• Registered: 2007-01-18
  • Posts: 13

Topic: A question on guitar chords

Ok simple question that I have!

When I was younger my dad taught me to learn all the chords and bar chords etc I learned them and got board with guitar. just picked it back up after 14 years and decided to get serious, my interest is in 80's rock so I still know all my chords etc but I  am finding that rock songs are more structured around notes etc so is it safe to say 50's music and blues is based   around chords and bar chords, rock and metal is based around notes etc Like single finger notes and strings?

  • From: Nottingham, UK
  • Registered: 2006-08-08
  • Posts: 690

Re: A question on guitar chords

50s tunes often use the easy chords, a classic sequence is G Em C D which crops up over and over again. Now 80s songs often use unusual chords, that's what gave those acts a weird edge. Try the Cure's 'Boys Don't Cry' it'll give your B shape a work out.


Checkout my run-thru post on 'Do Anything You Wanna Do' for a punk/new wave song that is nearly all barre chords.

'The sound of the city seems to disappear'
  • From: Murphysboro Il
  • Registered: 2007-02-10
  • Posts: 292

Re: A question on guitar chords

i lot of rock and metal feature  a lead guitar and rythem guitar. Quite a bit especially 80's and 90's is based on lead riffs like classic Guns n Roses or Metallica. Even a lot of single guitar bands Like Motley Crue or Poison. A/C D/C in a lot of there songs make riffs out of chords.

"Nobody paints by ear so why would I play guitar by sight?" hmm
  • From: Bellevue, WA
  • Registered: 2006-06-15
  • Posts: 3,336

Re: A question on guitar chords

No, I don't think that would be an accurate statement.  Pretty much all rock guitar music is going to be based on some type of chord progression.  The same notes that make up the solos are used in the scales that make up the rhythm parts.


The 80s introduced the "guitar hero" and gave us a bit of a new twist on what the instrument can do, but that is a stylistic convention, rather than a theoretical one.  The rules that drove those 50's bee-bop guys are the the exact same rules that drove those spandex clad mullet head axe wielders.


Jimmy Paige was a blues player, and that stuff has been the same for going on 100 years.

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