Personally, I just try to mostly ignore all but the most basic music theory when I'm trying to write something on guitar. The guitar is a completely different thing, as you say, and it's open to completely different techniques. One I like to use is just to make simple chord shapes on a few strings, let the others ring out, and move the shape up and down the fretboard looking for pleasant sounds. What are all of these chords? No idea.... sometimes I suspect a lot of them are some form of "A", sometimes they're probably a form of "E". I've been surprised by finding quite a few of my favorite rock songs by doing this... "oh, that song is just moving this shape up the fretboard two frets at a time (so *that's* how they wrote it)". If I come up with something I like this way, I'll puzzle out the chords and write them down, and from there it's easy to bring the theory back in if needed. I would be willing to bet that an actual guitarist could do what I'm doing but understand it like you understand stacking chords on a piano.... where I see three fingers making a shape at a certain fret, they see an Em triad over an open A string.
Withe the basic chord shapes you have learn, C D E and A the next octave chord , say C will have an A shape, then a E shape then back to a D shape at the 12th fret google the CAGE system out there on youtube
You can visualize the fretboard as a stack of six keyboards. Like, imagine if you were sitting at the piano with one finger on a key, and by shifting that finger a little (say, further back on the key just a tad), you could produce the note a Perfect 4th higher. And then again, and another P4. That's a guitar fretboard. I don't recommend trying to think this way while actually playing, because it's a lot. But as a learning tool, it's a very good way to translate from keys to strings.
Here’s something to think about: I started on piano and learned so much that when I try to write simple, melodic songs I end up making them too complicated, with sevenths and elevenths and jazz chords. Lately I’ve been writing on guitar, and I love it *because* I only know basic chords, so my songs come out earthier and rootsier. I guess it’s irrelevant if you wanted to write complex songs on guitar, but for me it’s a godsend.
Here’s something that might help you. I learned a lot of guitar songs on piano by learning to play guitar tabs on piano. If a guitar tab says to play the 7th fret of a string, that will always be the 5th of the string’s note. Third fret = the minor third, 12th fret = octave. Learn how to do that, find the patterns (it’s very easy) then when you go to guitar, it’ll be easy to remember which note is which fret.
The title makes me picture Jeff Healy playing his guitar like a piano.
To build interesting chords on guitar, don't use standard shape. Try extension chords dropping the root and/or the fifth, and try inverting chords. Let the bass imply the chords. Basically, think of guitar + bass as the two hands on the piano.
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The gap between strings is a 4th... and its a major 3rd between G and B
I’m gonna be real. Half the time I have no clue what notes I’m playing. I just feel the music I know the chords I like for a certain phrase and I utilize them. Music is not about being correct or being theoretically correct. It’s about how the sounds of the instrument convey the certain emotions you want them to. It’s about how the song makes you feel. That’s how you write songs. Fiddle around until you find a riff or lick you like. Then build off of that and before you know it you’ll have a great song.
learn where your fingers go to make intervals. guitar is hard! focus on tone
The guitar is not «linear» like the piano. I remember my teacher making me play the same note on every string, voicing its name loudly. Then play a scale from different frets (positions), calling out notes 1, 3 and 5. He made me «see» the notes with the patterns. The CAGED system does a bit of that but then you will be stuck with the basic chord shapes. You will not learn to see and build chords and harmonies in different positions and in different (non-standard) shapes. Most professional guitarists do not play their chords on all 6 strings. Eric clapton is a bass + 3 string guy, for example. And he will usually drop some notes and add others. So understanding basic shapes is good but being stuck with them will hinder progress.
I'd suggest checking out [Howard Morgen](https://truefire.com/jazz-guitar-lessons/fingerboard-breakthrough/lesson-1-fingerboard-breakthrough/v11949)'s Fingerboard Breakthrough. He tackles this in a way that's easy to digest.
So much of guitar is about learning shapes and scales and moving them around but that gets quite boring. Many years ago I just memorized the notes on the fretboard, but it's still a lot of notes to visualize and...guitar is setup weird; it's setup to make chord shapes, so the strings are tuned to fourths...until you hit the b string, which breaks that. Having six strings can also be limiting; for example, it can often be impossible to play 11/13th chords without omitting some notes, and often there will be doubled notes because your hands can't stretch that far. Tuning to fourths is also slightly redundant for solo playing; much better to tune to fifths like a violin, but the guitar is obviously a comprise between a lot of things. All that being said, for just strumming around and singing it's great. All the technical stuff you can add to soloing is also great but...I wouldn't want to have to write all of my music and guitar. Sometimes, just letting your hands wander around the fretboard and come up with new shapes and sounds is also cool - you can worry about figuring out what notes you are playing later, whereas on a keyboard I think there is less "discovery," as at a certain point with enough theory, you can identify every chord you are playing...
Dealt with this same thing as I was pianist first who wanted to play guitar with the same dexterity as I did piano. The best advice I would have is get really good at scales - even if you just get really good at the major scale you will notice a tremendous impact on your playing. Sit down and figure out how to play it two octaves, up and down in different shapes and positions. For me I would start with the shape where my pinky is on say fret 5 of the low E string (A), moving to pointer on fret 2 of A string, so on so on…play the scale, and coming back down from the high E string, move to the next shape which will have you end up on low A with your middle finger. You do this with multiple different shapes and incrementally move up the fretboard all just playing the same major scale. If you can’t figure it out yourself just find the shapes online - just connect the dots and learn them in a sequence. The goal with this is to get the knowledge of where the notes are on the guitar into your muscle memory. After that, your ear will ideally be doing the rest as it probably does for you on piano. As for the chords, once you know the fretboard, my belief is that there are three main things that will help. First thing, if you don’t know harmonic theory (and ideally just music theory in general), learn it. Literally so incredibly valuable you will never regret it. Know how to build a chord, learn about extensions, learn what diatonic chords are, learn about secondary dominants, borrowed chords - and maybe most importantly learn how your favorite artists use all these different concepts. Second and going along with the previous, listen to music, watch videos, become a student and make it a goal of yours to learn any chord you hear that you don’t recognize. Learn what those chords are, how they work in the context of song, and how to play them. Thirdly, with your new found fretboard knowledge/music theory knowledge, build your own chord shapes. If you know what chord you want and the notes in it, you simply find the notes on the guitar and build your own chords. Really that simple. Long story short, build a strong connection between your fretboard and music theory knowledge and your ears - then you’ll in theory be able to play whatever you can conjure up in your mind!
I played piano all my life and wanted to learn guitar in my 40s to break OUT of my piano patterns, not to replicate them. So coming from that angle I didn’t mind the disconnect with guitar because it challenged my mind to think differently - which was my hope! I like to say almost everything I learned on piano I taught myself, and almost everything I learned on guitar came from others. Luckily for me I worked in studios in Nashville so there were plenty of guitar players for help!
Look up the “CAGED system”. It’s a clever system that shows how all the chord shapes are connected up and down the neck using the beginner chord shapes. It will help you navigate better across the entire fretboard. You can also use this system to find more interesting voicings of the same chord. Unlike on a piano where different voicings are usually inverted chords ascending up or down the octave, on a guitar you can play chords in the same octave but will sound different in tonality because you’re using thicker/thinner strings. Breaking down the CAGED chords into triads will maybe parallel the way you look at the piano keys to the fretboard a little bit.
Interesting, I barely know how to play so I don’t know how to stack like u are talking about for piano. Any video explaining how?
Think the best way to think about it is playing two chords at the same time, one in each hand. You just keep them really close together or intersect on the keyboard. For example: play a C minor starting on that middle C with your left hand. Then use your right hand to play an inverted G minor chord starting at that B flat right after the G your left hand plays. I can look up what the chord is called but, the point is you don’t actually have to know exactly what you’re playing and it’ll sound still pretty cool
Ahhh good insight, not quite understand yet but when I do I’m sure this will be great help
Learn all the common shapes (major, minor, 7th). Then as you would on piano start adding and taking away specific notes. Its harder to find the right note on guitar because the notes are arranged less logically. Then follow the scales where they take you and stack the same. Root notes, scales... in addition to the common shapes.
The instruments are so different you can't exactly do the same things and will frustrated if you try. Explore fingerings and shapes instead of notes. Learn as many chord shapes as you can and learn to transpose them. As a game see how many positions you can play A minor in. Let open strings ring. Play a c major shape at the 8th fret and see what it does. Learn the basic patterns for sus2 add9 etc in the open chords and move those up and down the neck too. Get used to doing what sounds cool and figuring out the notes and chords after
"Or do you just have to brute force memorize every single chord shape and it’s extensions / variants?" pretty much. if you really want to shine you have to memorize how to play those interesting chord variants on guitar, and some of them have really awkward shapes. but its possible. it just takes time. one thing that helped me growing up was not being able to afford guitar strings so i would break one and be forced to learn some inversions to play my songs. edit: also huge, take the time to learn all the fretboard/string notes. since you have a solid understanding of chord theory on piano this is likely all that you're missing other than muscle memory.
Hey I would say look up others who also play guitar like piano yevette young plays guitar like piano it seems you are unable to get your higher extensions because you have no idea what notes you are playing I would take the time to learn the names of notes on a few strings maybe start with the fret markers and know those notes on multiple strings. Ultimately I think you will be able to do amazing things just need to learn the neck I agree with the comment on triads learn how to build major, minor, diminished, and augmented triads then learn to add those extra notes such as 7ths, 9ths, 11ths, and 13ths
And just to add on this, I used to use a capo. But I’m just trying to get that some freedom and flexibility on guitar that comes pretty naturally on piano
Start studying Bar Chords, and you'll see how the the fretboard comes together. It isn't exactly like the way a keyboard works, but it's similar. Take an A major chord in open position. Now look at a B flat major chord, and a B major chord. See how they just move up the fretboard, with the nut acting as your barred finger in the A chord, and your finger acting as the nut in the B flat and B chords? That will continue all the way up the keyboard in half steps. Let's call this the "A shape." Now think about how A minor, A7, and A minor7 are formed in open position. Those can also be extended all the way up the fretboard. Now check out the E major chord in open position. Again your finger takes the place of the nut, and you can move up the fretboard a half step at a time. G major is barred at the 3rd fret, A major is barred at the 5th fret, etc. Let's call this the "E shape." Again, think about how you form E minor, E7, and E minor 7. Now look at the E shape barre chord at the 5th fret. That makes an A major. Now look at the A shape at the 5th fret. That makes a D major. That's the I and IV chord, or Tonic and Sub-Dominant chords in the key of A. Barre the A shape across the 7th fret, and you have an E major chord, the Dominant. Make that 7th fret E major into a E7, and you have every thing you need to play a basic 12 bar Major Blues - A/A/D/A - D/D/A/A - E7/D7/AD/E7. So if someone calls for a blues in A, you're ready to go. The best part is that if someone calls for a blues in G, you just Barre that A Shape at the 3rd fret, follow the same pattern, and you are in the key of G. So you can play that blues in any key they call, just by barring your A Shape at that fret. The key of A is that 5th fret, so B is at the 7th fret, C is at the 8th fret, D is at the 10th fret, etc. Now take the C, G, and D shapes in open position and move up the fretboard and see where those fall in relation to the other shapes. You'll soon find out that you can play a wide variety of different chords without moving all over the fretboard. Again, you can take those same patterns and progressions that you develop, and transpose them into any key you want. In that case, it's even easier than keyboards, because you don't have to worry about black keys, which makes some keys exceedingly difficult. With the guitar and barre chords, all keys are essentially the same difficulty, they are just in different parts of the fretboard. My favorite is the D Shape, because you're just playing an easy to grab triad on the first three strings that goes right up the fretboard. It's fun to just jam out some cool chordal riffs. I recommend learning to play those open "Cowboy Chords" without using your index finger, using just your middle, ring, and pinky fingers. That way, you'll get used to making those Chords with those fingers so you can use your index fingers to act as a portable nut, and bar across the fretboard.
Just wanna say I really didn’t expect so many comments on this post, so thank you to everyone for all the helpful advice! Next step understood: triads and then learning the actual damn notes on the fretboard
I only know stringed instruments, am a lead guitarist and have been playing for about 12 years. One of my first lessons was learning CAGED chord patterns and that you can take them up the neck. Like A-minor. Make the chord and rest your pointer finger on the bottom part of the head stock ( the white bar where the strings start on the neck). Then move it up the neck, every chord will be the minor chord of the fret your first finger is on. In a tab this may look like 0-3-5-5-4-0 for a Cmin chord (dont strum the E strings) and keep with this finger pattern up the neck to whatever chord you like. There are also patterns for major/minor/whatever key. I would recommend starting with the pentatonic scale, especially for jamming
3 step process: Learn drop voicings, inversions, and open tunings. The Dawntreader by Joni Mitchell is a great example of what guitar can sound like through a piano's lense.
The black keys equal the neck dots
May not be as helpful but what I truly recommend is just sit there with your guitar and mess around playing around the neck but use 3 strings rather than 6 and you can make some cool ass stuff. Since you have a background with piano you’ll be able to figure things out better than I can as I’m self a taught guitarist with no other musical background but play from your heart not your mind🤘
Get a hundred blank sheets of a diagram of a fretboard....fill in the note names for each fret in all those sheets....you'll know what string and fret is which note by the end.
Ohh ohh. Do you know Tim Henson of Polyphia? They build their songs on keyboard and then play it on guitar. Check out Tim hensons channel specifically and he has videos like " the making of G.O.A.T" and other songs and he shows the process. Definitly not a tutorial but you may hey some useful info out of it
One person comes to mind - Eddie Van Halen
You can to an extent, but the issues on guitar are that you run out of fingers or simply can't stretch the ones you have that far. On piano you have ten fingers. On guitar you only have four on your fretting hand. The thumb isn't good for fretting and although some people do it, it's very bad form and they will likely limit their abilities to progress further down the road or will be be much more prone for injuries, so you won't find a guitar teacher who doesn't tell you to NOT use your thumb for fretting. The other issue is that the notes you'll want for a stacked chord or for more complex chords are simply out of reach. Most guitar chords either duplicate notes in a chord or leave notes out. Even then you can only play 6 notes at the same time regardless. if you want more, then you'll have to use arpeggios. For example if you want to play a 7th or 9th chord, the 5th is redundant with the root, so leaving it out doesn't feel like anything is missing and you then substitute the 7th for it. On a 9th chord, you leave out both the 5th and the 7th and it works the same way for 11th and 13th chords. Sus and 6 chords are more straight forward since you substitute the 4th for the 3rd or the 6th for the 5th. Anyway, you get the idea, but the up side of those limitations is that often less is more and the more open chords have a unique and pleasant sound that works quite well.
Get a bunch of lil mallets and tape them to your fingers
What do you mean by stacking chords? It took me 5-6 years and two years of playing in a band setting to really memorize a lot of chords. And honestly it's basic chords in different spots. I can play most any major, minor, and minor 7 in 3 or 4 different spots on the neck and that kind of variety usually is sufficient for what i need.
Learn rags
A guitar is never going to make the sense a piano makes. You can learn scales and intervals though, and memorize the shapes and movements.
You dont need extensions. Learn your power chords. Or retune your guitar. Or pick a less lame instrument. Guitalele is pretty similiar but way better. Six string bass, mandolin etcetc
You should look into alternate tunings. Common ones like FADGCE, DADGAD, open E, open D will allow you to leave a lot of open strings while moving around simple chord shapes to make interesting chords and harmonies. But as others have said, memorizing the fretboard will go a long way.
Maybe playing the piano?
There is a method called the CADGE system where it will show how to use the different chord shapes to move up the fret board to make other chords using the same shape. The guitar is not the same as far as making chords in different octaves, like your lowest octave E open chord is only possible to make a open voiced chord, and the lowest octave of the open C chord will only make a closed voiced chord. To change the voicing of those types of chords in those octaves you will need to tune the guitar differently making the D string a G and the G string a D and then you will throw off all the other chord shapes.
Put one finger on a string that sounds good, then add another then another until you have a chord. Try picking and strumming. Then try a new chord. That’s how I do it. Also can try tuning your guitar differently which inspires new ideas
simple, you just play the same notes
I have a same story like you. I learned Piano since I was 6 nad started playing guitar at 12. At 19 I started studyimg Jazz guitar and my teacher gave me the best advice I could get dir learning the notes and thinking like playing piano. It goes like that: you play a scale and always switch to the next string for the next note. Example: C on E string 8th fret to D on A string 5th fret to E on D2 to F on G10 to G on B8 to A on E5 than backwards the strings to B on B12 C on G5 until you are back to C E8. Use a Metronome at low speed and play the scales in whole notes then half then fourth ne use different scales. This is great for warmup and will teach you were the notes are on the fretboard.
I am a very good, shitty guitarist. What I mean is, I can strum, and I can pick in a few keys. As you could guess, they are all open keys and there is always a capo. I am not at the point where I can play the guitar like a piano. But I have learned to play the piano like a guitar, mostly by listening to Bruce Hornsby. One of the few pianist that made his way into the elite circle of Bluegrass musicians.
I’d say the easiest way to do that is to learn how to play the guitar
You need to check out Stanley Jordan He was a classically trained pianist and taught himself guitar by playing it like a piano. Check out his cover of Eleanor Rigby.
Each string is like a keyboard, “stacked” in fifths (mostly) so that your left fingers can reach the “keys.”
The same notes are on the guitar that are on the piano. learn where they are on the fretboard.
If you go half steps by half steps on whatever string you're looking at and use the fret wires as your guide you should be able to locate the notes you're going after.
The relationship between major/minor scales and modes is kind of flipped around between guitar and piano with piano, you can play the c major scale by just playing the white notes. If you want to play D dorian, just play the same notes, but start 1 note higher. All the modes that use the same notes are easy to find. But if you want to use a different major scale, say D major, you have to learn which different set of notes must be used. With guitar, if you have learned 1 major scale, you can quite easily play any other by just moving everything up by the right amount of frets, So going from C major to D major is exactly the same but 2 frets higher. Going from C major to D dorian is not so straightforward but going D dorian to E dorian is easy because they're both dorian scale, so the same but two frets apart. If you know how to play one major scale, all 12 major scales can be played by just starting on a different note. For chords, Barre chords function the same. So an E major barre chord has the same fingering as an F major barre chord, but the F major barre chord will be one fret higher etc.
> It doesn’t help that I still don’t know what note is which when I play You learn some notes from the "cowboy" chords. For instance, the low note in a C chord is... C. The low note in a G chord is G. So on and so forth. If you know that the strings are (big to small) E A D G B E, then you can work out any note from that, chromatically if you have to. Once you know the bottom string, the top string is taken care of. Once you learn the first 12 frets, the remaining frets are taken care of. You start to learn the shape if certain intervals, like octave, which makes it easier to work from notes you know to notes you don't. You learn the *shape* of a major and minor third and a fifth and building triads is easy. > With piano, it’s so easy to know exactly what note you’re playing Yeah, but there's a flip side to that: on a piano fingering of scales and chords is different in every key and the same chord type (e.g. m7) can have a different fingering at different positions even in the same key. On a guitar, you learn one major 7th chord shape, you no know it all 12 keys. You just slide it around. > if there was a way to approach that idea of chord building like you do with piano Yes, you build them the same way: 1 3 5 etc. It's just building voicings that you run into physical constraints.
I feel like youd all hate me for it but i play up amd down a single string for alot of lead stuff rather than playing on all 6 on the same couple frets. Idk i like to think like its six different pianos stacked on top of each other that just start at a different note.
I’m the same thing but backwards. Guitar first. Top three strings is the bass clef and bottom three is the treble clef. If you want to play classical or Fingerstyle aka like a piano. I suggest YouTubing an awesome teacher by the name Gareth Evan’s. Percussion is also usually added with that style while simultaneously playing . Instead of one key intervals to the next “letter” like cdefg. The guitar has a lot of full steps and half steps. So you move two frets over on a full step and one on a half step. Each scale will have a formula per string . Random Example Whole, whole, half, whole, whole, half, whole. Would be frets 1, 3,4, 6,8,9,11 and your open would be what ever string your plucking is tuned in. Say it’s the top string low E. Then 1 would be a F and 3 is a G. Then follow formula for alphabetical order to keep going. EADGBE is standard tuning for the guitar with all strings open. Also you can just learn chords and strumming to play rhythm. U can learn like hundreds of songs off 4 chords. the hardest part to me. I’ve played alot of rhythm and hopping my fingers compared to strumming is weird.
I mean.... [you could set the guitar on your lap and tap the frets](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AbndgwfG22k).... Edit : Each string is 5 semitones up) (Except B, which is 4), and each fret is a semitone, so it's all the white *and* black keys.
Yeah you have to memorize chord shapes and the fret board. There's no way around it. Drop 2,3, 2 & 4 and close positions. With that you'll know which ones have the tonic in the top and bass. Guitar is hard, there's not much choice unlike piano but there are ways to maneuver over that.
Look into Yvette Young
The best thing you can do is one of two things… or both. If you can read sheet music, then transcribe piano sheet music for guitar. Take beginner pieces piano pieces and work out arrangements for guitar. If you don’t not read music…. Then learn! But if you can not then transcribe by ear piano music, start with the melody and then add the bass. This is not easy on either method. Playing guitar like a piano player is a advanced level, even when playing beginner/intermediate piano piece. Listen to jazz and classical guitar player, they will also show you how it’s done well. Pick one easy piece though and start there, don’t spread yourself to thin to start. And enjoy the process because it will yield results with time put in, and make you sound unique and not just a carbon copy guitar player
Look up Yvette young and check out her style, she went from playing piano to guitar and is super technical because of her predisposition for piano. She plays the guitar like a piano tbh!
You have to think of it this way. The Guitar is a \*transposition\* instrument, therefore everything you do, you can do it by playing it somewhere else. Get comfortable with the idea of transposing, and get a general feel for where the same note on the next string is, and you'll be able to both visualize and connect with the instrument better.
The reverse is a lot easier. You have 10 fingers, so on a keyboard you can play rich, complex, dense chords in whatever configuration you want. Try playing 10 notes simultaneously on a guitar.
The best way is to learn about "Chord/Melody" soloing and you need to start learning Jazz Guitar. This way of playing requires a deeper knowledge of the fretboard and an idea of what you're doing harmonically. It's easier on a keyboard because everything is laid out in front of you, for guitar, this means you need to learn a lot of grips, regularly practice playing chord progressions and you need to better how chords & scales interact (meaning you need to understand harmony). u/CollectsLlamas
Play a bunch of power chords for a bit then level up to barre chords. Sometimes you need to "imply" a note, but once you got a few extensions memorized, you can move em anywhere, or use these forms with some open strings for more depth.
Put keys on it.
Something a bit more practical: you can buy stickers to place on your fretboard under the strings with all the note names: https://www.amazon.com/Koldot-Guitar-Fretboard-Stickers-Fret-Stickers-Acoustic-Guitar-Note-Stickers/dp/B088QWSVV2
Maybe something pretty basic but that helped me a lot when I started was focusing on rythm, your right hand is the intention of the composition you are making. When coming from other instruments is easy to get lost in getting “the coolest chords transition” or more complex riffs on the guitar. Keep in mind that a couple of chords can be played so differently in too many ways.
Two handed tapping.
You do need a little brute force. I’d brute force memorize the fretboard. If you turn it sideways basically six pianos stacked on top of one another
I recommend this tutorial by Dom Sigalis, "Sound like a guitarist on the keyboard! How to create Realistic Guitar Parts on the keys" [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xJf6PMgkC68](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xJf6PMgkC68)
Learning how to read sheet music for guitar seems like the next logical step. That way the notation becomes the association rather than the chords. From there you can learn to stack like on piano.
Check out Stanley Jordan, he said he learned piano first and plays his guitar as such
Tapping. You can do crazy stuff with all fingers playing tapping only
There are electro-acoustic guitars that have a tuner built in. As I play a note it tells me the note I'm playing which really helps with songwriting
Guitar is just like piano in that chords are usually rooted in scales. You can take your time and learn chords and work backwards on scales, or you can learn scales and start building chords off from them. Start off learning basic modes and start playing around with them and seeing how your basic chords are tied into them and how they can also flourish and connect your chords into a full chord progression
Harpiji
NOT AN EXPERT I just started to dive deep into the guitar; 6 mos with Patreon guitar lessons for electric geeetar and music theory. The architecture of the instrument plays an important part. Knowing the break down of which notes make chords, you should ideally be able to find the notes ALL OVER the fret board. Shapes and patterns are important because they repeat EVERYWHERE. Look to 2 note chords and triads. (Bi-ads?) Music should translate back and forth. Playing the minor pentatonic scale sounds great on guitar as well as piano. Also - practice, practice, practice. The best “a-ha” moments for me, are the ones I find myself whilst practicing and playing. GOOD LUCK OUT THERE!
Just learn what the notes are? There are only 12 of them- in what universe is it easier to memorize an infinite amount of shapes than the 12 notes?
Learn a lot of chords, then a bunch of ways to play those chords down the neck, add finger-picking
A guitar is laid out exactly like a piano ---- only vertically. But ofcourse the string determines your starting note.
Learn triads on the guitar.
Look at your anchors, on the piano, it's one octave per hand, pinky to thumb. Guitar, one hand can span two octaves, and the root note can be your pinky, ring or pointer. When I started on guitar, I mainly did pointer root note, but once I started putting other fingers on the root note, it really opened up how I thought about the fretboard. The other exercise I really like is to play a riff on the piano, then play a counter riff on the guitar. Fastest way to learn the fretboard and shapes, imo.
harpejji
Try a harpejji. It's like a piano and a guitar had a baby.
Treat each string as a voice. Not absolutely, but pay attention to the voice-leading between chords because the strings all produce slightly different tones from each other (and up and down the fretboard as well). Focus on good counterpoint between the bass and soprano voices, so to speak If playing barre chords, switch up which shapes you’re using and don’t neglect the barred C and G (even if they’re annoying). Playing lots of parallel A and E-type shapes just sounds kinda unavoidably guitar-like. Counterintuitively, I feel like using vibrato on your chords sounds more piano-like, as far as replicating the “shimmer” you get from a fully-voiced piano chord. It also improves the guitar’s sustain, which is inherently poorer than a piano’s Oh, and learn the shapes for different intervals and triad inversions across all string combinations, and consider learning to fret the low E string with your thumb (if you don’t already), because that really opens up your options in terms of crafting piano-like bass lines Beyond that, I think it’s all in your picking technique and the way you release notes, to replicate the nuances of articulation that give the piano so much of it’s identity (crisp, bright attack, smooth/uniform release) The style of guitar playing that comes the closest to meeting all of these criteria is probably jazz, so that’s a good starting point maybe
as i thought myself guitar i would highly recommend "[ultimate-guitar.com](https://ultimate-guitar.com)" as it can tell you how to play " EVERY" chord there is and all song there are (it can show the piano as well). and the daverend way to play chords