The simplest way to play a minor chord on a cigar box guitar is to play the barred power chord and add your little finger to the 3rd fret above that barre on the first string only. E.g. A minor is played 2 2 5 because the A power chord requires a barre on the 2nd fret.
What Is Meant By The Term Power Chord?
A power chord contains the 1st and 5th notes of the scale. Often one of these is doubled so that there are two 1sts an octave apart or two fifths an octave apart.
I have written two articles about power chords that explain in detail:
- How to work out how to play a particular power chord on G D G and E B E tuning Power Chords On a Guitar With Three Strings
- How to get a better sound playing power chords on a cigar box guitar How To Play A Cigar Box Guitar With One Finger
When we use one finger to fret the strings to make a chord on the cigar box guitar, we are playing a power chord.
A power chord can stand in for a major or minor chord because it doesn’t contain the 3rd note of the scale. Here’s why:
- Usually a three note chord or triad is made up of the 1st, 3rd and 5th notes of the scale.
- Adding the 3rd note to a power chord allows us to make the note a major triad or a minor triad.
- This is because for the major triad we use the 3rd note of the major scale and for the minor we flatten that 3rd note.
- This gives the minor chord it’s characteristic sadder sound compared to the brighter sound of the major chord.
Are Power Chords Just For Beginner Cigar Box Guitarists?
The simple answer is no.
When we want to simplify playing chords, which we especially want to do as a beginner to the cigar box guitar, we use power chords. However, even as a more advanced player, we will still want to use power chords at least some of the time because they are what make the cigar box guitar so easy and fun to play.
To play a melody above a chord is a pretty advanced technique on a 6 stringed guitar. Even a four stringed instrument that is not tuned in open tuning, such as a ukulele, makes it hard to keep chords and a melody going at the same time.
However on a cigar box guitar, we can play the melody on the top string and frequently add chords underneath because we can easily play power chords.
I’ve explained this is in some detail because I don’t want you to think that power chords are just for absolute beginners who can’t quite manage more complicated shapes yet. Power chords definitely have their place in our toolkit for playing cigar box guitar.
Using What We Know To Find New Chords- Power Chord To Minor Chord
On a cigar box guitar, we are doubling up the 1st note when we play a 1 finger barre chord across all three strings, so although we are playing 0 0 0 on the strings , we are actually playing the1st, 5th and 1st of the scale. To make this power chord into a minor chord we need to find a way to add in the flattened 3rd note of the scale, removing either a 1st or a 5th note .
Let’s take the example of G on a 3 stringed Cigar Box Guitar tuned G D G . The G power chord is easily played by just strumming the open strings without any frets being pressed down ( we can also play it by fretting at the 12th fret).
Using the example of G, we need to add the flattened 3rd to play a G minor chord. This is Bb which is found on the 3rd fret of the top and bass string or the 8th fret of the middle string.
We are going to use the 3rd fret because when we move this shape up the fretboard ( see below) the stretch of a barre up to the 8th fret higher will be impossible.
The power chord of G is 0 0 0 and G minor is played 0 0 3 ( you can put the flattened 3rd in the bass and play 3 0 0 if you want- this is called an inversion)
Using The Minor Chord Shapes Higher Up The Fretboard
Now we know how to play a G power chord and a G minor chord, we can use this knowledge to find any minor chord on the 3 string cigar box guitar.
The cigar box guitar fretboard is arranged in a way that really helps you to learn the power chord and major and minor shapes. If we know the name of the note we are playing on the bass string, we know what chord we are playing.
I have written an article here that helps you to work out how to play any major chord LINK COMING SOON
Let’s look at the A chords as an example:
- We play the A power chord by fretting the second fret with our first finger flattened across all three strings ( or by lining up our first, second and third strings across the second fret)
- Remembering that the minor chord is the same as the power chord but with a flattened 3rd note of the scale played on the 3rd fret above the barre, this gives us A minor as 2 2 5.
The Minor Chord On A Cigar Box Guitar – Another Example
To check you have understood how to transfer the chord shapes higher up the fretboard, see if you can work out the power chord of C and then the minor chord before you check below to see if you are right.
C power 5 5 5
C minor 5 5 8
I have gone into so much detail to explain this so that you can learn to work out chord shapes for yourself but I also want to provide a handy reference chart to help you out in the beginning. I provide a table here that you can download as a pdf.
CHORD CHART
You also need to remember that there are many ways of playing the same chord, including inversions……
This is just to get you started so that if you come across the chords of a tune you want to play and you don’t know how to play it, you can have a go at working it out for yourself. If, like me , you are the kind of person who can remember things much better if you understand why, this way of learning will really help. If you have a great memory for remembering charts, then the chart will help you even if you can’t remember the theory behind it all.
Learning anything is much easier if you can work out what helps you to remember how to do something.
My Instrument Is Tuned To A Different Open Chord
This table will help you to find all the chord shapes you need for open E tuning E B E:
I have gone into quite a lot of theory here, partly to explain things well I hope, but also to help you remember how to quickly work out any minor key on the cigar box guitar.
There are other chord shapes to play minor keys and I plan on making chord shape charts available.