Guitar For Kids -- The D Chord

Hi gang!

Hi gang!

Let's talk about the D chord.

The D chord is a major chord (It don't have that little "m" after it.) Do ya'll remember the formula for a major chord?

Root + Major 3rd + minor 3rd ( R + M3 + m3 ).

Also you need to remember that another way to look at all basic chords is R + 3rd + 5th. For a major chord, this 3rd happens to be a major 3rd. To get the 5th, just add another minor 3rd on top of that because the 5th of the root is also the "3rd of the 3rd".

R + M3 + m3

R + 3 + 5

Okidoke... So for the D chord, what's the root?

Answer: D

What's the 3rd? (major 3rd -- 4 half-steps) Use the chromatic scale if ya have to.

A A#/Bb B C C#/Db D D#/Eb E F F#/Gb G G#/Ab A

Answer: F#

HOLD IT! STOP THE PRESSES!

The chromatic scale thingy says that this note could be either an F# OR a Gb! Why did you choose the F#??? What's wrong (sniff) with the Gb?

Um... Okay... Ya got me there. There is of course a reason why it's an F# and not the Gb. Let's look at the musical alphabet scale starting from the letter D:

D E F G A B C D

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

What's the 3rd letter? It's an F, right? So when ya get to the chromatic scale, ya know it's gonna have to be an F "something" (in this case, a sharp). YOU CAN'T SKIP A LETTER IN THE ALPHABET SCALE. That's not allowed. That's how I knew. No kipsays on the etterlays!

Now then, what's the 5th (a m3 from F#)

Answer: A

So the D chord is D F# A. Just those 3 notes. This is the definition of the D chord.

Now let's look at the fingering for the chord. The high "E" string is on the right.

[ X 0 0 2 3 2 ]

The top E string has the 2nd finger on the 2nd fret. This happens to be an F#.

The 2nd string has the 3rd finger on the 3rd fret. This is a D.

The 3rd string has the 1st finger on the 2nd fret. This note is an A.

The 4th open string is a D, and the 5th open string is an A. The 6th string is not played. So from high to low the notes on this chord are:

F# D A D A X

It doesn't matter that the D and the A are repeated. What matters is that the only notes that you see are a D an F#, and an A. That's it. There are other ways to play a D chord, but they will still just have D F# A in them.

You of course, should memorize this as soon as you can.

OK! Great job. See ya later.

Professor Bruno Noteworthy

by: Professor Bruno Noteworthy: Toon Music Professor

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