Simple Chords that Sound Beautiful …

[Thanks to James Taylor Chords]

What a day! A day playing James Taylor chords is a day worth living. There is so much guitar stuff to learn from this guy that is sometimes overwhelming.

In this fingerstyle lesson I am going to show you a guitar part I wrote this morning in the style of James Taylor. A simple chord progression using his embellishment and picking pattern.

This short instrumental is a compound everything I like about James Taylor’s playing.

Simple chord progression.
Melodies within chords.
Beautiful bass lines.

If you want to learn a very simple chord progression in Folk/Country style, this is the lesson you are looking for 🙂

Tab available on my Patreon page.

[ABOUT THE TAB] Guys I had a ton of trouble with the editing software (I use Final Cut Pro X) so I wasn’t able to add the tab on screen.

Enjoy the lesson 🙂

Tab Available on Patreon!

Get the Tab here!

The Video

About this Lesson

In this simple yet beautiful fingerpicking lesson I am going to show you a chord progression using what I call “James Taylor chords”.

The chord progression you’ll learn is this one: D | Em7 – D | Cadd9 | G/B. There is also a B section with this chord progression: Cadd9 | G/B | D.

There are three elements that we are going to combine in order to make this chord progression close to the James Taylor style and those are:

Chord progression.
Melody within chords.
Bass lines

Chord Progression

James Taylor’s acoustic guitar and fingerpicking style has been recognizable since the very beginning of his music career back in the 70s. He’s influenced many guitar players and singer-songwriter that are today as good and popular as he is. James style is unique and even thought he’s not a virtuoso, his guitar playing is insanely beautiful and rich.

One of the trademark of James Taylor’s approach is transforming simple chords into beautiful sounding pianistic chord progression enriched with minor 7, add9 and 11th chords as well as dominant 7th and bluesy chords. This requires a lot of research, time and meticulous work as well as fingerpicking control and dynamic control.

Another awesome thing he does a lot is to introduce notes from the next chord usually by connecting a note in common between the two chords. This is definitely one of the most predominant aspect of James Taylor chords.

Melody Between Chords

One of the amazing approach of James Taylor is the ability to enrich chords with simple, short and effective melodies. This is something I also show you in this fingerpicking lessons as I think it adds a lot of personality and beauty the chords.

With a combination of fingerpicking control and chords extensions James is able to embellish chords beautifully with single notes around the chord. Most of the time he will just transform a basic chord into an add9, 11 or 13 chord and play around with different voicing.

There are also arrangements such as “You Got a Friend” in which he would play short solos between chords. If you listen to the Live on North Sea Jazz Festival in 2009 you can appreciate the beautiful melodic approach on chords. I particularly love the short phrase he plays on the E minor chord in the chorus.

Bass Line

The last thing I love about James Taylor chords is the amazing and particular work he does on the bass lines that connect chords. This is a very interesting approach which can be used over chord progression that follow the scale pattern or with passing chords.

In the fingerpicking lesson I am showing you today you can appreciate the bass lines played between the Em D and C add9 chord as well as the beginning of the B section which starts with two bass notes on the A string.