Continuing the series on movable chord shapes we will look at other ways of playing movable major chords.
If the root of the major chord is on the middle note of the 3-string guitar we can use a 4 2 1 or 1 2 4 shape:
I prefer the first version both in sound and in comfort of playing.
You will notice that I suggest using the 1st, 2nd and 4th fingers. I use my 4th finger lower down the fretboard, but do sometimes use my 3rd finger further up the fretboard where the frets are a bit closer together.
You might prefer to use your 3rd finger even for this E chord-it’s up to you.
Moving This E Chord Shape Up The Fretboard
This chord shape can be moved up the fretboard to give a range of major chords:
Another 2 Ways Of Playing E
There are other useful chord shapes for the 3-string Cigar Box Guitar that has the root on the 2nd note, but these involve missing out one of the notes from the triad.
Since the top and bottom strings of the guitar in G D G are the same notes but in different octaves, we can play the same fret position on these 2 strings to give us two chord shapes based on the shape at the top of the page.
We can either raise the top note which means we lose the 3rd note of the scale and end up with a power chord. Alternatively we lower the bottom note and lose the 5th note of the scale and get another major chord shape with the root on the middle string:
Both of these chord shapes are a useful addition to our movable chord shape library. The E major chord without the 5th note sounds quite open and playing it in some songs doesn’t sound quite as nice as the full triad shown at the top of the page. Nevertheless it’s still a useful chord shape to use.
The E power chord shape is one of my favorites as it allows power chords to be played without zooming all over the neck. See this article to find out what I mean:
Movable Power Chord Shapes For G D G Tuning On Cigar Box Guitars
Playing The Major Chord On A 3-string Guitar
I have written another article on major chord shapes for the cigar box guitar which shows how to play a major chord with the root on the bass string:
How Do I Play Major Chords On A Cigar Box Guitar?
This includes a fairly detailed guide on how I use my knowledge of music theory to work out chord shapes.
I also have a couple of YouTube videos coming soon that accompanies these articles. Here is the first one: