Add Extensions to Chords

Extended Chords on Fingerstyle Acoustic Guitar

Hey guys, welcome to another guitar lesson!

Today I am going to show you how to add extensions to chords. Extended chords are one of the most awesome things to play on guitar and with a little effort you can play beautiful sounding extended chords too.

About this lesson

Key: A minor

Technique: Extended chords on fingerstyle acoustic guitar.

Plucking Pattern: We are not playing any particular plucking pattern for this lesson.

Level: For intermediate guitar players.

How to practice: We are going to play extended chords in A minor key. The chord progression goes as follows: Am – F – C – G. There will be six different examples on extended chords over this chord progression. I highly recommend you practice one example at a time.

One of the most effective things you can do to learn the chords I am about to show you is to put them into practice. Learn one or two then apply the chords on songs you already know. That will speed up the process of learning and memorizing the chords.

Good luck

The Video

Basic Chords

Guitar players talk a lot about basic chords. Beginners love basic chords as they are fun to play and easy to memorize.

But what exactly is a basic chord?

A basic chord is the most simple chord we find in music. It can also be called triad. Triads comes from the scale and if you are a beginner chances are that the basic chords (triads) you play all comes from the Major scale.

There is a very simple system you can use to create triads. Let’s do it in three steps!

1. Write down the major scale. We will use the C major scale but it can be done with any major scale.
2. Select the 1st, 3rd and 5th note starting on each note of the scale.
3. Play the three notes together.

In the example below I am going to show you how this is done!

Don’t forget to do the same thing starting on the note D, E, F etc.

Extensions

Once you figure out how to create basic chords, you can then add extensions and learn extended chords.

A chord extensions is an additional note that can be added to the chord. We can group them into 7th, 9th, 11th and 13th. Each on of these extensions has a unique, characteristic sound that you must learn to recognize.

You can add the additional note to the triads. Check the example below.

Tab available on Patreon.

Free Programs!

Create your BlitzGuitar Account and Access three Free Programs for Beginners and Intermediate guitar players.

My Fingerstyle Guitar Courses

Take your Fingerstyle to the Next Level

Here at BlitzGuitar.com you will also find a ton of fingerstyle guitar programs that can really transform your guitar playing.

You can check them out here:

Check out my Fingerstyle Programs

Useful Links

• Guitar Lessons in London
• Strumming Guitar Lessons – Justin Guitar
• Spanish Romance Rumba Style
• Electric Guitar Lesson]
• Extended chords