How To Get Faster At Guitar Chords & Improvise Your Own Creative Chord Progressions Part 2

Getting fast at basic guitar chords is just the beginning to playing super-cool and expressive ideas with your instrument. Learning how to play guitar chords that use different notes in the bass opens the door to tons more musical options.

 

If you haven’t read it already, check out part 1 of this article to learn about getting started playing guitar chords faster.

Use Guitar Chords More Creatively By Moving Across The Entire Fretboard With Inversions

 

Once you master the ability to play basic guitar chords in a single position, it’s time to expand across the fretboard to get rid of any limitations in your playing. Get started by learning how to play chords using inversions. Inversions simply means you play a note other than the root (i.e. the note after which the chord is named) as the lowest sounding note.

 

For example: Instead of playing an E major chord (E G# B) with the open E string as the lowest sounding note, play it by fretting the “G#” on the 11th fret of the A string like in the middle chord of this example:

Guitar Chord Inversions

Using inversions not only opens up the fretboard with new patterns to use, but helps you get a new creative sound in your guitar playing while still using the same notes.

 

This video shows how using inversions gives you tons of additional options to express yourself with guitar chords without using different notes:

Tip for quickly learning these chord patterns:

 

Practice the root position, 1st and 2nd inversion patterns one-after-the-other as many times as you can within 1-minute. Write down how many times you were able to play all three chords cleanly, then try to beat this number each day.

Give Yourself Tons Of Creative Options Using 7 Chords With Inversions

 

7 chords can be played in inversions just like basic chords and have 3 inversions instead of just 2 (since they have one more note than basic chords).

Here is an example showing an E major 7 chord with three inversions:

Learn Guitar Chord Inversions

Learn the 7 chord inversions faster by comparing the notes within them to those of the basic guitar chords. This helps you map out the fretboard a bit more so your brain connects the patterns together, making it easier to fret them quickly.

 

Using 7 chords in inversion often means needing to use chords that begin on the low E string (to give yourself more space to work with). This often gives you easier patterns that sound better than some of the other pattern variations due to how close some notes are played together:

Guitar 7 Chords

Note: In the tab above, Am7/C means A minor 7 with C in the bass.

Learning guitar chords that only start on the low E string or A string gives you tons of options to work with. However, don’t make the mistake of limiting yourself to just these shapes. Building basic chords and 7 chords starting from the D or G string gives you even more options so you have no limitations to your guitar playing.

 

Here are examples of chords played starting on different strings:

Learn Guitar 7 Chords

Know that there are more chords to learn than just basic chords and 7 chords. For the sake of not overwhelming you with too much information, they are not discussed here. However, adding more notes to these adds a world of possibilities to your expressive palette.

Become A More Creative & Well-Rounded Guitarist By Improvising With Chords

 

Learning to improvise single line phrases together with chords sounds amazing and gives you the power to make music without needing another guitarist or bass player to accompany you.

 

This is really cool and makes you feel like a master of your instrument even when you are still working to develop your skills.

Below are just a couple of guitar playing tips to help you improvise creatively and expressively using chords. Write down 10 different chord progressions to improvise with. Then do the following with each one:


Tip 1: Focus On Repeating A Note That The Chords Share In Common

 

This creates a sense of flow from one chord to the next and makes your playing sound smooth.

 

For example, here are various chords that share one note in common. Play them to hear how smooth it makes the progression sound:

Accent this single note using heavier pick attack, tremolo picking or by simply playing it several times in between chords.

 

Here is a basic jazz progression that uses this idea (and includes a 13 chord):

Extended Guitar Chords

Tip 2: Create A Note That Can Bridge Between Two Chords

 

Once you are able to play a single note that is common among all chords, it’s time to make things more interesting. Try to find a note that is in between the frets of two chords you are playing. Then play it between them to give your improvisation a sense of direction.

Get Creative With Guitar Chords

As you get better at this, it becomes easier to add more and more notes. Before you know it, you’ll be playing entire phrases and runs together with your guitar chords.

 

Now you know how to practice guitar chords to play them faster, improvise with them and improve your musical vocabulary. Now, learn how to become an incredibly expressive musician with anything you play. Start making your guitar sing using the ideas in this free guide to emotional guitar playing.