Guitar skills: Inspire your own playing and songwriting with these four chords from the Fab Four's songbook…
1. G7sus4
The most famous Beatles chord of all has to be the very first one heard at the beginning of A Hard Day’s Night, and most people approximate the dense ensemble sound heard there with this G7sus4 chord shape.
However that’s not quite it…
2. DM11/A
The original track actually features John’s open Dsus4 chord and George’s Fadd9 (with an added low G) washing over Paul’s D bass note – the G7sus4 misses out a crucial A note. This alternative works well, especially on a 12-string.
3. E7♭9
You might not expect many jazzy chords to crop up in the Fab Four’s back catalogue, but how about this jarring E7 b9 that’s used on I Want You (She’s So Heavy)? It works well as the V chord in a rather stretched blues in A.
4. F9
You don’t see this 9th shape used very often, but it works nicely with fingerpicking – listen to John’s playing on Julia to see what we mean. That song also gains from the surprising chord changes he uses (this F9 is followed by Fm9).
“A well-crafted sequence is successful wherever you may wish to use it”: Use these tried and tested chord progressions to build an engaging song
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