WEBVTT

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Hola, people. How' re you doing.
Justin here.

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In this little lesson today

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we're going to be having a chat 
about slash chords.

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Now, I'm sure many of you 
have seen things like D/F#

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and wondered what it meant,

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may be it was two chords at the same time.

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Well, luckily for you,
I'm here to explain it to you,

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and it's really, really simple.

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All slash chords are,

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are indicating a different
base note for the chord

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and a lot of the times, you don't even have to 
worry about playing that base note

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because the bass player will be playing it.

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So, if you see, say, the chord D/F#

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all it's meaning is it's a D chord,
"slash", with an F# base note.

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That's all it is.

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Chord, "/", base note.

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Now, sometimes, 
this can be incredibly easy.

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If we took, say, a regular Em chord

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♪

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Now, if it was Em/B,

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all you'd have to do

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is play it with starting
from the 5th string,

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♪

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and just leave off that thickest string,
which was the note E.

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Because now the lowest note, 
the bass note of the chord,

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is the note B.

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.♪

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Now, that's the principle of it

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and it's really, really, really that simple.

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Of course, in order to be able 
to find your own slash chords,

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you need to know what the notes are

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at least on the thickest two strings,

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because that's usually 
where you'd put that base note

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is on one of those two strings, so

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making...

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an essential skill really
for all of you guys

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would be knowing the notes 
on the bottom two strings,

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because you need that
for your power chords,

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your barre chords, your scales
and everything. So,

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make sure you get that down

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and you can kind of make up 
your slash chords yourself.

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Just pick any chord and then
try and figure out

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what it sounds like
with a different base note.

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You might go: "Well, here's a D chord."

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♪

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"I wonder what it sounds like 
if I put a C base note on it."

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"Where's the C? OK, there's a C there 
on the 5th string there."

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So, if I move my third finger
over to play that

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and put my little finger
back where it was before:

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♪

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Pretty funky sounding chord:

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♪

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Not a very common one, probably,

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but it's a slash chord,
and you can really do

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any chord with any base note.

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A lot of more complex jazz stuff

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has some pretty outrageous slash chords in it 
that sound pretty dissonant.

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You get your D#/C, or
whatever it sounds a bit, here

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♪

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Things like that, you know.

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They sound pretty outside, you know,

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But... And they're not really that common.

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For a beginner guitar player,

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which I'm guessing you are
if you're not so sure what slash chords are,

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or maybe you're a great guitar player

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and you just never discovered 
slash chords before,

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there are a few really common ones

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which I wanna go through with you now and,

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I'll explain it in a bit of a
close-up for you, I think.

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So, let's go CLOSE.
Let's get closer!

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Regular D chord,

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and one of the most common
slash chords is D/F#

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Now, hopefully some of you know already,

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but that note there is the note F#.

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So, if we've got a D chord

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♪

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And we want to put a F# base on it,

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there's a couple of ways of doing it.

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First of all, you could
wrap your thumb around

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♪

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Now, you can play that 5th string there if you want.

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♪

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I usually let the thumb mute that string.

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I think it sounds a bit sweeter,

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but that's really your call.

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But the getting the thumb over 
can be quite a hard technique,

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and a much more common way of
playing that chord

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is like this:

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with first finger on the F#.

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That also mutes the fourth...


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This string is muted 
by the underneath of the first finger.

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The D string is open.

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Second finger on the 2nd fret

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And third finger on the 3rd fret.

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♪

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And that thinnest string is also muted.

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♪

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This is a really common way of playing it.

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Now, one of the most common movements
is to go from G:

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♪

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to D with an F# base:

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♪

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to Em:

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♪

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and back again maybe to D with an F# base.

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♪

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G

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D with an F# base.

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You can see that coming from the G

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the third finger is staying where it is,

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second finger is going down,

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first finger is going over to the base:

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♪

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and then to Em,

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The first finger comes back over,

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second finger goes up,

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and third finger comes off:

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♪

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Sometimes it sounds nice 
to leave that one there as well:

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♪

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Then you get an Em7.

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But that's a really common...

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♪

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Really common song...
or movement in songs, I should say.

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So that's your D with an F# base.

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Either like that...

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You can play it like that as well.

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It's not an uncommon way to play it,

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you could play it just with your 1st finger
reaching over, (♪)

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or like that (♪).

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It doesn't really matter
what fingers you use, to be honest,

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you'd use different fingers
in different circumstances.

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That's a D/F#, really common one.

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Now, another common one is G with a B base.

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So there's a regular G chord:

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♪

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and this note here with your first finger,
that's the note B.

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So, if you're using the tip of your
1st finger there to mute the 6th string,

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♪

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You've now got a G with a B base.

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Now, that's a good way of playing
it if it's by itself,

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but usually, it's found
in between the chords

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G (♪)

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Sorry!

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C (♪)

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G/B (♪)

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and Am (♪).

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So, if you're going to do it that way,

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it's a lot easier to finger it:

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This is C chord,

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now, second finger moves over to the B,

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third finger comes off
and little finger goes down on the note D

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♪

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making sure that the 6th string is muted.

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The tip of that second finger is pressing up there
to mute the 6th string.

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Little finger is also muting the first string.

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♪

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Although, it doesn't hurt really, to...

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♪

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If you want to have that open E string open,
it often sounds nice,

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but it's not officially part of the chord,

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and then you can see your
hand's already kind of in position (♪)

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for the Am (♪).

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And then back to G/B, 
second finger steps over,

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other two fingers lift off,
little finger goes down.

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♪

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There's your G/B (♪)

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C (♪)

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G/B (♪)

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Am (♪)

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G/B (♪)

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♪

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Can make a nice little song out there

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C (♪)

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G/B (♪)

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Am (♪)

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Now, here's a common one as well:

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♪

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Am with a G base.

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♪

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So, just reaching over
with the little finger there

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to hit the note G.

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♪

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So, that would be an Am/G.

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Not that hard, really. Is it?

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Or, instead of that, you might go:

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♪

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G/B (♪)

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Am (♪)

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Then you might go G (♪)

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D/F# (♪)

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Em (♪)

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Often follows vocals.

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♪

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It's used in "Wonderwall" and

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and "Miss American Pie"

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There's hundreds of songs 
that use these kind of movements.

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♪

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Now, another really nice little one

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that you might experiment with is A chord.

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Now, maybe a lot of you've learned A chord
like this, or like this,

00:07:05.074 --> 00:07:06.158
or whatever.

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If you're going to do slash chords, 
generally you play A with a little barre.

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♪

00:07:10.623 --> 00:07:13.190
Making sure the thinnest string again, 
that one up there, is muted

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with the underneath of your first finger.

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♪

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So you're pressing down just three strings.

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Now, a really nice common one
is to reach over with that third finger

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♪

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I'm playing A with a C# base.

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♪

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It's just a really nice sound

00:07:29.143 --> 00:07:30.028
♪

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D (♪)

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A/C# (♪)

00:07:34.005 --> 00:07:35.498
E.
That's a common movement.

00:07:35.498 --> 00:07:40.303
♪

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There's lots and lots of songs
that use these things.

00:07:42.477 --> 00:07:44.182
So, that's A with a C# base,

00:07:44.182 --> 00:07:47.228
but we could have, say,
A chord with a G base:

00:07:47.228 --> 00:07:54.914
♪

00:07:54.914 --> 00:07:55.793
See? It's just really...

00:07:55.793 --> 00:07:57.818
It's an A chord
and you can put on whatever bass you want,

00:07:57.818 --> 00:07:59.343
you could put an F# base.

00:07:59.343 --> 00:08:01.215
Play the A with your third finger:

00:08:01.215 --> 00:08:03.336
♪

00:08:03.336 --> 00:08:06.548
Do that, that would be an A/F#
(♪)

00:08:06.548 --> 00:08:11.263
Also called F#min7, but you could call it 
A/F#, so it'd be cool.

00:08:11.263 --> 00:08:12.544
You could put an F base on it.

00:08:12.544 --> 00:08:14.303
♪

00:08:14.303 --> 00:08:16.260
Pretty wacky sounding chord, but it still works.

00:08:16.260 --> 00:08:18.885
You can really...
You can go mad with these things.

00:08:19.470 --> 00:08:20.573
Another really common one

00:08:20.573 --> 00:08:22.924
-- I'm just trying to get you
as many common ones as I can here --

00:08:22.924 --> 00:08:24.046
This is C chord

00:08:24.046 --> 00:08:25.306
♪

00:08:25.306 --> 00:08:28.321
C with a G base, C/G.

00:08:28.321 --> 00:08:29.428
There's your G note.

00:08:29.428 --> 00:08:31.911
So, you just move that finger from the C

00:08:31.911 --> 00:08:33.762
pluck it on the old G there.

00:08:33.762 --> 00:08:35.557
Now the 5th string is muted.

00:08:35.557 --> 00:08:39.819
♪

00:08:39.819 --> 00:08:42.375
C with a G base. C/G.

00:08:42.375 --> 00:08:43.794
Really common in country.

00:08:43.794 --> 00:08:45.348
♪

00:08:45.348 --> 00:08:46.579
C

00:08:46.579 --> 00:08:49.056
C/G

00:08:49.056 --> 00:08:51.336
You kind of do that for
another reason, but it still...

00:08:51.336 --> 00:08:52.644
That's what it is.

00:08:52.644 --> 00:08:55.078
C. C/G.

00:08:55.078 --> 00:08:57.461
You can really go mad with them.

00:08:58.461 --> 00:09:02.168
So, I hope after that 
you are not scared of seeing slash chords anymore.

00:09:02.168 --> 00:09:05.048
It does take a little while to get used
to learning all of the different shapes.

00:09:05.048 --> 00:09:08.745
Because there's so many
variations possible,

00:09:08.745 --> 00:09:11.101
There are kind of a lot
of slash chords to learn,

00:09:11.101 --> 00:09:12.179
but what I'd recommend is

00:09:12.179 --> 00:09:14.572
having a little bit of an
experiment yourself and

00:09:14.572 --> 00:09:17.468
seeing, you know, what chord
you can put what base note with

00:09:17.468 --> 00:09:19.858
And see if you can come up 
with some funky chords, you know.

00:09:19.858 --> 00:09:22.198
Especially if you're a song writer, 
and you can really get...

00:09:22.198 --> 00:09:25.473
It's a nice way of kind of 
getting a bit creative with a simple idea.

00:09:25.473 --> 00:09:27.230
So, I hope you enjoyed that.

00:09:27.230 --> 00:09:29.452
Please subscribe, if you haven't already, 
to the channel

00:09:29.452 --> 00:09:31.162
and go and check out the web site

00:09:31.162 --> 00:09:33.847
where I'll stick some little chord boxes 
and stuff like that

00:09:33.847 --> 00:09:35.513
up for this lesson.

00:09:35.513 --> 00:09:37.046
So, I hope you're all good,

00:09:37.046 --> 00:09:38.013
take of yourselves,

00:09:38.013 --> 00:09:39.563
See you later from sunny London.

00:09:39.563 --> 00:09:41.092
Later, bye!