Learning how to transpose guitar chords is relatively easy if a little knowledge of music theory is known. Transposing guitar chords begins with knowing the basic music scale, understanding the concept of half and whole steps, and being willing to devote a little time to it.
To learn how to transpose guitar chords, you will need:
- a guitar
- a written music scale
- a pen and paper
Steps in learning how to transpose guitar chords:
- Knowledge of playing standard and bar guitar chords are a necessity when learning how to transpose. The written music scale is helpful to look at as well when transposing. The standard musical scale is this: A A# B C C# D D# E F F# G G# (when written relative to sharps). When the musical scale is written relative to flats is looks like this: A Bb B C Db D Eb E F Gb G Ab. It is important to understand that certain notes have two names. An example is a Bb is the same note as an A# (take note on the scale that these two notes are in the same location; between the A and B).
- Another concept that must be understood is the concept of half and whole steps. A half-step refers to moving a note up or down by one note. An example is a half-step up from C is C#. A half-step down from C is B. Transposing chords by a whole-step refers to moving a note up or down two half-steps. An example of this is transposing a D up a step. The new note would be E. Transposing the note D down a whole step would result in the new note being a C.
- Once those two concepts are understood, it's time to put it to practice. For this step it's important to look at the above musical scale for reference purposes. For example, say there is a song with the chord progression: A E D and it needs to be transposed down one and one half-step. This simply means moving each note down three half-steps. The new chord progression would then be: F# C# B. Another example, using the same original chord progression, is now the song needs to be transposed up one step. In this case, each note would move up two half steps making the new progression: B F# E.
- Practice transposing chord progressions. Take different examples and keep practicing. It does not take long to understand and master transposing chords on a guitar.