For some of you at WVS, you may be looking to take the first few steps in accompanying yourself as a singer. This is a great way to present your ideas and just try songs you enjoy! There are quite a few songs that will follow very basic chord structures, here's a list of them that just follow these 5 chords (C,A,G,E,D).
CAGED CHORDS
CAGED Chords (diagram) are the building blocks of shapes for playing guitar. Each of these shapes can be extrapolated from. Not knowing these 5 basic chords and the relationship between each of the notes in the chord can be a set back for some musicians. More power to you if you have a great ear with a go-getter attitude and you just decided to pick up a guitar and play. That's totally fine, heck that's what I did! I will tell you that my guitar playing did stall out after some time. Pitfalls I personally fell into were:
✯ I didn't know why a particular song was catchier than another one.
✯ Without copying the exact same chords, I couldn't recreate the feeling of another song.
✯ I was limited on the number of ways I could play the same chord so tonally some of the songs started sounding the same.
✯ I spent a lot of time exploring my way around the guitar. This was helpful for creativity but stifling when someone was sitting there needing me to solo or take the notes to a further place.
✯ I was spending a lot of time looking at the fretboard instead of the audience. Mostly because my hands weren't on autopilot. (Explained in Multi-Instrumentalist Post)
"But I don't want theory or knowing what I'm playing to ruin my creativity"
I actually hear this a lot. It's a lot like saying, "I'm worried I'll get to bulky from working out at the gym." I understand what you're saying but that takes a loooooooooong time to get where you're talking. Besides, no one says you can't learn a little part of theory or technique and just chew on it for a while. Just like vocal lessons, the curriculum that we are working on is based on you the individual. The harder you want to go, the more I'll give you to chew. If you have limited time on your plate, then we won't bog you down with too many options.
BONUS GUITAR TIPS: Items you'll need in your arsenal. If you're on a computer, look on the right side of this page and you'll see an Amazon List of musical items (if you're on a phone, click here to see it) . Believe it or not, these aren't spam ads! 😀 These are items I recommend for any musician starting out or pro. Feel free to ask me for personal recommendations of if you want to talk more about the items.