By now you must be familiar with the format of the Tonic, Subdominant & Dominant as well as what they can be used for when playing your Cuatro. As you know, you will be able to play some nice tunes using these three chords as they sound great together. The more combinations you know the better and once you are familiar with these then you will be well prepared for when we start to look at other progressions known as “la vuelta larga” which literally means the long way around. We’ll have a look at this later on for all chords, but for now lets focus some more on the C Major: Tonic, Subdominant & Dominant
C Major: Tonic, Subdominant & Dominant
As you can see, the chords being played in the video above are:
C Major
F Major
G7
Again, this follows the progression of I – IV – V. Notice that the F major chord can be played in 2 different ways. In the video the F major is being played leaving the 1st string (A) open as opposed to playing the D note on the 3rd fret which marks the conventional method of playing the F major chord. This will be looked at further in the lessons relating to the F major chord. Keep in mind that this progression is pretty complicated for beginners, take your time with it and gain more agility in your hands as you practice. The G7 chord in particular can be peculiar at first, the execution of the figure is fundamental and you will see why when we explore chords in other positions.
