How To Immediately Improve Your Guitar Playing With Simple Ideas - Chord Embellishments

by Simon Candy

In this video lesson, you learn how to make the chords you play on guitar sound better using embellishments. Chord embellishments make any chord sound more pretty, beautiful, and sophisticated.

You first learn the easiest way to apply embellishments to these open chords. It’s super simple, and will be done in both a strumming and picking context.

Next, we will take things a step further by adding legato to the embellishments for a very smooth sound.

Finally, you learn how to bring notes from outside of the chord shapes you are embellishing for an even better and more advanced sound.

We will also put all this together into a chord progression, utilising the embellishments you have learned.

Watch the video below to learn more:

Example 1: Strumming Chord Embellishment

This first example has you lifting fingers away from the chord shape, to then immediately put back down, creating cool sounding embellishments:

Example 2: Picking Chord Embellishment With Legato

The second example adds some chord picking along with legato for an even better sound using embellishments:

Example 3: Embellishments Outside The Chord Shape

Example 3 includes notes from outside the chord shape when embellishing for a more advanced sound: 

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