It's practically impossible to play this any other way. You CAN use your thumb to play the G note on the Low E string though.

Transcription

1 Week 12 - Day 1: The A/G Chord The A/G chord looks like this: Notice here that I chose the A Major arrangement of 1, 2, 3 instead of the usual 2, 3, 4 that I like to play. This is due to the G bass note on the Low E string. It's practically impossible to play this any other way. You CAN use your thumb to play the G note on the Low E string though. This chord contains the same notes as an A Major (A, E, and C#) with an added G in the bass. Slash Sheet Exercise (95 BPM): Practice playing from the A Major (1, 2, 3) and then add the G note to form the A/G. Now we need to look at the fretboard for logical areas in which the G, A, E, and C# notes appear:

2 Oops. I left a D on fret 12. Disregard that. Applying Fingerstyle To The A/G Chord Exercise

3 Week 12 - Day 2: The A/F Chord The A/F chord looks like this: OR OR I gave you plenty of choices here. You can see that the formation is the same, but that the fingerings are different in each case. It doesn't matter which way you choose to play this chord - because the truth is it's not used all that much as a 'strummed' chord at all. Again, since this is an A Major chord with the added F bass note, the F bass note usually just comes out on top over the other notes. We have the same notes as an A Major (A, E, and C#) but we've added the F note. Slash Sheet Exercise (95 BPM): Simply practice transitioning FROM the A Major to the A/F. Try to use the F bass note as a plucked note that rings over the strummed chord. Now we need to look at the fretboard for logical areas in which the A, E, C#, and F appear:

4 Applying Fingerstyle To The A/F Chord Exercise

5 Week 12 - Day 3: The A/E Chord The A/E chord looks like this: Guess what? I threw a curveball because the A/E is absolutely the same thing as an A Major, except for the fact that the Low E is played (usually you try to avoid that with an A Major) along with. The notes are all the same. Boom! Important: You can't consider this an A/E if you are just playing the High E string open because it isn't the bass note. ;) Slash Sheet Exercise (95 BPM): Practice playing the A Major and then striking the E bass note in between as heard in the video: Now we need to look at the fretboard for logical areas in which the E, A, and C# appear:

6 Applying Fingerstyle To The A/E Chord Exercise

7 Week 12 - Day 4: The Amadd2 Chord The Amadd2 chord looks like this: There are a few ways in which you can look at what this chord originally was before 'adding 2' to it. The notes in the Amadd2 are A, E, B, and C. I used the Am7 chord diagram to 'add' the "2" to it for demonstration purposes, but in actuality you would need to use the Am chord instead because we are 'adding 2' to the Am chord, not the Am7 chord. BECOMES The CORRECT way is to look at it from the Am formation because we are adding '2' to the Am chord: BECOMES

8 In this case you've simply moved the second fret note on the G string to the fourth fret. So, you've 'added 2' to the A note. A - A#/Bb - B This is why it's important to understand the language of a chord. By the way, I LOVE playing an Am to Amadd2 chord in a progression. It's really a mysterious change. Slash Sheet Exercise (95 BPM): Play the Am to Amadd2 in a progression below: Now we need to look at the fretboard for logical areas in which the A, E, B, and C appear:

9 Just to refresh, I went ahead and removed the notes we don't need to find the Amadd2 chord. Remember we need the notes A, E, B, and C, but we don't need ALL of the notes: Again, I have removed the notes that aren't needed so that we have a logical chord formation. Applying Fingerstyle To The Amadd2 Chord Exercise

10 Week 12 - Day 5: The Fmaj7b5 Chord The Fmaj7b5 guitar chord looks like this and contains the notes: F, A, B, and E Here we have simply taken the Fmaj7 and "flattened" the "5th" Slash Sheet Exercise (95 BPM): Simply practice playing from the Fmaj7 to Fmaj7b5 in this video: Now we need to look at the fretboard for logical areas in which the F, A, B, and E appear:

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12 Applying Fingerstyle To The Fmaj7b5 Chord Exercise *Note: In the exercise below you will see that I've added the open A string. This is allowed because the A note is part of the chord spectrum. The reason I added it here (and not above) is because when you strum or finger pick a chord, sometimes adding 'allowed' notes help the chord come through a bit better. Notice that the A note (open) is in parenthesis.