Beginner Guitar Chords – Learn How to Play the D7 Chord
The D7 Chord (also known as the Dominant D 7th Chord) is often referred to as a Blues chord. Once you learn to play it, you will understand why. It just has a real bluesy sound to it. It is definitely one of the easiest beginner chords to learn how to play.
There are several different ways to play it, but I will demonstrate the easiest way in the following post. The D7 Chord is found by first locating the 1(root note), 3 and 5 positions (D, F# and A) of the D Major Scale: D E F# G A B C# D, and then adding a flat 7 note. To locate the flat 7 note, we first find the 7th note of the D Major scale (C#) and then go back a 1/2 step to the C. So the notes of the D7 Chord are: A D A C F# .
Here is a key that will help you read the chart:
Chord Playing Tip: Be sure that you are pressing down on the string hard enough. You should play each string one at a time to make sure you have a nice clean sound. If any of the strings buzz or sound muted, then something is not right.
The video below will further demonstrate how to correctly play the D7 Chord. Enjoy!
Blues Guitar Chords – Using 7th Chords
By Keith Dean
It might be in the tempo or the rhythm pattern. Maybe it’s a fast shuffle, or the deliberate staccato of a slow 12/8 beat.
It may be the familiar changes of a I, IV, V chord progression that tips you off – or the lyrical ramblings lamenting lost loves and “you-done-me-wrong’s”.
But there is a good chance the recognition was triggered by structure of the song’s underlying chords.
Most beginning guitarists become familiar early on with major chords and minor chords. And millions of songs from many genres of music can be played using them.
But in blues music, it’s rare to find the use of a standard major or minor chord. Not unheard of, but rare.
More typically, you will encounter 7th chords, minor 7th chords, 9th chords, and augmented chords – just to name a few.
Many of these chords are very similar to their major or minor parent, with only a small change in one of the notes of the chord.
But it’s this subtle change that gives these chords the “bluesy” sound that tells your ears that you’re listening to the blues.
Here we will talk about 7th chords and how to use them to create blues progressions.
Technically, a 7th chord is formed using the major triad, and adding a flat 7th to it.
From a practical standpoint, let’s take a look at how to form a simple 7th chord from a standard “G” barre chord at the 3rd fret.
E———-3———-3—–
B———-3———-3—–
G———-4———-4—–
D———-5———-3—–
A———-5———-5—–
E———-3———-3—–
The first chord in the TAB above represents a G barre chord played on the 3rd fret.
The second chord is a G7 played at the same position. The only difference is the note on the D (4th) string. That note was lowered from the 5th fret, to the 3rd fret to make the G chord a G7.
A much easier way to visualize this is to think of the fingering pattern used when playing a G barre chord in this position. All you have to do to make it a G7 chord is to lift the 4th finger. No other change is necessary.
The neat thing about guitar is that you can transpose this to any key by simply sliding this chord position up or down the neck. In this way you can now play 7th chords anywhere.
Another commonly used 7th chord can be formed using barre chords in the “A” shape.
For example, a “C” major barre chord in the “A” shape, played at the 3rd fret would look like the first example below:
E———-3———-3—–
B———-5———-5—–
G———-5———-3—–
D———-5———-5—–
A———-3———-3—–
E—————————-
The second example above represents the C7 chord which is formed by lowering the note on the 5th fret of the 3rd string two frets to the 3rd fret. This requires a minor change in fingering, but is easily accomplished.
These 7th chords can also be transposed to any key by simply sliding them up or down the neck to the desired position.
By using the two formations of 7th chords shown above, you can now apply these to a multitude of blues songs.
To illustrate, a song using a I, IV, V chord progression in the key of “G” would consist of the chords G, C and D.
You can make this into a blues sounding progression by substituting the major chords with 7th chords.
The result would be a chord progression comprised of G7, C7 and D7.
The G7 would be played using the formation in the first example above – the C7 would be played using the second example above, and the D7 would be played by sliding the C7 chord formation up two frets.
Experiment with these chords in different keys and get used to playing them. You’ll find that you will use them over and over.
The subtle difference of changing a major chord to a 7th chord can take a standard rock or country song and turn it into blues song just by inserting these simple blues guitar chords.
For more information on how to play blues guitar visit: http://learnandmasterbluesguitar.com/
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Acoustic Slide Guitar Lessons
acoustic slide guitar lessons? The following post contains 10 awesome slide guitar lessons that were hand picked from Youtube and gathered here for your convenience. Learning how to play slide guitar is challenging in the beginning, but as with anything else, practice will make perfect. Just be persistent and do not give up now matter how long it takes. Soon you will be playing slide guitar like a master bluesman. Enjoy!
How to Tune Your Guitar -- Open D Tuning for Slide Guitar
This is the most common tuning for playing slide guitar.
Guitar Lessons -- Learn to Play Beginner Blues Slide Guitar
Acoustic Fingerstyle Guitar Studio:Slide Workshop
John Morris from www.acousticfingerpicking.com teaches slide guitar techniques in the styles of Blind Willie Johnson, Duane Allman, Robert Johnson, Ry Cooder and many others.
Beginner Blues Slide Guitar Lesson -- Acoustic Slide Guitar
Absolute Beginner Guitar Lessons- How to Use a Blues Slide
This is a how to guitar lesson that shows how to hold a slide and get rid of unwanted sounds. Great for beginner blues guitar players!
Basic Blues Slide Guitar Lesson
Advanced Slide Guitar Lesson
Advanced Techniques for Slide Guitar.
How To Play Slide Guitar Intro To 1930 Bottleneck Blues Style
Slide guitar Lesson -- Different approaches
Acoustic Blues Guitar Lessons
So you want to learn how to play the blues on your acoustic guitar? On this page you will find a collection of excellent acoustic 
blues guitar lessons that I gathered from YouTube from the folks over at Next Level Guitar. I can’t promise you will become the next B.B King or Stevie Ray Vaughn after watching these lessons, but you will certainly gain a lot of great insight into playing the blues. Enjoy and happy blues guitar playing!
Beginner Acoustic Blues Rhythm Guitar Lesson
In this beginner lesson we a fun and easy beginner blues rhythm. Play it on acoustic or electric -- rock on!
Acoustic Blues Guitar Lesson -- Spice Up that Bluesy Playing
In this lesson we teach an acoustic blues lesson on how to spice up some blues progressions and move around the guitar neck. Works with electric guitars also
Acoustic Rhythm Guitar Lesson -- How to Play the Blues ZZ Top
Beginner Acoustic Guitar - Learn 7th Chords
In this guitar lesson we expand your chord catalog by teaching some open position 7th chords on the acoustic guitar and also some practice progressions using these new chords.
Learn Acoustic Blues Lead Guitar Licks and Solo Playing
In this lesson we teach how to embellish and play lead licks over an acoustic blues. LOts of fun and the licks can be played on acoustic or electric guitars.
Acoustic Blues Fingerstyle Guitar Lesson
In this video we teach some acoustic blues fingerpickingin the styles of Eric Clapton and Robert Johnson and many more.
3 Blues Guitar Soloing Secrets
Running up and down a pentatonic scale is an easy way to get started playing blues guitar solos, but you soon realize that there’s more to it than that to create the sounds of blues players you listen to. Here are three secrets to help you extend your pentatonic skills and sound more like your blues guitar heroes.
Minor and Major
Instead of running around minor or major pentatonic positions, get into the habit of using both.
Many blues players use a mixture of both the minor and major scales as well as the blues scale. This one secret will give your solos a whole new dimension.
An easy way to do this is to use the pentatonic major scale over the I chord, and switch to the pentatonic minor on the IV and V chords. Pop on your favourite blues jam track and try this out.
If you play the major scale over the IV chord you’ll notice that it sounds kind of odd. The major third tone is the major seventh of the IV chord and clashes with the chord’s dominant seventh note. The minor third hits that dominant seventh and sounds way better.
Play Less Notes
A big mistake lots of novice blues soloists make is to play too many notes. Once you’ve learned the pentatonic or blues scales you’re usually eager to show off your knowledge by trying to go as fast as you can and play as many notes as possible in the least possible time.
Your licks and solos can be made much more effective, though, by limiting the notes you play, and their quantity. To develop this skill select at most three or four notes from the available scales and practice licks and whole solos with only those notes.
Throw In Some Chords
You can improve your solos by developing your skill with the blues scales, but another way to get ahead fast is to throw in a few chords from time to time.
As with any other trick, the skill here is not to overdo it. Don’t start playing chords on every bar, but punctuate your single note licks with chords or chord fragments from time to time and you’ll take your solos to new heights.
Of course, the other important trick with this technique is to hit the right chord. You can practice this by firing off one, two or four bar licks and ending each one by hitting the right chord for that bar. Again, use a jam track, or record a simple chord backing, so your mistakes will stand out.
Bonus: Getting Chromatic
Here’s a bonus secret for you, you don’t have to stick to the scales all the time. Throwing in out of scale notes builds tension in your solos that you release by ending on a scale tone.
Practice linking notes of the scale with chromatic runs. This technique works well as a lead in to new phrases. You can take the tension to its maximum by using out of time rhythms too.
The basic ingredients of blues guitar solos are quite simple to learn, the pentatonic scale positions can be learned and memorized relatively easily and quickly. But don’t stop there, there are plenty of different ways to apply them to create more interesting sounds. These three secrets will give you a good start, but keep on the look out for more to build your bag of blues solo tricks.
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