Chords, Chords and More Chords

Hey, how you doing? It's Justin and Lee here for another episode of Rut Busters! In this one, we look at awesome chord extensions we can use to spice up our blues rhythm guitar.

Chord Extensions – The Theory

There are three core chord families: Major, minor, and dominant 7 (written 7). You can substitute chords within each family for one another.

For instance, if a song uses a Major 7 chord, we can substitute any Major chord extension for it – Maj9, Maj11, or Maj13. If it uses a minor 7 chord, you can substitute it with min9, min11, or min13. The same goes with 7 chords. The extensions used in blues are 9, 11, and 13 chords. 11s are a little jazzier, but they're all super useful.

Major 7 and Dominant 7

Do you know the difference between a Major 7 and a 7 chord? I'll give you a clue – one of the notes is different. Major 7 chords contain the 1st, 3rd, 5th, and 7th degrees of the Major Scale, while dominant 7 chords contain the 1st, 3rd, 5th, and b7th tones.

Play a C Major chord using the E-shape. See if you can turn this into a Major 7 chord by flattening one of the C notes by one semitone. One way to do this is to change the note C on fret 10 of string 4 to the B at fret 9, giving us 8 10 9 9 8 8 (root notes in bold). This chord doesn't sound great.

Jazz guitarists usually play 8 X 9 9 8 X with finger 1 for the bass note and fingers 2, 3, and 4 for the others, or the thumb for the bass and fingers 1, 2, and 3.

💡More Theory – Go deep into Dominant Chord Theory in my Practical Music Theory course.

How do you turn this into a dom 7 chord? You flatten that B note to a Bb, giving you the classic 8 10 8 9 8 8 grip. The jazzy alternative is 8 X 8 9 8 X. There are several other grips for the dom 7 in the E shape – play around and see if you can find some!

Dominant Chord Theory

Although 7 is the V chord in a key, in blues we use it for all kinds of chords! Remember, you can substitute any 7 chord for a 9, 11, or 13 chord. So these are all super useful when playing the blues.

E9 (X76777) is an ultra-common funk chord. But E9 doesn't just mean E9 – it also means E7, E11, E13, and all their many grips. There is a massive pool to choose from, and as long as we choose the right chord family, we can play whichever variation we want.

💡Master the 7 Chord – Learn a ton of Dominant 7th Chord Grips in my Blues Rhythm 1 Course.

Remember that the 7 chord is the V chord of the key. In which Major scale is E7 the V chord? Remember the shape we covered in Rut Busters 6 – if we know the V chord, we can find the parent scale by counting back two frets and up one string. The note E7 is at fret 7, on string 5, so the parent scale starts on fret 5 of string 6 – it's the note A. So E7 is the V chord in A.

E7 Alternatives – C Shape

A super cool E7 alternative comes from the open C7 chord X32310. We slide this up four frets to get E7 (X7675X). Notice that in changing from C7 to E7, finger 3 moves from the note C to E, the new root note.

A classic E13 grip is X76779. We play this by adding little finger to the usual E9 shape (X76777). We can also play X5665X.

E7 Alternatives – G Shape

The E7 in the G shape uses an open A7 alternative (X02223) moved up 7 frets (X X 9 9 9 10). You can also think of this as an open G7 chord (320001) moved up 9 frets and the notes on the thickest strings muted. In the G shape, we also have E9 as X X 12 11 9 12, and we can move this to X X 12 11 10 12, E11, just by shifting finger 1 up one fret.

💡To The 7 And Beyond – Blow open your chord vocabulary with my Dominant Chord Extensions lessons.

E7 Alternatives – D Shape

E7 using the D shape is a wicked chord (XX2434), and we can slide our little finger up one fret to get E7sus4 (XX2435). It's easy to use these together.

How To Learn New Chord Grips

Make sure to use these chords in real music. They're no use on a page! A great way to learn new grips is to focus on one position. For instance, in the C shape, learn to use E13 (X5665X, X76779) and E9 (X76777) instead of E7.

Or you could focus on the G shape, learning the E9, E11, and E7 shapes we covered. It's much better to learn a few really well. Make sure you can use them in songs. :)

Jamming Exercise: Get together with a jam buddy! One of you plays a bass line in E, and the other explores the new E7, E11, and E13 chords. Another option is to use a looper pedal or backing track.

When to Use Extensions

Sus chords are great for pop tunes that use strumming. Jazz is where we open our chord vocabulary and can use any number of chords. As we've mentioned, you can also use them in a blues context. When you first learn these chords, it takes slow practice and a lot of thinking! But with time, it'll become fluent, and you'll have an excellent chord vocabulary.

Have loads of fun with these dominant chord extensions. And remember to make music with them! See you for more Rut Busters very soon. :)

💙Ignite your Blues potential with my Essential Blues Rhythm module.

The Gear

Justin's Guitar: Pete's Fender Telecaster

Lee's Guitar: Fender Strat

Justin's Amp: Victory

Lee's Amp: Victory

About This Series

This video lives on Anderton's YouTube Channel – this series alternates between that channel and my main one.

Anderton's Music

Anderton's is my local music store in Guildford (UK), and I got in touch with Lee to throw around some ideas for collaboration. It's a cool store, and I buy most of my stuff there :) Big thanks also to Danish Pete for his editing expertise and fun hangs!