Highballin' wrote:Rusty the Scoob wrote:The note after the slash is what you play underneath the regular chord. So in this case play a C chord with a G underneath it, as TJ describes.
ok I'm getting this so far. Very helpful. Scoob, if you could just explain what you mean by "underneath". Thanks. 
He means that you play it as the bass note, not to be confused with the base note. I am not being snide here, although it probably sounds like it. The base note (most people would say "root") for a C chord is always C, the bass note is the lowest note you play, as in bass as opposed to treble. In the case of the C/G, the bass note of the C chord would be string 6, which would be open, giving an E on a standard tune. The third fret on string 6 is a G, so to change a 6 string C chord to a C/G, change the last string from open to 3rd fret to get the G on the "bass" string.
A/B is a little different, most people are going to play A in first position like this:
1: 0 E
2: 2 C#
3: 2 A
4: 2 E
5: 0 A
6: X
It's not that you can't strum the 6th string open, because an E will fit with the chord, but most people don't because you already have two Es in there. In fact, I like the chord better in first position without strumming the 1st string either, but that will lead us into a different discussion. Anyway, to change the above A to an A/B, we change the "bass" string, in this case string 5, from an A to a B, and we get:
1: 0 E
2: 2 C#
3: 2 A
4: 2 E
5: 2 B
6: X
That would be consistent with the notation I have read, but I don't really think of it that way. Like I said, I would be more inclined to play this:
1: X
2: 2 C#
3: 2 A
4: 2 E
5: 2 B
6: X
and think of it in my head as an A major added ninth. Take that with a grain of salt as almost everything I know about chords on guitar has been learned from talking to piano players, and they are a truly strange bunch.
Mama Mama many worlds I've come since I first left home.
