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Comment by sambapa | Hacker News Reader

That's quite an unusual collection of chords, maybe because B major chord is too hard for beginners. I-bIII-IV is some Bela Bartok-level shit.

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I guess D would make more sense than E, but also G E A sound great in a progression

>I guess D would make more sense than E

Just learning to play the guitar myself and at least personally, have found D to be a pain in the ass of a chord shape. I can switch between A, E, and G all day long, but throw a D in there and I have to slow down and be a little more intentional. Muscle memory will happen, but for the combination of my brain and that shape, it happens more slowly. I don't think I'm the only one, either, because it was called out specifically by the guy who did the video lessons I'm using.

Are you playing the open D in the "bar plus one finger" style or the "3 individual fingers" style?

3 individual fingers. I haven't seen the bar plus one finger way of playing it, though I think I get that now. I'm going through some video lessons with a companion app and there have been zero bar chords so far.

Might give it a try later, though, thanks for the hint there.

It’s a pain at first but it will come in time. This is true for barre chords like F and B too.

The cool thing about the D shape is you can move it up the neck. Move it up 2 frets and its a an E, 1 more and its an F. And so on

These are more or less the three easiest open guitar chords for a beginner to learn, all major, so not very unusual IMO.

The roots fall on a pentatonic scale which works well with basic rock music (see the referenced TNT song by AC/DC).

Idk. C, am, F and G are as easy, if not easier, and you can play with them a nice I-IV-vi-V instead of this modal interchange shit.

Maybe swap F for Em. Beginners aren't (successfully) playing F, no matter which variation.

sambapa must be a piano player

Nah, classical guitarist here ;)

Just sing an E blues scale over an E G A G progression. Sing a G over that E, and it's practically an E7#9.

Maybe change your E and A to E7 and A7 if you feel like it. They're easier for beginner guitarists to play anyway.

That's assuming E is the root. The order it's listing chords is I-V-bVII, which isn't that strange. Pretty familiar sound in pop music.

I think it's best to begin at the beginning and learn to hear tonic, subdominant and dominant. After that you can pretend that you're Radiohead.

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