[MUSIC] Now those were some open position major chords. Now we're going to talk about open position minor chords. Now the difference between major and minor quite simply put is the third degree. If we take the third degree in the middle of those cords and we lower it one half step or one fret, we wind up with a minor cord. For example, remember that major scale that we played, C? [MUSIC] And we wound up with one, three, and five. And we play that and we have a major chord. If we were to take the third degree, which is the E, [MUSIC] And we just lower it [MUSIC] A half step which is one fret on the guitar. And we played a one, [MUSIC] [MUSIC] flat three [MUSIC] and five [MUSIC] We would wind up with a C minor chord. [MUSIC] This was C major, [MUSIC] and this is C minor. [MUSIC] The major is described as having a happy sound. [MUSIC] And the minor Is often described as having a sad sound. [MUSIC] Major. [MUSIC] And minor. [MUSIC] And the only difference is that one half step. [MUSIC] Now, in the same way we had some very simple open-position major chords we have some very easy open-position minor chords and the formula is exactly the same. It's one, three, and five, but we flat the third degree. We lower it by one half step or one fret. One of the easiest cords, open position minor cords. Is the A minor cord that we leaned in the first lesson. This is an A minor, open position chord. [MUSIC] Now if we start from the root on the fifth string [MUSIC] We have A, which is 1. [MUSIC] We have the E, which is 5. [MUSIC] We double the root on the third string, second fret, with another A. [MUSIC] And we have a C natural which is the flat third. [MUSIC] And then we have the E on top which is our five. Now if you remember, our A major chord sounded like this [MUSIC]. That C sharp [MUSIC] Which is the third, we lower a half step [MUSIC] And we wind up with an A minor chord. [MUSIC] Open position chords allow you to use the open strings as part of the chord. [MUSIC] And we can double the fifth, which is the E on the sixth string as an open string. [MUSIC] It's a full, rich, sound. That's an A minor open position cord. [SOUND] We can do something for E minor, we start at the root. [MUSIC] We have the fifth witch is the B on the fifth strings second fret. [MUSIC] We double the root. [MUSIC] On the third string second fret. [MUSIC] And we had a flat third. [MUSIC] With the G open string, third string. [MUSIC] Five, which is a B open string. [MUSIC] And then we have the root again doubled at the top. [MUSIC] So, we wind up with an E minor open position chord. Now, if you remember. When we played our E major chord, this was our E major chord. [MUSIC] The G sharp was the third in the E major chord. [MUSIC] For the E minor, we lowered the third by a half step. [MUSIC] We get a flat at third and we have an E minor chord. [MUSIC] We can do the same thing for a D minor chord. Start off with the D, which is the root. We have the A, five. [MUSIC] Double the D again, and then we have an F natural for the flatted third. [MUSIC] Again, if you remember, when we played our D major chord. [MUSIC] We had an F sharp. That was our natural three, but the minor chord we flat the third and we wind up with a D minor open position chord. [MUSIC] So those are some open position minor chords. You can practice those, just get used to changing between chords. [MUSIC] You can try comparing the sound of the major to the minor. [MUSIC] A major. [MUSIC] A minor. [MUSIC] E major. [MUSIC] E minor. And practice changing in-between chords, so that your fingers can get used to making those changes. Those were some open position major and minor chords. Now, even with that smaller selection of chords you'd be surprised to see the number of tunes that you can play. There are many tunes that we know and love that only have two or three chords in them. Now I'm going to talk about a device called the Capo. Many of those open position chords are not what we call moveable. so you couldn't take, for example, your A major. [MUSIC] And then, all of a sudden, move it up to the 5th fret and play the same thing and use the open strings. What a Capo does Is effectively moves the nut and the first fret to a different place on the fretboard. So here I have a pretty standard capo. If I were to place this on the third fret, I can play some of the open position shapes that I played when I didn't have the capo. [MUSIC] And I can play some of the open position chords. [MUSIC] Now keep in mind that the chords, when you use the Capo, even though they have the same shape now have a completely different root and therefore, a completely different name. So you have to be aware of where the root is in the chord, so that you can know the names of the chords that you're playing. Now, there are ways to play other chords, of course, in different places on the neck. There's a method that we can talk about In the next section were we can actually use our first finger effectively as a Capo. That allows us to play some of the shapes in a movable fashion. That’s called a bar technique and we'll talk about that in next section.
