Guitar: G Em C D: An Open Learning Guide

By the way, memorize that E minor (written "Em" for short) is the minor parallel of G major.

In many songs you don't necessarily have to change to the minor parallel, you can simply continue to play the major chord. However, the slightly softer sounding minor chord can also replace the major chord. Minor chords are often used to make certain bars sound a little softer. It is commonly said that a minor chord sounds sad. It is true that it is relatively easy to write sad-sounding songs with minor chords, but there are also sad-sounding songs that consist mainly of major chords. Here, in most of our song examples, the minor chord serves more to build momentum for the next major chord. This allows the song to be much more spirited. Later on in the folk diploma, you will get to know songs that are written entirely in a minor key. Remember, however, that Em is the minor parallel of G major.

Even if the individual fingering changes are quite close together here, only practise the change between two chords at first. As soon as the upper half of the diagram works, you can practise the lower half. The arrows indicate two cycles, which are first practiced separately and then later one after the other.

Chord progression G-Em-C-D is a "16-45" in G major. To designate the chord steps in a key, simply count through the notes of the corresponding scale.

No panic! You don't have to learn any notes here. You should only understand how the chord steps come about. This will give you at least a rough idea of what the terms are about if you come across them in a tutorial on the Internet. You will learn all the special features of scales and chord names at a later stage.

The 1st degree is called the tonic (T), the 4th degree the subdominant (S) and the 5th degree the dominant (D).

The 6th degree is called the tonic parallel (t), the 2nd degree the subdominant parallel (s) and the 3rd degree the dominant parallel (d).

These triads from the theory of harmony represent all the possibilities of playing a chord on the guitar.

You don't need to be interested in the unknown chords at the moment. Sooner or later you will get to know them soon enough. Today we are only interested in the first, sixth, fourth and fifth chord steps in that exact order.

The chord progression is also called "50s progression" or "ice cream changes". Presumably because young people in the 50s liked to meet in an ice cream bar with a jukebox.

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Text adapted from Guitar/G Em C D by Wikibooks contributors under CC BY-SA 4.0. Paragraphs have been selected and abridged, and formatting adjusted. This adapted text is shared under the same licence. Contributor history.