The School of Feedback Guitar Blog

I am very fond of saying that there is a way to hack just about any concept on guitar and make it work. After all, it's one of the few instruments that allows millions of options of how to approach it. I feel the same way about chord progressions; Switching from one chord to the next in rhythm does not need to be very difficult. The following is a dirty little secret that that 98% of guitarists use to play chord progressions, whether they know it or not. I like to call it "The Ghost Chord."

Imagine for a moment playing the chord progression "D - C." Both D and C have no fingers in common with each other. All the fingers must jump up and go down all at the same time. This can be tough, but by using the ghost chord, a person can make the transition very smooth. In a nutshell, the guitarist uses their FINAL STRUM before the change to lift up their fingers and land on the new chord. It is on this strum that no fingers are on the strings. The guitarist is hitting no chord whatsoever. And still, it sounds smooth and good.

To some, this might sound pretty heretical. "What? You mean you don't play any chord whatsoever and still strum the strings? Nonsense! It probably sounds horrible!" No, I really mean it. There isn't enough time for the majority of us to switch our fingers so fast, like from one chord to the other. (I know of one guitarist in the entire world who can switch lightning fast, and his name is John Williams. He has my vote for being the best in the world, if that means anything.)

That final strum of a measure usually ends up on open strings. There are plenty of reasons why this works, but I'll go into this more on a later post. Until that time, listen hard to what happens before any chord change, and you'll hear it even though it's not totally present; It's the ghost chord.