Playing the guitar is a very exciting and entertaining activity. And it’s not necessary to become a professional guitarist to master it. The simplicity and accessibility of the instrument allows anyone to perform their favorite songs to the best of their abilities.
What is fingering chords?
Theoretical concepts that are necessary for mastering the guitar include the ability not only to understand musical notation (to know and understand the components of chords, which is required when playing other instruments, although this is also necessary), but the ability to read chord fingering.
Fingering chords is a schematic representation of the frets on the fretboard of the instrument, strings and fingers of a guitarist with notes that allow you to correctly put one or another chord. Without mastering the skills of proper reading of such schemes, learning to play the guitar is very problematic, even if you fully master musical notation.
How to read chord fingerings?
If you put the guitar against the wall with the flanges up, the planks of frets will be located horizontally, and the stretched strings will be parallel to the fretboard - vertically. The “thickest” string will be located on the far left, the thinnest on the right. And if you schematically display this view on paper, you get the foundation on which the fingering is based. She will precisely repeat the lines of frets and strings. Fingering chords for a six-string guitar contains six vertical lines, for a seven- string guitar - seven.
To the right or to the left of the conditional fingerboard on the diagram are the fret numbers in the form of Roman numerals I, II, III, IV, etc. The frets are counted from the topmost one. Each vertical line depicting a string is denoted by a capital Latin letter and corresponds to a certain note that can be extracted in its unpressed (open) state: E (note mi), A (note la), D (note re), G (note salt) , B (note si), E (note mi). The notation of the chord fingering strings never changes, and therefore the guitar is tuned in exact accordance with the indicated notes.
Additional notation on the fingering
The diagram also indicates the sounding methods of each string. The “o” and “x” icons at the top of the fingering tell the guitarist that the string indicated by the circle (o) is not pressed and should sound open, and that indicated by the oblique cross (x) is deaf. The main information that chord fingerings carry is about the correct arrangement of the guitarist's fingers. The places where the strings are pressed to the neck of the guitar are shown by circles with numbers inscribed in them. The numbers indicate which finger should press the corresponding string.
There are chords that require the guitarist to use a special technique for pressing strings. This technique is called a “bar” and is indicated either by a solid bold line intersecting all the strings of the guitar on a particular fret, or by circles with the number 1 inscribed in them. This designation indicates that all strings are pressed with the index finger at the same time.
Fingering Options
Currently, you can find many fingerings of chords, but the layout of the schemes can be only in two versions. One is the one described above, the other differs from it only in the direction of the neck (strings). If in the first case the strings are shown with vertical lines, and the frets are horizontal, then in the second case the frets are arranged vertically, and the strings are horizontal. It is as if the first version of the chord fingering is rotated 90 degrees to the left. With this arrangement, the left “thick” string becomes the lowest, and the frets start on the left side. All other designations remain the same. This fingering of chords for a guitar is obtained by placing the instrument on its lap with the strings up.