Chords

Chords are very useful  as most songs are based on them or at least use them at some point.  You can go look up chords and thats good if you are a beginner, but to gain freedom independence you need to know chord theory. Knowing chord theory allows you to play any chord, anywhere on the fretboard easily.

So here it is. A chord is a combination of three or more notes. The first note you want to worry about is your root which determines the key of the chord. Triads are three note chords which are created with a root, third and fifth. For example a major triad is built with a major third and a perfect fifth from the root.

Major triads

If you want to build a C major chord you would need the root , the major third and the perfect fifth. as you probably already know the notes on the 5 line staff are e f g a b c d e. So you take your root which would be C, count four half steps so you get to your third ,E, and finally get to the fifth by counting 7 half steps which takes you to G. So your complete C major triad contains the notes 
C-E-G.

Minor triads

A minor triad is created with a minor third and a perfect fifth from the root. To get a minor third you only count 3 half steps (on a guitar a minor chord has its third one step lower on the neck than a major chord) and to get your perfect fifth you again count 7 half steps. So if you want to build an A minor chord you will end up with A-♭C-E

In not going to go into too much detail, because this is really all you need to get started. I will post another article about the other chord types sometime in the future. 

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