OK, time to generalize your chord approach a bit.
Over my years of teaching I found a few methods of building guitar chords to be very suitable for a lot of contexts.
As soon as you are done with all your open string chords (which are quite a special thing and don't fit into the following categorization) you may want to get more sounds out of your axe.
You may also want to finally know how to finger that "Eb7/9/#11" chord that someone asked for, without looking into "1200" chords..." first.
I would like to share my most used three methods in this thread:
- The visual approach. Will be dealing with a few chord diagrams that will then be modified.
- The systematic/scientific approach. Will be dealing with all chords, all inversions, all positions, etc.
- The "guitar-ish" approach. Will be dealing with a method which is easy to organize on a standard tuned guitar.
Whenever I finish this, I may eventually compile all of it into some doc, so you could download it for future reference.
IMPORTANT NOTE: All these methods will only describe HOW to play a chord. They won't explain WHY and WHEN to play them. I will hopefully cover this in another general harmonic theory thread one day (allready translated some parts of my examins, but it's a hell lot of work).
OK, for now I'm gonna start with the "Visual Approach".
A few explaining words before I get into it:
- The chord diagrams presented below show three basic chord forms, represented by the thickened outlining. You may allready know those, they are some bread and butter barré chords.
- The names "E-Form", "A-Form" and "A7/9" form are made up because you will find the root note on the low E or A strings.
- The optional notes in brackets are the more unlikely ones.
- I STRONGLY recommend to only use the low E and A strings for orientation. You don't actually have to play them, usually that's what your bass player or sequenced bass is good for. So, only use the 4 top strings. To try them out, use an empty ringing low E or A string or have your sequencer play some bass note. I do sometimes play the low strings too, but usually that's only happening when doing some acoustic strumming or solo accompanying. I may often use my thumb to finger the low E string (I got pretty fat hands).
- I also recommend to only play the D, G and B string occasionally, leaving out the high E as well, so the chords will get a more sparse character.
- Below the pictures you will find some "Vocing Rules". Those are a) needed to make proper use of the diagrams, b) generalizations which will also be valid for any other chordal stuff you may want to do (keyboards, strings, etc).
- As far as the "A7/9-Form" goes, the voicing rules posted below are also "backwards compatible". So, if you don't need the 9th in that chord form, all you need to do is to apply rule 2) backwards (9 for 1 becomes 1 for 9). the A7/9-Form was only used because the fingering is pretty easy.
- Some rules won't be that easy to apply to the shown forms. A limitation of this method. That's why I may post my other methods as well.
OK, let's start, here's the three forms:
E-Form
A-Form
A7/9-Form
And here's the "Voicing Rules"
(please note: there's a LOT of exceptions, but these DO work!)
1) 7 (j7) for 1.
Only applies for those chord forms that don't allready have a 7th present. In case you're dealing with j7 chords, make sure not to play the root above the j7, as it will create an unwanted b2 or b9 tension (as said, there's exceptions, but not for now).
2) 9 (b/#9) for 1.
Make sure not to use the same 1 that you replaced by the 7th allready. In case you do so, the resulting chord would be some Xadd9 type rather than an X9 type (perhaps more about that later on).
3) 9 (2) for 3.
Usually only applies to major chords as the major third overtone is so strong it'd become unclear if you'd leave out the third on minor chords - again, there's exceptions, in context it might work for minor chords as well, but the general consensus usually says that minor chords need a minor third to be present.
Note: You will VERY often find a chord symbol like "add9omit3rd" for this - which isn't the most clever name for it. Sus2 or just 2 is making much more sense.
4) 11 for 5
Only applicable to minor chords, with major chords it'd clash with the 3rd (yes, especially for guitar players there's exceptions, but we're talking about some generalize-able stuff here).
5) 4 for 3
Applicable for major chords only, as said above, minor chords usually require the 3rd to be present. Resulting chord symbol of this replacement is Xsus4.
Exception for minor chords: The min7b5 chord. The b5 overtones will strongly keep the minor character, even when the 3- is replaced by the 4th.
6) #11 for 5.
Only applicable for major chords, a minor chord would become minb5 (or diminished), which is quite another thing.
7) 13 (b13) for 5.
Usually used for major chords, on minor chords it might result in a clash with the 7th. There's quite some exceptions for this one though (min7/13 in modal contexts, minj7/13, just to name those two).
8) 6 for 7
Often used to replace major7 chords in case the root has to be the melody note. Sometimes used for minor chords to give them a bit "loose" character, or as a tonic chord for certain jazz things.
9) 6 for 5
Used sometimes in case a 7th isn't allready present.
Some more or less important notes:
- The plain fifth could almost allways be left out, unless you're dealing with powerchords (which this post isn't all about) or in case it's needed as a melody note.
- Chord extensions (anything beyond the 3 or 4 part basic chord, generally 9, 11, 13) should be placed rather high in the voicing, to avoid an unclear sound.
- 9, 11 and 13 chords require a 7th to be present. That's some sort of international agreement which actually makes sense. In case the 7th isn't present they happen to be named like this:
9 becomes add9 (or add b/#9) or eventually 2 or sus2 (in case the 3rd is replaced by the 9th/2nd).
11 becomes add11 (or add#11), sometimes mistakenly notated as 4/add4.
13 sometimes becomes add13, but usually 6 is used (and making more sense as well, from a functional point of view).
- All these vocing rules do as well work with keyboard voicings, horn/string arrangements and the likes.
And ANOTHER note, even if I allready mentioned it quite often:
Those are generalized rules that will work in a LOT of situations, but A) They won't work in ALL situations (example: powerchord rock stuff) and B) There are a LOT of exceptions, just as for almost any rule there is.
They do however apply very well for learning/teaching and "bread and butter" situations, so before anybody starts to complain I'd recommend to check them out first.
Have fun with it.
If you got any questions, I'd gladly try to answer them.
I may eventually post some soundbits over the weekend as well.
And I hope to proceed with the other methods mentioned as well.
) I will check your tips. 
by Voggenreuter, which at least has some explanations that make life easier, but your approach is something I'll test this weekend. Very much appreciated.
