Monday, February 24, 2014

Augmented and diminished chord intervals... Ahh, very interesting...

This is a new area for my blog space that has to do with musicianship, particularly for you guitar players who are music therapy students and professionals. Actually, it's for anyone wanting to raise their level of guitar playing and musicianship, including entertainers and music teachers.



A while back, on GUITARplayLIKEaPRO.com, I introduced augmented and diminished chords. I talked about how to play them on the guitar and I also talked about how the chords are spelled, particularly about their note intervals. Their intervals produce something interesting regarding the guitar. Both augmented and diminished chords have the same amount of (steps) space between each note. For example, each note of an augmented chord, spelled 1-3-#5, has a major third between each note and similarly, each note of an diminished chord, spelled 1-b3-b5, bb7, has a minor third between each note. So what does that have to do with the guitar? Grab the augmented chord that is taught on GUITARplayLIKEaPRO.com (go to the Login/Videos tab then go to the Chords/Harmony category under the Professional Membership videos). With the augmented chord notice two things, first, if you move the chord up a major 3rd (the interval of each note in the chord) you have the same notes and chord. And second, any note in the chord can be the root. Check for yourself. Same goes for the diminished chord, except move that chord up or down a minor 3rd (the interval of each note in the chord) for the same notes and chord. Again, any note of this chord can be the root. Cool huh? That's why we (at least I) don't need many augmented and diminished chord forms to use on the guitar, because we can move them up and down the neck by major or minor 3rds.


When you purchase a guitar course from the The Creative Clinician you also receive a FREE, one year professional membership to guitarlplayikeapro.com, featuring 250 guitar lesson videos, with many music therapy clinical tips. Lessons are video based, able to be accessed 24/7.

So, as you improve your guitar playing, benefit from a wide variety of pertinent, interesting and professional courses offered by The Creative Clinician, receive CMTEs. Join us!