Help the new guy! - Simply Noob question :).

Hi,

First off, I'd like to introduce myself. My name is Donny. I have been playing guitar at home in my free time for around 2 years now, but just isn't getting anywhere. I had 2-3 private lessons a few months back, and that really helped quite a bit, but other than that, I'm a lost sheep.

I used to play the piano, and am able to sing out the tune to any song I hear in piano notes (doe, ray, me, far, so, la, ti, doe). However, I can never find which chords to play on my acoustic guitar if I want to play the song right there right then.

Any tips or words of advice from the pros here at GuitarTricks? It would be really helpful :).

Thank you,
Donny

Hi Donny,

Without going into too much detail, what you're talking about is Chord Theory. Try this "One, Four, Five" formula for a simple song, for starters.

Choose a chord to start on, like, for instance, a C chord. Call that chord #1 (or Do). Now figure out what chord #4 (Fa) and #5 (Sol) would be. In this case, the 4th chord up from C is F, and the 5th chord up is G.

So, C, F, and G go together as a package deal. Try them for any simple song you can think of - like, Happy Birthday, for instance. Start the song on a C chord and make cord changes when you get to a point in the song where C no longer sounds right.

There's more to this Chord Theory stuff, but "One, Four, Five" is a good place to start. Try it in other keys as well, such as starting the song on a G chord, and figuring out the #4 and #5 chords that go with it.

Hope that helps a little!
- Lisa McCormick, Guitar Tricks Instructor

Welcome to GT... :) Try doing a forum search on diatonic harmony... :cool:

Quick summary:

C Major Scale - C D E F G A B and back to C again
Intervals (W=Whole Tone 2 frets, H=Semi Tone 1 fret) - WWHWWWH

Chords in C Major (Triads) - C Dm Em F G Am Bdim C
Chords in C Major (7ths) - Cmaj7 Dm7 Em7 Fmaj7 G7 Am7 Bm7b5 Cmaj7

We've talked about this a fair bit though, so try the forum search feature - you'll find loads of info...

I may have misunderstood the original post but I thought the question was more along the lines of: How do I work out which chord(s) to play when the piano is playing x notes.

At least I was hoping that is what the question was because I would like to know that as well. Obviously you could sit down and work out which notes are being played in total, then work out which scale that is, then establish a chord or chords from that scale.. but you can't do that every time, and it's also not very time efficient.. and also makes it look like you have no idea.. hehe.. :p

Thanks everyone. You have all been a great help, and I very much appreciate it :). Rep added to all.

Now yes, light487, that is exactly my question. I don't want to play a whole song one note or chord at a time, just like on the piano. No, I want it to sound good like what LisaMCc talked about. Here's what I'm talking about:

C C7
Jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle all the way,
F C D7 G7
Oh what fun it is to ride in a one-horse open sleigh, hey,
C C7
Jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle all the way,
F C G7 C
Oh what fun it is to ride in a one-horse open sleigh.

In this example, I can hum out the piano notes (me me me, me me me, me so doe ray me....). I just can't figure out which chords to play. See in this example, with the piano, I started with E (me), but with the guitar chords, I play the C note first. I'm just trying to figure out a pattern that I could adapt to so I can quickly grab any song I hear, and play it out using my guitar, somewhat matching the tune, right there on the fly :).

Thank you,
Donny

I'm not sure if you've done any chorus, and I'm not sure if you know your notes.

At the risk of making a fool of myself:

Do Re Mi Fa So La Ti Do, wasn't constructed to name the notes on the piano, we've got the alphabet for that. The syllables were constructed by monks in order to teach sight singing(seeing music on paper and singing the right melody).

Do was the starting tone, the Tonic. or the 1st, as Lisa put it. So, in Jingle bells, you stated the first note as Mi, which would be right if it started on a C. C(Do) D(Re) E(Mi). So, I guess I'm trying to say that the syllables are relative, move 'em wherever.

Now... in a song where you have a note, and you want to figure out a guitar rhythm to play over it. One thing that helps is to find the key. You've played piano, so I'm hoping you know your Key Signatures(The sharps and flats to the left of the treble clef). So, whatever the key is, say, E, like in your arrangement of jingle bells, that means that most of your notes will be inside that scale. E-F#-G#-A-B-C#-D#-E

That's the E major scale. So, if the melody is playing an E notes, (E E E, Jingle Bells) You can play an E Major chord over it. A major chord is constructed by the 1st note in the scale, the 3rd, and the 5th. In this case, E, G#, B. But unlike piano, on a guitar you usually hit octaves of your notes to get a fuller sound. An E major chord on the guitar is E(6th string 0 fret) B(5th string 2nd)
E(4th string 2nd) G#(3rd string 1st) B(Open 2nd string) E(Open 1st string.) So you're playing E B E G# B E. Or 1 5 1 3 5 1. They're just octaves of those notes. It's a triad, only fuller.

If I completely misunderstood your post, whoops.

If not, I hope this helps.

Ahhh Darn


I just reread your message, and I think the issue is that the piece you looked up for guitar is in a different key than in your piano piece, which would explain why it sounded weird when you tried to play along. C natural isn't in the key of E, so it lent some dissonance.

My bad. Transpose it, if you don't know how, I'm sure a handy person on GT will step up, 'cause I gotta split. Good luck.