4 Simple Chord Shapes That Produce Any Emotion, Mood, Or Feeling You Desire On Guitar

by Simon Candy

In this video, I show you how to play quartal harmony on your guitar.

Also known as quartal chords, or quartal voicings, and often associated with jazz guitar, this way of harmonising notes on your instrument gives you a very unique sound, unlike that which you get from traditional harmony.

Better yet, quartal harmony is easy to play because the whole system is based off just a few chord shapes, making it easy for you to visualise on your guitar compared to that of traditional harmony.

In this lesson, I am going to show you the main shapes for accessing quartal harmony on your guitar and how to best visualise these.

I will then demonstrate the sound of quartal chords in a couple of different musical contexts so you can hear the vast array of emotions and moods this way of harmonising on your guitar can bring to your playing.

Quartal harmony is very ambiguous, meaning one chord shape can be used in many different musical scenarios. This is one of the very cool features of playing quartal chords on your guitar.

While it is by no means a replacement for traditional harmony, quartal harmony will extend the range of sound on your instrument, giving you more scope by which to express yourself through the music you play.

Watch the video below to learn more:

Quartal Harmony

Here are the quartal harmony chord shapes as they appear on the top 4 strings of the guitar:

And here are these quartal harmony shapes in the key of G Major:

And how they relate to each other on the fretboard:

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