Look at the diagram below. Notice that each pair of strings will be used for a different part of a chord. The Root (or 1) is played with the 6th. or 5th. string and the "color tones" (3 and 7) will be played on the middle strings. For now, we won't worry too much about the first and secong strings or the 5th. of the chord.
The key to building chords on the fingerboard lies in understanding where the intervals of the chord are in relation to the root. The chord below is Amaj7. It's "A" because the root or "one" of the chord is placed at the 5th. fret of the sixth string (the note A). It is a major 7th. chord because of the natural 3rd. and 7th. intervals. (See how important it is to understand chord construction?) You can play any major 7th. chord by building the smae intervals from other roots. We'll refer to the following as "sixth string root chords."
Flatting the 3rd. and 7th. intervals of a major chord produce a minor chord. Since we now know where these intervals are on the guitar, it's easy to alter the Amaj7 to become Amin7.
Finally, we produce a "dominant 7th." chord by flatting only the 7th. interval of the major chord. Again, it is possible to construct these chords from any root. Once you have learned these shapes and feel comfortable with the construction of each chord type, click below to learn them from the 5th string roots.
