Slash Chords (Guitar Lesson CH-007) How to play

Justin's Completely Free, Guitar Chords Lessons. This is Lesson CH-007.

In this lesson we look at Slash Chords. What they are and how to play them.

Find the related course notes on the following link:
http://justinguitar.com/en/CH-007-Slash.php

Taught by Justin Sandercoe.

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

In this little lesson today

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

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

and wondered what it meant,

may be it was two chords at the same time.

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

and it's really, really simple.

All slash chords are,

are indicating a different
base note for the chord

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

because the bass player will be playing it.

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

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

That's all it is.

Chord, "/", base note.

Now, sometimes,
this can be incredibly easy.

If we took, say, a regular Em chord

♪

Now, if it was Em/B,

all you'd have to do

is play it with starting
from the 5th string,

♪

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

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

is the note B.

.♪

Now, that's the principle of it

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

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

you need to know what the notes are

at least on the thickest two strings,

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

is on one of those two strings, so

making...

an essential skill really
for all of you guys

would be knowing the notes
on the bottom two strings,

because you need that
for your power chords,

your barre chords, your scales
and everything. So,

make sure you get that down

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

Just pick any chord and then
try and figure out

what it sounds like
with a different base note.

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

♪

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

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

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

and put my little finger
back where it was before:

♪

Pretty funky sounding chord:

♪

Not a very common one, probably,

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

any chord with any base note.

A lot of more complex jazz stuff

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

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

♪

Things like that, you know.

They sound pretty outside, you know,

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

For a beginner guitar player,

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

or maybe you're a great guitar player

and you just never discovered
slash chords before,

there are a few really common ones

which I wanna go through with you now and,

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

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

Regular D chord,

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

Now, hopefully some of you know already,

but that note there is the note F#.

So, if we've got a D chord

♪

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

there's a couple of ways of doing it.

First of all, you could
wrap your thumb around

♪

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

♪

I usually let the thumb mute that string.

I think it sounds a bit sweeter,

but that's really your call.

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

and a much more common way of
playing that chord

is like this:

with first finger on the F#.

That also mutes the fourth...

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

The D string is open.

Second finger on the 2nd fret

And third finger on the 3rd fret.

♪

And that thinnest string is also muted.

♪

This is a really common way of playing it.

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

♪

to D with an F# base:

♪

to Em:

♪

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

♪

G

D with an F# base.

You can see that coming from the G

the third finger is staying where it is,

second finger is going down,

first finger is going over to the base:

♪

and then to Em,

The first finger comes back over,

second finger goes up,

and third finger comes off:

♪

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

♪

Then you get an Em7.

But that's a really common...

♪

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

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

Either like that...

You can play it like that as well.

It's not an uncommon way to play it,

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

or like that (♪).

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

you'd use different fingers
in different circumstances.

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

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

So there's a regular G chord:

♪

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

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

♪

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

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

but usually, it's found
in between the chords

G (♪)

Sorry!

C (♪)

G/B (♪)

and Am (♪).

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

it's a lot easier to finger it:

This is C chord,

now, second finger moves over to the B,

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

♪

making sure that the 6th string is muted.

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

Little finger is also muting the first string.

♪

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

♪

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

but it's not officially part of the chord,

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

for the Am (♪).

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

other two fingers lift off,
little finger goes down.

♪

There's your G/B (♪)

C (♪)

G/B (♪)

Am (♪)

G/B (♪)

♪

Can make a nice little song out there

C (♪)

G/B (♪)

Am (♪)

Now, here's a common one as well:

♪

Am with a G base.

♪

So, just reaching over
with the little finger there

to hit the note G.

♪

So, that would be an Am/G.

Not that hard, really. Is it?

Or, instead of that, you might go:

♪

G/B (♪)

Am (♪)

Then you might go G (♪)

D/F# (♪)

Em (♪)

Often follows vocals.

♪

It's used in "Wonderwall" and

and "Miss American Pie"

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

♪

Now, another really nice little one

that you might experiment with is A chord.

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

or whatever.

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

♪

Making sure the thinnest string again,
that one up there, is muted

with the underneath of your first finger.

♪

So you're pressing down just three strings.

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

♪

I'm playing A with a C# base.

♪

It's just a really nice sound

♪

D (♪)

A/C# (♪)

E.
That's a common movement.

♪

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

So, that's A with a C# base,

but we could have, say,
A chord with a G base:

♪

See? It's just really...

It's an A chord
and you can put on whatever bass you want,

you could put an F# base.

Play the A with your third finger:

♪

Do that, that would be an A/F#
(♪)

Also called F#min7, but you could call it
A/F#, so it'd be cool.

You could put an F base on it.

♪

Pretty wacky sounding chord, but it still works.

You can really...
You can go mad with these things.

Another really common one

-- I'm just trying to get you
as many common ones as I can here --

This is C chord

♪

C with a G base, C/G.

There's your G note.

So, you just move that finger from the C

pluck it on the old G there.

Now the 5th string is muted.

♪

C with a G base. C/G.

Really common in country.

♪

C

C/G

You kind of do that for
another reason, but it still...

That's what it is.

C. C/G.

You can really go mad with them.

So, I hope after that
you are not scared of seeing slash chords anymore.

It does take a little while to get used
to learning all of the different shapes.

Because there's so many
variations possible,

There are kind of a lot
of slash chords to learn,

but what I'd recommend is

having a little bit of an
experiment yourself and

seeing, you know, what chord
you can put what base note with

And see if you can come up
with some funky chords, you know.

Especially if you're a song writer,
and you can really get...

It's a nice way of kind of
getting a bit creative with a simple idea.

So, I hope you enjoyed that.

Please subscribe, if you haven't already,
to the channel

and go and check out the web site

where I'll stick some little chord boxes
and stuff like that

up for this lesson.

So, I hope you're all good,

take of yourselves,

See you later from sunny London.

Later, bye!