Chords for Enhance Your Open Chords (simple way to sound pro)

[B] Alright everyone, today's gonna be a lot of fun.
We're gonna dress up some basic [Bb] chords.
I know [A] sometimes when my students play all the open chords that [E] they learn,
they [Ab] always have questions about how do you make it a little bit more [Bb] exciting.
You know, at first you're just [Bbm] trying to get the chords to sound good,
but later you want to dress them up a little bit because you sort of [Ab] get tired of the same sounds when you're playing.
There's a lot of ways to do that.
You can also change your picking, but for today
we're gonna actually use just our [Bb] fretting hand and we're gonna do a couple little changes to make [Ab] each chord a little bit more interesting.
[C] And so for the YouTube version, we're going to just do a [Db] few of the forms today.
You can go to the [B] website for the full version.
We'll do all five forms, major and minor over there.
But today we'll just do a little [G] demonstration of what you [Abm] can do with just a few movements for open chords.
So let's [Ab] start off thinking [Bb] caged, okay?
So we have C as the first form.
If you make [C] a C shape, _ _
_ _ _ it's already [Eb] a great sound, but we kind of want to dress it up a little bit.
And they're not all gonna follow the same formula.
[Bb] Some people think, okay,
we'll make each [C] one a [Bb] sus chord, then we'll make each one a seventh chord and so on.
[D] But each one has [Ab] its strengths in my [Eb] opinion.
So I'll show [Ab] you my favorite, okay?
[Fm] So from the first form [C] major, _ _
_ a really simple way to dress this chord up is to take [Eb] your pinky [E] and to put it in [Bb] four different places.
So the [Dbm] first thing you can do is you could put it on the first string third [C] fret. _
_ _ Sounds like a Jayhawk song. _ _
_ _ _ Okay, [E] so that's just adding a G to the C chord.
So [C] that's just gonna still be a C chord, but a G is now at the top so it has a different sound.
_ _ _ [Ab] Different voicing if you will.
Now if you [C] take your pinky and move it to the second string third fret, now you get this sound.
_ _ _ [Bb] So you're adding a D note to the [A] C chord so you can call it an add nine.
[E] So listen how this can dress it up if you're just [C] jamming. _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ [Db] Cool way just to add something new to the chord.
If you move it to [Bb] the third string third fret, be careful because it's gonna
change the entire tonality of it.
Now it's a [C] C7 chord. _ _
So that could be a drastic [Bb] change if you're not going for that, be [Cm] careful.
So [Bb] that's gonna be adding a B [C] flat to the C chord. _ _ _
_ Sounds [A] like the end of Happy Birthday when you say him anymore.
Okay, and then the final place to change [Ab] things up with the first form is to go to the fourth string third fret and now
you have [C] a sus chord because you're adding an F to [F] the C chord.
_ [C] _ _ I love that one because [B] it's fun to go back and forth from the pinky being [E] down [A] to lifting it off and you get this
sort of hoo [C] effect. _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ It's a great sound to add that.
[E] So for the first form what I [B] really like to do is just go crazy with a pinky to dress things up.
[C] There's more things you can do, but that's the [Db] the main thing
I like to do with the first form major.
Okay, [Ab] let's move to the second form.
So we [A] have the A shape. _
_ _ Remember talking about the cage [C] system, if you're not familiar with that, make sure you learn that from the site because
otherwise you're gonna be thinking second form, third form, what's [Ab] all that craziness?
But [Bb] that's the way we follow the chords as far as the patterns go.
Okay, [Gb] so we have the second form major.
[A] _ Now [Ab] this one's really fun because all you [E] have to do to really change things up with this form is to
[C] once again use the [Bb] pinky, but in a very simple way.
Let's just lift [A] it up.
_ _ [B] Now you have an [A] Asus2 chord. _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
That's a fun [C] one to do if you're starting the song [Bb] and you're just playing an A major.
Throw that in there for a little bit of a different effect, kind of [A] a nice mellow effect.
_ _ _ [Ab] It reminds me of a filter [E] song, I think.
All these [A] remind me of some songs,
so I'm just gonna be [Ab] bringing out all the comparisons today.
Okay, now let's take that pinky [G] and just push it up to the [C] second [Ab] string third fret, so the D note.
So now we have a sus [Abm] going the other way.
This is [Ab] gonna be a sus4 or just they call it a sus chord.
[E] Asus.
[A] _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ Now if you use [Bm] both the sus2 and the sus4,
[E] _ oops, I just broke my tuner.
You get [Ab] sort of this like, it's like a [E] Don Henley sound.
[B] Another comparison.
[A] _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
Like [Ab] the song's called Heart of the Matter.
Sounds like that.
Great sound.
[E] Alright, so for that shape,
it's the pinky.
Unless you use this way [Bb] of playing that chord shape, then the ring finger will [Ab] have to do a lot of the work.
Sometimes this is nice [Bm] because you can [Bb] either just move the ring finger forward here to the D, or you could just [E] add the pinky.
So [A] every form has its advantages and disadvantages, alright?
[Eb]
So go ahead and meet us [C] at the website for all the rest of these and more, and also the theory [Ab] behind them too.
I like to teach a lot of stuff combined [Bb] so that you guys understand things from a bigger [C] perspective.
That way when you're playing with other [Bb] people or if you're on stage, you have more options
because you have the knowledge to back up what