Beginner Guitar Lesson 13

Wonderwall chord extensions

The most obvious way to move around the verse of Wonderwall chords would have been:

VI – II – V – I. An outrageous number of hits have done so.

The way that progression could have moved would have been in line with the concept of the the cycle of 4ths.

This derive from the standard blues chord progression which in most places does just that; moves up a 4th.

Try playing the extended versions of the chords for Wonderwall in this order, play:

VIm7 – IIsus4 – Vsus4 – I

Use the same chord shapes as in the video lesson below.

Compare chord extensions

Now compare this with playing just the normal open position chords.

Did the extension using this chord progression feel a bit too, shall we say, static?

Did it feel as if we didn’t perhaps move enough?

Now try the same experiment using the actual progression from the verse of Wonderwall.

First play:

VI – I – V – II, which would spell: Em – G – D – Am

Then with extensions which would spell Em7 – G – Dsus4 – A7sus4

Big difference right?

The II7sus4 without a doubt being the biggest change.

Learn more about how sus chords work and how they can be applied over both major and minor chords in the Guitar Conspiracy.

The bridge section use another nice extension which shape slot in nicely with the other chords, the Cadd9.

You’ve played this before in Talking About A Revolution and Time Of Your Life, and I’m sure; many more songs to come in the future!

After playing through the chords, isn’t it clear how the reason for each extension lies within that they are all easy to fret? They use the same upper two notes almost throughout, this ties the progression together.

Think about how you can use the balance between chord extensions and order of chords when you write a song.

If you want to get much better at guitar really quickly; find out how all these chords and extensions relate to each other in every area of the neck.

Use the concept of the 2nd guitar part as discussed in previous lessons, play along to my video with vocals and record it all using, for example your mobile phone or similar device.

Upload your performance as a video response to our video Wonderwall Chords on youtube and you’ll get feedback on your findings as well!

Keep moving the Capo!

All this is much more difficult to achieve compared with previous lessons since Wonderwall use a Capo at fret 2.

The only way to get better at this is to keep experimenting by moving the capo around and come up with 2nd guitar parts to different songs.

Next up is Beginner Guitar Lesson 14.

Happy playing!

Dan (your guitar guru)