 Guitar and Excel open chords C major scale E minor 3 chord fingering Get ready because it's time for our guitar skills to Excel Here we are in Excel if you don't have access to this workbook That's okay because we basically built this from a blank worksheet, but we started in a prior presentation So if you want to build this from a blank worksheet, you may want to begin back there However, you don't necessarily need access to this workbook if looking at this from a music theory standpoint Because we'll simply use it as a tool to map out the fretboard Give us the scale and chords that we're focused in on if you do have access to this workbook though There's currently like seven tabs down below. We've got like four or five Example tabs in green and og orange tab in a practice tab the og orange tab representing the original worksheet We put together in a prior section it now acting as our starting point going forward Mapping out the entire fretboard giving us our entire musical alphabet in letters numbers and combining them both Providing an adjustable key that will be used to construct the scales and chords Worksheets on the right-hand side the worksheets giving us the scale that we're focused in on and the chord Constructions we then wanted to focus in on the C major scale and the chords that can be constructed from it in Open position Starting with the one chord of course the C chord which we did over here on the first tab So we minimized the fretboard we mapped out the notes in the key of The C chord and then we talked about its fingering position in great detail We then jumped over to the four chord Instead of going to the two chord because the four chord will also construct a C me I mean not not a C it will construct a major scale which will be an F and That will look similar in some ways when we look at the relationship in particular between the one and the three Notes in the chord and then we jump to the G which is the five for a similar reason And we mapped it out on the fretboard and we talked about it in relation to the C scale And then we went back to the minors back up to the two chord and we construct it it and talked about it in depth And now we're going to the next minor chord, which is the three chord So bottom line is we're still constructing this from the key of C now But now we're constructing from the third note in the chord Which is an E and just taking every other note E Skipping a note to G skipping a note to B and the current worksheet We're on is the practice worksheet We copied over the og tab and now we're working on the three chord, which is the E minor chord So we're looking at E minor and the last time we created this worksheet We hid all the cells on the fretboard except for what I'm defining as open position That being frets zero through three and then we mapped it out on top of the C majors pentatonic on top of the C majors Major scale we combined them both and then we have some other worksheets that we put together on down below All right So now we just want to work on the fingering on the guitar and look at it that way as we do the fingering We color-coded the one three five so remember when I say it's the one three five We're talking about relative positions as the as though this E is the one position in the chord Even though we constructed it from the C major scale How did we construct it well? We started on the C majors on the C major scale with an E and skipped every other note But we're thinking about that not as the three note But as the one in its own related scale So if I go back to the og tab and I make this on e which is an eight Then the major is up top. It's related minor. I have a worksheet down below for for a minor It's not the related minor, but with the same first note the e So here's an e minor and now you can see that it is in position of position one and the one The three and the five if I skip every other note still gives us that e g and b So when I name it one three five We're naming it in relation to this being the one note of the particular chord Even though it's the three note of the scale that we constructed it from okay, so then we said that the the Green notes up top are are going to be the ones and the red notes are going to be the threes and then The yellow are is going to be the Fives so the classic fingering of this is to just be holding down these two notes right here. Let's make another Another one of these and I'll make it yellow Like that so what we're actually holding down usually is just right here and it's nice and simple easy position and Usually I use the middle two fingers usually to do that You don't have to people will do different fingerings But that's what I do because sometimes when you go to an e major Will put our finger down on this string So that's why I typically use these two but a lot of people will use these two a lot of people feel that That's more comfortable and if you're moving from an e Minor to a g which is a quite a common move Then that's that might be a more comfortable type of fingering because then you could just do that However, if you're moving from a c right like this To an a like this to an e minor and then playing the g this way which a lot of people would argue is a more Less movement of your hand in that position. So it really depends on what you want what you want to do I find this to be a very comfortable position and I like to play it with The other chords often in the key of C and that works in the key of C well because remember we've played the C That f and then if you play the g like this right if you play the g like this and then the d is down here and Then you've got your e and so so that's why this fingers always kind of hanging out for me over here and that works quite well But there's alternatives where I'll switch up and play some the shuffle pattern like this Switching from an e minor basically to kind of like a g holding down the g So that's going to be the normal type of fingering remember when you when you're practicing with this We can practice this in a couple different ways One way is that I can say I'm seeing this as the three chord in the C scale So if I'm trying to make the C the one chord and playing it in C major Then I can I just gonna noodle around with the notes that I know with the chords that I know C F G D e and Then and then make the C the home base So and I can always lift my fingers up. I can put a little bit of flair in there Back to an e minor Right, and I'm just gonna shuffle I'm just gonna shuffle in the e minor But keep the root note as the C is what I was trying to do at least I might not have shown that as But the other way you can practice this if you're really focusing in on the e minor is to say now I'm gonna make that note the the central focal point. So I'm gonna be playing around the And I'm just all I'm trying to do here to show that if I keep on going back to the e as the focal point It'll sound more like it's in the key of e now what you're really doing There is you're basically playing a mode when you do that, right? So now I'm playing the third mode of Of the C major scale. So if I was to go to the right and say my modes are to the right There's my minor mode That's and there's this the Dorian And then the Phrygian so we would be basically playing Phrygian and if I hide these cells Just to check that out from here to let's go to here and right-click and hide and So I'm gonna have to use two hands here and scroll back a bit So you can see here now all all this is doing this mode is doing is taking the same These same notes and same scale constructions But orientating it so that the focal point is the three note which is now the one note The minor notes here represented by the lowercase Roman numerals are at the one the four and then the seven This is the dot with the diminished So the one is an e the four is an a and the seven is a d whereas over here It's the two three and six, but we still have the e the a and the d are the minor chord constructions So you can look at it that way if you want and that's useful to be able to kind of talk about from that Perspective but a lot of times when people are practicing when you're learning this stuff You might just be saying okay I'm gonna practice my e and so I'm just gonna kind of treat that e as though It's gonna be my focal point and I'm gonna try to put some stuff around it that will kind of center back to my e Thinking e minor thinking of it as my as my center point now The next thing you can do of course is because we're playing in the key of C and we constructed the e minor within it We can start playing with picking up our fingers, right? So we can play anything within the scale we talked about that before because we'll talk about the scale Later so so we could we can noodle around here and pick up notes within the scale But one thing we know is that all the open notes are fair game So I can always just pick up a finger when I'm kind of just noodling around to try to learn a new a new scale So I could be saying okay. What if I just picked up, you know that finger I could be playing this And see how that's going to be fitting into my My patterns to give me a little bit a little bit of something different and then I could of course do this one and I could pick that finger up So I can do something Now we can analyze this later But that one is a is a kind of important one because that's the seven we're opening up a D So that's a common Position and then these three down here We're probably not going to play those by themselves an open position right because it's so you just you know You would just open up those three strings But that's a nice position notice how nice and moveable that position is That's a nice moveable position and before I get into the moveableness of the position first thing just realize The moveableness in in general when I before I get into the pieces of the movement moveability This is your classic bar cord for a Minor bar cord so so this whole thing you can see here You can this if you imagine your finger barring this fret It would look more like that typically then you can move it up So if I moved it up to like an a right here You've got your classic bar cord for a minor shape for your when you're starting on this basically this top string or the low II String now that bar cord is a little bit Difficult to hold down all the time and you don't always need to so notice What you want to do is look at that bar cord and look at the pieces of it That will still construct the cord that you want to construct or at least just part of the cord that you want to construct And that's often very useful. You don't always have to hit the entire bar cord So just something to realize from that like if I played this bar cord on a Right, I've got I've got this is the one if it was an a and this is the five and this is a one So these are two a's and then this way down here. I finally get to that's the equivalent to this note I finally get to The third so I'd have to bar this off to get down to that third to really make it make sure that I get everything I need To make it the minor cord notice. I could construct another way you can construct this as I just put my finger down here and I can construct it this way So I know that I'm picking up that third because I'm porting at it directly and now I don't have this a unless I want to grab it with my thumb Which you could which is kind of a fun way to do it But you don't have it you could just mute it out and you already have an a down here So find this is a really useful Easier three note Construction of the bar cord so a lot of times you want to be breaking up these shapes To see an either an easier method that you might use to play it obviously This down here. You've got your three notes down here Is another see how that's that movable shape that we can basically move up So when you look at your your big this big bar cord shape when you look at it in open position It looks a lot different of course because you're just holding down these two strings And you don't have to worry about the bar but you want to kind of visualize it because this is your classic bar cord not just in terms of How do I move up the entire bar? But how can I break this into chunks that I can be useful if I play just these three notes? For example that could be really useful to play over the top of something else because because now you're playing something It's a little higher in the spectrum That's not going to clash as much and this is just a really when you move the the shape up This shape is a lot easier To play then the entire bar chords, so that's just functionally useful and then you could do something Basically up top notice up top again if you just played these notes You're not really getting that G until you get down to that G, but we could play it like this Right. This is another way that We could play it so now you've got These two notes still that I'm holding down, but now I'm picking up that G above it So now it's an interesting construction because now down here the the highest pitch string the one Closest to the floor is actually the root note and as we've seen before on both the major and minor Constructions the five is usually right above it so a five is above it so if this is the one a five is above it unless you're in between these two strings and Then you've got the major third up one over one and that's a nice moveable shape It's kind of low in pitch and it's it doesn't have the lowest note It's inverted right. It doesn't have the lowest note or the key of the Chord as the lowest note, but it's a pretty simple way to basically play that chord And then you can figure out what you can do with this finger if there's anything that you can hold down You know with this finger we'll talk more about that later, but that's another way that you can construct it Which is a nice moveable type of shape Now the thing I like about these minor the minor chord constructions is that They often allow you so if I if I was to just hold down This one string we do that same shuffle pattern that we saw down here when we looked at the D minor Where I can oh have that open D and I can shuffle Back and forth from a D to An F basically so you have the same kind of thing here where you could say okay. Well, what if I if I Have this This shape well how hold on put it up here I'm gonna be up here this time And if I if I just hold down that B or I can hold down these two strings if I want Then you've got the top bit of that of that E you've got an E You got a B you got another E You don't have the third down here and then I can shuffle back and forth to this G now It's kind of interesting I usually think about this when I hold these two strings as like I'm holding down a G Because I'm holding down a G kind of chord because if that's the one the third of the G is down one and back one So I think of it as shuffling between an E minor kind of thing and a G But you can also think of it as completing the E minor right because I have If this is open I've got I've got the root and then I've got the five Which is basically like a power chord and then when I hold this one down That's the third so I'm kind of completing the E minor chords so you can think of it either as You know you're going back and forth from like an E minor to a G Major or you can think of it This is my E minor two of the notes out of the three and now I'm picking up the third when I put that finger down Whatever you want to think of it as it's useful to think of it You know kind of different ways, but you get that nice little shuffle And then you can start to pick up anything within this shape and kind of arpeggiated I'm just going to pick up what these two notes in this shape And all I'm thinking is I'm going to shuffle back and forth from here to here And so I'm playing this and then back to here and then I'm going to be picking up this note from time to time And then I might pick up, you know the open notes down here And then you could start to start to play with like rhythm patterns with this kind of thing because of these open notes That are nicely there when you look at the minor so So I'm just kind of messing around It gets once you get in like the rhythm of whatever rhythm that you are doing That can be kind of a fun thing to do in a fun way to learn This particular fingering position and then of course you can always go back to the classic E shape Which you can play this way, E minor or this way, right? I can go Or I can put a full G shape in there sometimes, right? Right and you can kind of throw in any of these other notes in like a shuffle pattern like that Or now I'm kind of hovering around the E minor I'm just trying to make the E minor the home base here And I'm just kind of shuffling around and throwing in some other stuff just playing with my fingering And noodling around in this particular position So another way, you don't really see people play it often as much But I mean you could play like this hold down this G down here right Because now you've got this E and then you've got these two open You could play that and it's kind of a nice voicing actually So if you just switch from the different ways to play E You get some interesting different voicings, right? I can do this I can do this I could just play these three And you could throw all those different Any of those voicings should work anytime that an E minor shows up in a progression And so now you can kind of do something a little bit different with it But then the next thing we'll talk about it in relation to the shapes later What am I trying to say the scale shapes later But now if you wanted to move this up Then you could say okay there's my classic E minor kind of shape I can then typically move it if I'm thinking of myself in the key of C Then it's the three note and I can move it to the six And then I can move it to the two because you'll have a similar construction And therefore you can use your classic shape to move it up So let's right click and unhide this And then I'm going to hide from 14 over to here So I'm going to right click and hide So now I can say okay I'm going to start here in this shape Boom And if I think about this as my full kind of bar chord shape Then my root note is this E And if I move that E up to the next bit Because I'm right here I'm going to move it up until I get to the next minor chord Which is going to be an A I'm looking for the A on this string So I'm going to go da da da da da A is right here on the fifth So now on the fifth I can't It would be like I would just play this But of course I can't do that really I could try to do this but I'd have to replace it with these two fingers And there's your typical kind of bar chord You have to kind of double stop it here Usually to try to get all those fingers down And you get that full bar chord But remember I used to think that well you have to And also just if you A lot of times people try to put their finger like on the tip right here And that makes it harder to bar down here So when you're really barring off Put as much whatever Bars all this off and you have more meat of the finger hanging off the top up here That's fine Because that might make it easier to bar the ones below it But And then you can put this finger on top to try to give it more pressure So you have that And you can also lift up this finger like we did before Because we have the same kind of concept of all these Well it's not exactly the same We'll talk about that later But you have that Now remember that you might use pieces of this though So the best piece of it I think is if you cut this down into this bit You could say well if I just like move my finger from here And I put it down here I've got everything I need But I'm over here now I've got everything I need over here See because now this is the root It's an A because this was an A And now this is an A so I had two As But when I had this full bar chord I have to get all the way down here to this note That C to complete the three notes in the chord Well why don't I just grab that C directly right there And I already have an A right here And so that's a lot easier to play And you can do stuff with that a little bit more easily Oftentimes too because I can go back from hammer-ons Now it's a little bit of an inversion though Because of course the A is not the lowest note in the chord But you could also grab this one with your thumb periodically If you wanted to put that in the bass That's not really a classical guitar maneuver But if you get into blues I think it's kind of common You can reach out and you can still get that bass note And you could put this finger down here too So you got everything but this bottom note So instead of doing this You're basically grabbing this, grabbing the top with your thumb And you could put this other finger down here And you got most of the strings anyways But just the core of it is this three note bit down here And then of course you've got this three note bit down here So now you can see this shape moved up That's a really useful little shape to play Because it's on the higher strings And if you're playing with a band or something like that That's less likely to clash than this big bar chord Where you might be more likely to clash with other stuff Okay, so then of course you can move it up again Now we're going around the horn from an A Around the circle back up to a D So I'm going to find the D on this string So I'm going to go d-d-d-d-d-d, D it's on the 10 So 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 And so there's your D Again the full bar chord is tough to play kind of So you could play something like this And then you'd be playing the D minor So if I was to practice just moving that shape up I could move it from here And if I can move it in this middle strings In this middle register to here And you can practice kind of moving up and back You can also practice it down here And then close it out with the full chord And then you could also think of it Well what if I converted this to the E minor scale If you made it an E minor scale Then you can do it, it would be the 1, 4, 5 So I'm going to unhide these And just to check that out Unhide these And then notice when I constructed this worksheet What I did was look for the relative major Which is the G And it's useful when you're looking at these minor ones Every other mode which a minor is a mode It's kind of useful sometimes to think of it As being related to its major Because you can think about everything Have being constructed from the major scale At least when you're looking at these major minor chord constructions So you don't think like you're memorizing Like an infinite number of unrelated things Anyways I have to unhide between these two Unhide And then I'll hide over to the minor So right click and hide So we've been thinking about everything In terms of the major scale construction But if you look at it in terms of the minor Then you can move up, it would be the 1, 4, 5 So the minor chords when you look at the minor It's interesting because then you're starting on a minor And the 1, 4, 5 are all minors Whereas the rest of them in this case The 3, 6, 7 is going to be the major And then the diminished half to 2 And when you play the majors The 1, 4, 5 are the majors So that's kind of an easy thing to kind of remember But then you'd have the same thing So you have the same chord construction here In terms of our E minor But now I'm going to move it up So I'm going to move it up from here I'm looking for the A again So I move it up to that A And that would be here Now remember if you're looking at this shape Like this shape Then I'm going to say maybe I'm not going to use this note As my guiding note I'm going to say it's going to be this note So I'm looking at that E And I'm looking at that string and saying Where is the next note That I'm looking for an A on that string So I'm going to go It's right there So it's right there And then I construct this around that Which I'm going to say is this shape Because I'm looking at it in terms of just those 3 strings And that's my guiding note And then I'm just building the chord around that Or if I'm looking at these 3 strings down here I'm saying what's the guiding note It's the bottom note So I'm going to go up here And I'm going to find an A which is right there And say okay There's my guiding note And remember this one is A useful type of fingering as well So these 3 what's my guiding note It's the E at the bottom here So I'm going to find my A It's right there Boom So I can shuffle it up to here And if you get good at moving between those positions You'll get a sense for where the 1, 4, 5 In relation to each other And you'll get a sense of being able to move these Succinctly up And then just keep in mind where the note That you're kind of focaling on And that is that Okay so then the 5 is right here So if I'm on that A And I'm looking at that Then I'm going to go up to the B And so then you've got that same shape Right here So if I'm playing the 1, 4, 5 And E minor Then you have that same shape But it's moving up to slightly different spots Because we're now in the minor scale As opposed to the major scale We'll talk more about that later But it's kind of fun to move these chords up And if you want to practice moving them up Then you can kind of think of Just switching your mind like Okay I'm moving it up in accordance to The C scale Or some mode of the C scale Or am I switching my mind all the way over E minor in which case I'm moving it up In positions 1, 4, 5 Of the E minor And then we'll talk about the scales Kind of around that In future presentations Alright so let's just unhide This right click And unhide And then I'm going to go back up top And hide from 4 To here Right click And hide And then I'll put My construction back in place here So it's going to be This is my normal Construction is there There There There There And there Okay so next time We'll talk about this a little bit more in depth In relation to Major And minor scales Constructed in the key of C And what the difference would be if we constructed the scale Not in the key of C but And it's related into the scale of the E minor scale