Any particular guitar chord can be played in a number of locations along the neck, called "positions." On my accoustic there are four positions for each chord, practically speaking. I always had problems remembering where these positions were, so I devised a method to help me get to the next position for a chord, regardless of the chord position I was in at the time. Here's what I came up with. I wanted to throw it out here on the forum for comments, suggestions, corrections, alternative methods for remembering the positions, zaniness, thread-drift, whatever.

Note: This thread received impetus from Little Neophyte's "Difficult Chord Progressions" thread and Songster Bob's post to that thread.

Also, this little device only allows for major chords: I figured once I got to the next position I'd then worry about the fingering for the minor, dominant 7th or whatever.

First, I noted there were three basic fingerings for the major chords, based on the chords E, A, and D in first position (the position with which I and most beginning guitarists are most familiar).

Using E as an example, I saw that to get to E second position, I had to move the whole party up the neck four frets, make a barre and play the D fingering above the bar (Thanks, Songster Bob, for nailing the terminology for me). To get to E third position, I had to move up the neck three more frets, make the barre and play the A fingering above the barre. To get to E fourth position, I had to move up five more frets and play the E fingering again.

I then did the same thing with A first position. To get to A second position, I moved up five frets, made the barre and played E above the bar. To get to A third position, I moved up four frets and played D above the barre. A fourth position was made by moving up the neck three more frets, making the barre and playing the A fingering again above the barre.

Finally, I did this with D in first position. To get to D second position, I moved up three frets, made the barre, and played A above the barre. D third position was got by moving up five frets and playing E above the barre. D fourth position was made by moving up four frets and again playing D above the barre.

What I distilled from all this was three rules:

1)If the chord you're playing is based on the E fingering, to get to the next position, move up four frets, make the barre and play D above the barre.

2)if the chord you're playing is based on a D fingering, the next position is found by moving the chord up three frets, making the barre and playing the A fingering above the barre.

3)If the chord is based on an A fingering, move the chord up the neck five frets, make the barre and play the E fingering above the barre, for the next position.

On electric guitars with longer necks, the pattern repeats after the fourth position of the chord.

Neil Lowe