Drop 2 Guitar Chord Voicings
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E7 Drop 2
Chord
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Free your fingers from 'Bar
Duties' and give them something exciting to do
by learning these must-know drop 2 guitar chord
voicings.
The trouble with the basic guitar bar chords is that
they become extremely limiting if you want to make quick chord
changes or play different chord voicings. One way around this
is to start learning different ways to play chords... and
there's nothing better than learning how to play drop 2 guitar
chord voicings.
They give you 4 different ways (voicings) to play the same
chord.
Drop 2 chords are a very popular alternative to bar chords.
They are used by blues players a lot, country, folk, rock and
jazz players too. In fact, these are must-know chord shapes for
any guitarist worth his salt.
What Are Drop 2 Guitar Chords?
What Are Drop 2 Chords?... Drop 2
chords are basically made by dropping the 2nd voice down
to the bottom of the chord. For example: A Cmajor7 chord has
the notes C E G B. To make a drop 2 chord, we take the G and
drop it to the bottom. So the voicing would be G C E B. There
are 4 inversions of that chord.
Now the beauty of these chord voicings is that they are 4
note (7th) chords. But there is no doubling up of notes as in
bar chords. They also free up the first finger from ‘bar
duties’ to make movement between chords more subtle and fast.
With these voicings you will always find the next chord is
right under your fingers or just up or down one fret.
A Neat Drop 2 Guitar Chord Trick... Another
neat trick is to learn these chords with just the top 3
notes. Drop the bottom note altogether. Play around
with them and see what you can come up with. Great for playing
blues and jazz chord licks.
FREE Drop 2 Guitar Chord PDF
Downloads
Right-click here to
download your Drop 2 Guitar Chord Voicings
eBook.
As well as the drop 2 chord diagrams, there are
some practice tips too.
Right-click here to download your free Guitar
Practice Schedule Adobe pdf eBook.
Using a practice schedule to keep track of what
you need to practice and when makes learning more productive.
Requires some self-discipline.
Recommended Books on Drop 2 Guitar Chords
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Steve
Khan's Chord Khancepts book
is my personal favorite for advanced
chords. I work with this a
lot.
Steve shows the traditional drop
2 chords but goes much
further.
He also shows a whole bunch of
new modern voicings for chords of the
Dorian, Mixolydian and Lydian
modes. 3 and 4-note chords that can
be used in rock, fusion, country and jazz
settings.
Also excellent for learning
chords suitable for creating chord
melodies.
It's well laid out and has 2
CD's of example and practice backing
tracks.
(He answers his emails
too.)
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Contemporary Chord Khancepts
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Charles
Chapman is a
guitar professor at
Berklee.
This book is simpler than
Steve's Pentatonic Khancepts and is a
very good book to learn how drop 2 chords
are made and how to use them.
I'd recommend this one first.
Quick and easy to learn and apply. I use
the material from this book for my
students.
No CD, but plenty of exercises
and examples that will make you very
proficient with drop 2 chords in no time
at all.
This stuff is NOT hard but
offers some great new sounds for your
guitar chords for jazz, country, rock
etc.
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Drop 2 Concept For Guitar
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Use Drop 2 Chords For Soloing Too...
Learning these drop 2 chord shapes thoroughly is also a great
aide to targeting notes to play in your solos.
You know the next chord coming up, you visualize the notes on
the fretboard and ‘target’ those notes in your solos. Thinking
this way gets you into a more linear, or, along (not across)
the neck approach to playing. This helps avoid the problem of
getting stuck in a box or a single scale pattern that is played
in one position across the fretboard. It gets you moving up and
down the neck. Watch the pro’s, you’ll see they do this a
lot.
Drop 2 Chord Diagrams... I have given you
diagrams for the voicings on the top 4 (E B G D) and
middle 4 (B G D A) strings. If you wish, you can work them out
yourself for the bottom 4 strings. Although, they aren’t really
used that much because you are getting into the bass player’s
territory and playing these chords can possibly muddy up the
bass section of your band. You don’t really want to be
competing with the bass player for the bottom end. So, these
chords are usually avoided.
NEXT: Guitar Song Chords
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