These 4 Chords are Played in 1000's of MASSIVE Hits!

[00:00:00]Hello and welcome to the Thursday hang, the guitar lesson I do every Thursday here on the Andrew Wson YouTube channel.

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[00:00:23]So today, what we're going to look at on the Thursday hang is considered to be the most popular, probably the most universal four chord progression that's found in thousands of massive hits out there. These four chords, they can be heard in a lot of different keys, but the keys of G major, D major, and E major are probably some of the most popular out there. We're going to focus in this lesson on E major. And in this lesson, what I'm going to do is show you how to play these chords, some nice options for the fingerings across the neck. We're going to look at an inversion that's really nice and I'm going to show you how to spice them up by using some filler licks around them.

[00:00:57]Let's get started with the progression itself. It's uh E major [music] into B major into C# sharp minor and A major. Now, this [music] chord progression universally is called a 1 5 6 4. And we are of course in the key of E major. And I would suggest first of all just getting used to the chord shapes themselves. I've got some pretty basic chords here, but there are some bar chords. If you are still kind of at that beginner level, these may be a bit challenging. Let's just run through all these chords. Starting on E major, standard [music] open position E major.

[00:01:31]If you've played guitar for a couple of weeks, you've probably seen this one.

[00:01:33]Fingering is open [music] 2 3 1 open, open right across the neck. And then the bar chord that I have for you for the B major here is in second position. Got the low B [music] bass note on second fret, fifth string, laying flat with the third finger to catch fourth, third, and second strings there at the fourth fret.

[00:01:49]If you find bar chords challenging, you know, you can try it up higher on the neck on some other [music] chords. You can also try putting a capo clamp down on the strings, and that's going to help pull the strings closer to the frets and make bar cording a little bit easier until you can get the technique 100%.

[00:02:04]Uh, the major bar chord off that B is probably the most challenging, but the next bar chord is maybe a little easier.

[00:02:10]It's a minor one from the C sharp. So the fingering on this minor is 1 3 4 [music] 2. Just on the four inside strings from the fifth string going to the second string for that C# sharp minor. And then finally the A open position. Probably one of the easiest.

[00:02:24]All you do is you just have that open A fifth string and you're laying your first finger flat across fourth string to second string to get those strings involved with that A. That's our four chord. And that's going to help turn things around. And you know, in the beginning when you're just learning this, I think it's important to understand a couple things. Know the harmony, understand how it's working with the key. If you don't understand that kind of stuff right now, like intervals and all that, uh, be sure to check out my handouts collection ebook.

[00:02:49]It's a download that you get on a donation. You can see the donation link below. It's a fantastic ebook. It's got over 100 pages in it, and it's all about building the solid foundation you need as a guitar player. So, definitely check that out. But I would suggest after you get the chords together, just do a little bit of rhythm guitar work and kind of get a groove going. Get them into your playing. Be able to switch, you [music] know, from one to the next.

[00:03:16][music] Just keep it super simple like that.

[00:03:22]Flow through the chords, get the fingering together, and understand how they all fit together. And once that's pretty good for you, here's some fun that you can have next. After that, I'm going to show you a riff that uses some filler licks between each of these chords. Uh, I'm just going to play it for you at first. It goes like this.

[00:03:38][music] [music] [music] >> [music] >> So, we can hear those filler licks really spice it up a lot. It makes it sound really cool. All the stuff that you need to learn that will be in the handout for this lesson over on my Patreon. You got to remember Thursday hang stuff is totally free. You can just head to my Patreon at the link you see below and download the handout. any Thursday hang lesson that you see on my Patreon. It's totally free. So, definitely go over to Patreon and check that stuff out. Uh, next, what I'm going to do is I'm going to take all these chords and we're going to place them more in the middle of the neck. So, let's go through them again. We're going to start on an [music] E major, though, set up in that fourth fret area.

[00:04:42]You're just getting a fingering here of 4 3 [music] 1 2 between the fifth and second strings in the fourth position for the E. And then what we're going to do is stay in fourth position and we're going to place a D sharp note in the bass. And we're going to [music] give B major again, but instead of with the B in the bass, we're doing it with a D sharp in the bass. And that moving over to our C sharp [music] bar chord is going to create a nice drop down idea in the bass notes. So we're going from E to the [music] B with the D sharp in the bass and C sharp minor. And then after that, we're going to do a cool version here of our A. And this [music] is going to be a small triad between fourth and second strings with the open fifth string A in the bass. And that is set up [music and singing] in the fifth position. All right. So those are the chord changes to get used to them. Same kind of practice routine. just start strumming and get a groove and do some nice rhythm guitar with them. [music] [music] All you need to do is practice the chord grip from one chord shape to the next and just keep rotating, flipping from one to the other. Your hands will get used to the motions. Before you know it, you'll have the muscle memory together and you'll be able to do some nice rhythm guitar and have a nice jam going with these chord changes. Now, I did say that I had some filler lick stuff going on for all these and there's no difference with this one. I have some cool filler lick stuff. I'm going to get into the filler licks right now for you so you hear how it sounds and then we'll talk about them later. So, here it is.

[00:06:16][music] >> [music] [music] [music] [music] >> All right. So, let's check out these filler licks and find out how they're operating. Off the first chord of E major, we're going through on second string with a grace note slide, dropping down through the scale into this C# sharp note on the third string.

[00:06:57]Then we're heading into our B with D# sharp in the bass. And we've got another lick on second string there, moving to third string. And then we'll have our C sharp chord coming in after that.

[00:07:07][music] And then we'll have some lines coming up here on the third and fourth strings, moving into our A chord lastly. Now, this [music] one's got a bit of a jump behind it because you got to jump all the way back here to the second fret because we want to get a grace note slide idea that moves from [music] fourth fret to sixth fret and builds us up into this B note on the fourth fret of third string.

[00:07:31]Really nice connection there for that.

[00:07:32]And then we can just [music] start all over again. We'll be in a nice position of the neck to do the loop. As you can tell, the filler lick stuff is so cool.

[00:07:40]It's a great way to kind of practice guitar on your own. And then it's a really cool thing to know about when somebody perhaps asks you, "Hey, you play guitar? Play something for me." And you can do something simple like this.

[00:07:51]You'll blow them away. Most of the time people are completely smoked when you play guitar for them because, you know, like they don't probably play an instrument. So watching you do something is pretty cool for them. Now remember, all the stuff I covered here on the Thursday hang is free over on my Patreon. You can see the link for that below. patreon.com/creative guitarstudio. you'll be able to download the handout, get all the details that you need about this lesson. And I think the most important thing here is to first of all understand that this progression is super popular. I'm going to give a list of songs in the handout for this lesson that have used this and they're massive hits and you'll recognize probably all of them on the list. But the most important thing though is technique. Always build the technique slowly. Work with a metronome or drum machine. develop your skills so that you can move your fingerings, get the muscle memory, get everything together for each of the chord shapes, and then begin building some of the filler lick stuff. It takes time, but it's fun and it'll kind of get you hooked into it. The only thing you got to remember is it takes a little bit of effort sometimes to get those bar chords. And if you are still at that beginner level, just uh stay away from the discouragement that you might feel.

[00:08:59]Uh you don't need to go there. You'll get better at them. Everybody can learn bar chords. I guarantee it. And some of the tips I gave you through the lesson should help you well and good enough with that, too. So, thank you so much for joining me. And if you have questions, be sure to reach out through the contact forum of the creative guitarstudio website. Visit me over at creative guitarstudio.com. Uh you can sign up for courses there. I've got my beginner, intermediate, and advanced guitar programs as well as a whole bunch of great electives. Follow the link at the lower half of the screen. And before I wrap up, I just wanted to mention that the next couple of minutes after this, I'm going to do a breakdown of what's available on Creative Guitar. So definitely stick around and watch that.

[00:09:37]And then one last time before we wrap up, if you want the handout for this, remember it is free on my Patreon at the link you see below, patreon.com/creative guitar studio. With a free membership, you'll be able to access all the free lesson material, including a collection of six years of YouTube archives, where there are hundreds of videos, PDF handouts, and MP3 jam tracks. Plus, with a free membership, you'll gain access to the Quick Licks program, a 30 lesson course covering guitar licks in all playing styles across all types of scales and arpeggios. When you sign up for a paid membership, you'll get access to my core curriculum, including my beginner, intermediate, and advanced guitar programs. Plus, there's also my elective courses on the site like acoustic guitar, guitar technique, guitar soloing, ear training, music reading, and many others. Go check it out. You're going to love it. The website is creativestudio.com.