Chords on guitar differ from piano?

[Exhile]

Ok i have no experience with guitars but i am looking at getting possibly the pettinghouse acoustic guitar. This has an awesome looking chord setting and i was hopeing to play some semi realistic chords with it. Now i remember hearing that guitar chords are different from piano chords.

Is this the case. If i played a simple chord progression on the piano would this come out totally wrong on the pettinhouse guitar?

[Rattleshock]

You would have to voice it accordingly. There are lots of octaves in guitar chords. For example a simple E chord has 3 octaves of the E note.This is a little harder to play on piano. Thank goodness for sequencers!! I would suggest finding a site that shows how guitars chords are played and exactly what notes are in the chords. CHEERS!

[geroyannis]

As Rattleshock said it's all about the voicing of chords. For example clusters are very easy on the piano while on the guitar they range from difficult to impossible.

[robogone]

Piano chords can be played with the notes in pretty much any order. Guitar chords tend to be much more restrictive as the relative pitching of the string and the ability to stretch fingers up and down the neck determines the number and octave of notes in a chord.

Where inversions are very simple on piano they are much more difficult on guitar (and sometimes near impossible)

[wrench45us]

one of those Computer Music or Future Music magazines had a set of midi files for guitar chords, including 'authentic' strum sequence timings
that was a few years ago, but I suspect the midi files are out there somewhere

it makes a significant difference
guitar chords are really open so they cover a lot of spectral space, but also leave a lot of space -- just another reason it's been such a successful instrument

[Uncle E]

The most commonly used guitar chord shape is Root-5th-Root-3rd-5th-Root. For chords involving 7ths, you could either go Root-5th-7th-3rd-5th-Root or Root-3rd-7th-3rd-5th. The James Brown chord is Root-3rd-7th-2nd (really 9th)-5th and I like to follow that up with Root-7th-3rd-6th (really 13th).

[Exhile]

The most commonly used guitar chord shape is Root-5th-Root-3rd-5th-Root. For chords involving 7ths, you could either go Root-5th-7th-3rd-5th-Root or Root-3rd-7th-3rd-5th. The James Brown chord is Root-3rd-7th-2nd (really 9th)-5th and I like to follow that up with Root-7th-3rd-6th (really 13th).

ah pièce of cake really

[robogone]

The most commonly used guitar chord shape is Root-5th-Root-3rd-5th-Root.

Only if you're using barre chords. It's probably more common to use the open shapes in which the number of notes and the sequence varies greatly from chord to chord.

i.e.

G Major is Root-3rd-5th-Root-5th-Root.
A Major is Root-5th-Root-3rd-5th
C Major is Root-3rd-5th-Root-3rd
D Major is Root-5th-Root-3rd

etc.

[Tony Ostinato]

i remember bein in a music store and a guy came in and asked the clerk if they had any instruments that were really easy to play.

the guy said "sir, if there were instruments that were easy to play our walls would be covered with them".

[Exhile]

So i guess the solution is get strum acoustic as it does The hard work for you.

[Uncle E]

Only if you're using barre chords. It's probably more common to use the open shapes in which the number of notes and the sequence varies greatly from chord to chord.

Even in your examples, there are really only two distinct chord shapes.

[cryophonik]

Check out the "Common Guitar Chord equivalents for keyboard" file on the Indiginus website (excellent guitar sample libraries here btw):

http://www.indiginus.com/freedownloads.html

[robogone]

Only if you're using barre chords. It's probably more common to use the open shapes in which the number of notes and the sequence varies greatly from chord to chord.

Even in your examples, there are really only two distinct chord shapes.

Wasn't disagreeing with your evaluation, just that I thought the open chords were more common. It wasn't until I wrote them down that I realized how similar they look.

[wrench45us]

now the cool thing is one can use those chord structures, but with notes that otherwise wouldn't be reachable/playable on guitar

need a C chord below the E open string, no problem

[robogone]

now the cool thing is one can use those chord structures, but with notes that otherwise wouldn't be reachable/playable on guitar

There's always alternate tunings...