Turn Your 3 C Chords Into 15

It's astounding how some guitar players can spend their whole lives stuck in the first four frets. There's nothing wrong with the open position — it's amazing — but where is the curiosity to find what else is out there?

In this lesson, I'll show you 15 different ways to play the C major chord all over the fretboard. That might sound crazy, but you'll be surprised at how achievable it is. And if you've been keeping up with these lessons, you already have 3 of those 15 under your belt — winning! The benefits of doing this are huge, and we'll talk about that more as we go. For now, let's get into it.

Triads

C major — affectionately known as just "C" — is made up of three different notes: C, E, and G. This type of chord is called a major triad. Triads consist of three different notes. The most common triads are major, minor, diminished, and augmented — but for now, let's focus on major and minor.

Any chord symbol that is just one letter (A, B, C, D, E, F or G), or one letter followed by a sharp (♯) or flat (♭) symbol, is a major triad — for example: A♯, E♭, D♭. Any chord symbol that looks the same but has a small "m" after it is a minor triad — for example: Am, C♯m, D♭m, F♯m, Gm.

The 3 Parent Chords

First, we're going to review the three parent chords that all of our triad shapes come from. All three are C major triads — the open C chord, the 5-string barre chord, and the 6-string barre chord:

The Open C Chord

The open C chord uses five strings. You might be thinking: but I thought a C chord only has three notes — C, E and G. You're right — but they're three different notes, not three different strings. This open C chord has two C's (5th string and 2nd string), two E's (4th string and 1st string), and one G (3rd string).

We're going to derive four C major triads from this open C chord. Each of these triads uses just three strings — no doubled notes, just one C, one E and one G:

Make sure you only put the necessary fingers down for each one. Don't just hold the open C chord shape and pick the appropriate strings — use the parent chord as an anchor, but think of each triad as a separate chord. For the first shape, place only one finger down. Then two fingers for the 2nd and 3rd shapes. For the last one, use the same fingering as you would for an open E chord.

Once you're comfortable playing through them left to right, play them right to left too.

The 5-String C Barre Chord

A note on this chord form: I often don't barre with the first finger here. I do the 3rd-finger barre on the 5th fret, then fret the 3rd fret on the 5th string separately with my first finger. It's a tricky chord for those new to it — work on it in your own time. Now let's extract four more triads from this parent chord:

Moving left to right, notice that in the first shape your 3rd and 4th fingers are on the 5th fret. As you move through each chord, you start to shift horizontally across the fretboard. For the 2nd shape, shift so that the 5th fret is played with a first-finger barre. In the 3rd shape, keep the first finger in place and reach the 3rd finger over to the 7th fret. In the 4th shape, you can drop the barre, play one note with the first finger, and stretch the 4th finger to the 8th fret on the 6th string.

This set is harder than the open set, so take your time. Work on each chord change like you're choreographing a fretboard dance — it's a workout for the fretting hand. Do the sequence right to left as well.

The 6-String C Barre Chord

Finally, we'll derive four more shapes from the 6th-string C barre chord:

Going left to right: the first shape needs a 2-string barre, the 2nd is straightforward, the 3rd is like the E-shape again, and the 4th is similar to shape 3 from the previous set. Practise each one in both directions and make sure every note rings clearly. Again, these 3-note shapes are a great opportunity to work on your fingerpicking.

What's Next

There are many directions you could go from here. One suggestion: instead of practising these triads within each parent chord area, mix them up. Start by moving through the shapes on the same string set — play shape 1 from Fig. 2, then shape 1 from Fig. 3, then shape 1 from Fig. 4. Then do that for every string set.

Final Thoughts

I hope this lesson shows you that memorising these 15 chords isn't as hard as it looks. There are a few physical challenges, sure — but using parent chords as anchors to locate other shapes streamlines the learning process enormously.