The importance of chord families

For guitar we have 3 very important chord families which you’ll use to play songs all the time, they are major, minor and dominant 7 chords. Once you learn those basic sets of chord families it’s important to expand out into yet more families of chords.

The next families to learn would be major 7, minor 7 and suspended chords.

By learning new families of chords you’ll lift your playing more and more out of beginners guitar and into improvers or an intermediate level.

These different chord types greatly increase the palette of chord colour you have at your playing disposal and you’ll be able to freely substitute them into progressions at will.

Each chord family has a particular sound quality or colour associated with it. How you use those colours is a very personal thing but without question they will infuse a greater sense of class and style into your guitar playing.

O.K so to recap so far we have the following chord families - major, minor, dominant 7, major 7, minor 7 and suspended.

The final family I would recommend you to learn are ‘add nine chords’. This family (add9) is really beautiful and if you can remember the famous Police song “Every Breath You Take” you’ll be recalling the sound quality or colour of add nine chords as the song is made up almost entirely of them.

Taking that song as an example, if the chords used were simply major or minor chords the harmony or tonal colour of the song would be very, very different. But because they employed add9 chords, it gave the song a very particular and beautiful tone colour. That’s the value in knowing more than just major or minor in music!

Musical refinement is something you shouldn’t be afraid of.

Expand your knowledge out from the basic major and minor chords that everyone else knows, be adventurous and look further ahead. Start by checking out the guitar lessons on the site for major 7 chords.

Continue onto What's The Next Level After Beginners Guitar?